The Daily Maine Fact

Name That Place Dept.: Incorporated on this date in 1806, Orono is named for Joseph Orono, the "blue-eyed chief" - actually one-quarter Indian - who was a local hero of the Revolution.

The town was known earlier as Stillwater, and the story goes that the local schoolmaster advocated "Stillwater" as an aesthetic improvement over the original name: "Deadwater."

(Source: Maine Place Names and the Peopling of its Towns, by Ava Harriet Chadbourne. Portland: The Bond Wheelwright Company, 1955)