The area that was to become Linneus was granted to Harvard College in 1804 by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to endow a botany professorship, and was named for Carolus Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist and founder of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, who established a basic method for classifying plants that is still in use today.
The first settler, Daniel Neal, arrived in 1826, and was followed a few years later by others who were encouraged to settle the area when a military post was established in nearby Houlton. Linneus was incorporated on March 19, 1836.