Bath is a city in Sagadahoc County, Maine, in the United States. The population was 8,766 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Sagadahoc County, which includes one city and 10 towns. The city is popular once tourists, many drawn by its 19th-century architecture. It is home to the Bath Iron Works and Heritage Days Festival, held annually upon the Fourth of July weekend. It is commonly known as “The City of Ships” because of all the sailing ships that were built in the Bath shipyards. Bath is allocation of the metropolitan statistical area of Greater Portland.

Abenaki Indians called the area Sagadahoc, meaning “mouth of big river”. It was a mention to the Kennebec River, which Samuel de Champlain explored in 1605. Popham Colony was standard in 1607 downstream, together with Fort St George. The settlement bungled due to rough weather and dearth of leadership, but the colonists built the New World’s first oceangoing vessel build up by English shipwrights, the Virginia of Sagadahoc. It provided passage encourage to England. Most of Bath, Maine, was contracted by travelers from Bath, England.

The next harmony at Sagadahoc was nearly 1660, when the house was taken from an Indian sagamore known as Robinhood. Incorporated as part of Georgetown in 1753, Bath was set off and incorporated as a town on February 17, 1781. It was named by the postmaster, Dummer Sewall, after Bath in Somerset, England. In 1844, a share of the town was set off to Make West Bath. On June 14, 1847, Bath was incorporated as a city, and in 1854 designated county seat. Land was annexed from West Bath in 1855.

Several industries developed in Bath, including lumber, iron, and brass, with trade in ice and coal. The city and surrounding area is Famous for its shipbuilding and, at one point, was home to over 200 shipbuilding firms. The industry began in 1743, when Jonathan Philbrook and his sons built two vessels. Since that time, roughly 5,000 vessels have been launched from Bath, which became the nation’s fifth largest seaport by the mid-19th century. The clipper ships built in Bath sailed to ports re the world. The last flyer enterprise to build wooden ships in the city was the Percy & Small Shipyard, which was acquired for preservation in 1971 by the Maine Maritime Museum. The most well-known shipyard is the Bath Iron Works, which was founded in 1884 by Thomas W. Hyde. Hyde became the firm’s general official in 1888. It has built hundreds of wooden and steel vessels, mostly warships for the U.S. Navy. During World War II, Bath Iron Works launched one new boat approximately all 17 days. The shipyard today is a major regional employer, and currently operates as a estrangement of the General Dynamics Corporation.