[4][5] The English first became acquainted with the area in 1633, when Richard Vines established a trading post for the Plymouth Company at what is now Machiasport.

Charles de la Tour, the French commander of Acadia, made a descent upon it from his seat at Port Royal, killing two of its six defenders, and carrying the others away with their merchandise.

[7] No persistent attempt was again made to hold this point by the English or French for upwards of 120 years.

In 1762, on account of the scarcity of hay arising from the drought, Isaiah Foster, Isaac Larahee, and others from Scarborough visited the place in search of grass, finding a great quantity of it in the marshes.

[4][5] In his History of the Navy of the United States of America James Fenimore Cooper dubbed this engagement "the Lexington of the Seas".

[8] This battle, which occurred in June 1775 at Machiasport after townspeople refused to provide the British with lumber for barracks, led to the capture of the armed schooner HMS Margaretta by settlers under Captain Jeremiah O'Brien[9] and Capt.

Ichabod Jones, of Boston, obtained leave to send a small vessel with provisions to Machias on condition of returning with a cargo of wood and lumber.

Accordingly, his sloop, convoyed by the armed English schooner Margaretta, commanded by Lieutenant Moore, arrived here on the May 9, bringing the first intelligence of the bloody conflicts at Lexington and Concord.

It was not many days before the inhabitants made known their sentiments by the erection of a liberty pole at a prominent point in the settlement.

Lieutenant Moore, learning the significance of the pole, ordered it to be removed, under a threat of firing on the town.

The final meeting was to be held on Monday, and on the previous Sunday, a plot was laid to capture Lieutenant Moore at the meeting-house as the service closed: but seeing through the window some armed men crossing the river above, he took the alarm, sprang through the open window, and escaped to his vessel.

An armed company of the settlers followed down to the shore, when the Margaretta, after firing a few shots over the settlement, slipped down the river.

A plan of capturing the Margaretta was made known, the timid were allowed to go ashore, while the bolder spirits, only a few armed with muskets, others with pitchforks and axes, sailed down the river to attack the British schooner.

The only cannon possessed by the patriots was a wall piece, which they balanced on the rail, and fired with destructive effect.

Machias soon became aggressive, and an expedition was filled out to aid the patriots in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Thinking it necessary to crush this rebellious town, the governor of Nova Scotia, in 1777, sent Sir George Collier with four vessels and eighty marines to accomplish this purpose.

They arrived in the bay early in August, and after burning a tide-mill, two dwellings, two barns and a guard house, and committing other depredations below, one of the brigs was towed by barges to the mouth of the Middle River, within half a mile of Machias Falls.

Every man in the place able to bear arms was now upon the shore, Major Stiliman being in charge; while on the other side of the river were forty or fifty Passamaquoddy Indians sent by Colonel John Allan, and led by Joseph Neeala, their chief.

The Indians raised their peculiar yell, which the white people imitated, until the woods rang with them; and the British were glad to reach the bay again.

A notable incident in this contest was the journey of Hannah Weston, with another young woman from the Pleasant River settlement, 20 miles (32 km) west, to bring powder for the patriots.

Centre Street Congregational Church and Libby Hall are fine wooden buildings.

The streets are adorned with shade trees, and the town bears many marks of age and culture.

The current weekly newspaper is the Machias Valley News Observer, published every Wednesday.

James Lyon, the first pastor, was a graduate of Princeton College, and came to Machias in 1771; continuing in this service in the east and west villages until his death in 1795.

The 2004 PBS show, Colonial House, was filmed in the Machiasport area, with scenes in Machias.

Within the town were eight saw-mills manufacturing long and short lumber, a sash, blind and door factory, one or more ship-yards, an iron foundry and machine-shop, two grainmills, a carding-mill, canned-food factories, carriage-factories, sail-loft, two printing establishments, a tow-boat company, silver mining company, etc.

The Machias Savings Bank held, at the beginning of the fiscal year of 1880, in deposits and profits, the sum of $339,708.36.

[12] Today, Machias is the largest town by population in the southern half of Washington County, and is the commercial center for a large geographic area spanning the easternmost section of Maine's coastline from Bar Harbor to Lubec.

The rocks along the river are trap but there is an extensive granite quarry within three miles (4.8 km) of the falls.

It is bordered by the towns of Machiasport to the east, Roque Bluffs to the south, Whitneyville to the west, and Marshfield to the north.