The first sawmill was built in 1818 on the Napanee River by Abel Scott at a site upstream of the present town.

At its height, the town contained four hotels and several stores, mills, a carriage factory, a cheese factory, carpenters, cabinet-makers, saddlers, tanners, shoemakers, tailors, bakers, tinsmiths and a fanning-mill maker.

While Samuel Clark's mills no longer exist, his house still stands, built in the rare stacked plank construction style.

Other historic buildings include:[5] James M. Lawrence founded Harrowsmith magazine in Camden East in 1976; it was sold to Telemedia in 1988 and relocated to Toronto in the early 1990s.

A tornado cut through the town in the mid afternoon of the 2nd of August 2020, damaging property, destroying dozens of trees, and ripping the roof off the former bank building that had been housing the daycare and post office.