Boothbay Harbor. Boothbay Harbor is a town in Lincoln County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,027 at the 2020 census. During summer months, the entire Boothbay Harbor region is a popular yachting and tourist destination. The ZIP Code is 04538, and the community is served by the 633 telephone exchange in area code 207. The area was part of Cape Newagen, where the English established an early seasonal fishing camp. In 1666, Henry Curtis purchased the land from the sachem Mowhotiwormet, commonly known as Chief Robinhood, who lived at what is today Woolwich. But the settlement was attacked and burned during King Philip's War, resettled shortly afterwards, then destroyed again in 1689 during King William's War. It was abandoned for 40 years. In 1730, Colonel David Dunbar, the superintendent and governor of the Territory of Sagadahock, laid out a new town, named Townsend after Viscount Townshend. Despite predations during the French and Indian Wars, and robberies during the Revolutionary War by marauding British sailors, the settlement was successful, not least because of its large, deep and protected harbor. During the Penobscot Expedition, in 1779 Townsend became a rendezvous point for the American naval fleet prior to its disastrous encounter with the British at Castine. Renamed Boothbay in 1842, the harbor continued to develop as a fishing center. In bad weather, it could hold at a time between 400 and 500 vessels, often Friendship Sloops, seeking shelter. By 1881, it had a fishery and fish oil company, an ice company, two marine railways, a fertilizer manufacturer, and a factory for canning lobsters. On February 16, 1889, the community was set off from Boothbay and incorporated as the town of Boothbay Harbor. Frank L. Sample shipyard at Boothbay Harbor built minesweepers for the United States Navy during World War II and into the 1950s. Some location filming for the 1956 movie version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, notably the June Is Bustin' Out All Over sequence, was done there. Each summer, Boothbay Harbor draws crowds of tourists. Attractions include the state aquarium, art galleries, restaurants, boat tours to coastal islands and whale watching. The town is in southern Lincoln County, at the south end of a peninsula in the Gulf of Maine, part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered to the west by the tidal Sheepscot River and to the east by Linekin Bay. The town center sits at the north end of Boothbay Harbor, which joins Linekin Bay to the south, past Spruce Point. Townsend Gut, to the southwest, separates the town of Boothbay Harbor from Southport Island. The town is bordered to the north and east by the town of Boothbay, to the south by the town of Southport, and to the west, across the Sheepscot River, by the towns of Westport and Georgetown. The island community of Isle of Springs is in the western part of the town, and West Boothbay Harbor is in the west-central part of the town. Bayville is next to the eastern border of the town, close to East Boothbay. The town is crossed by state routes 27 and 96. Route 27 leads south into Southport and north 13 miles to Wiscasset. Route 96 leads east 2 miles to the village of East Boothbay and 5 miles to its end at Ocean Point. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town of Boothbay Harbor has a total area of 9.22 square miles, of which 5.70 square miles are land and 3.52 square miles, or 38.17%, are water.