It was in Trepassey Harbour where the flight of the Friendship took off, with Amelia Earhart on board, the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Early English settlement attempts failed, and it was not until the latter part of the 17th century that the French settled the area.

In 1702, during The War of The Spanish Succession, Commodore John Leake of the Royal Navy entered the harbour as part of a large naval expedition aimed at raiding numerous French settlements.

Until the Treaty of Utretch was signed, Trepassey was the sole settlement where English and French borders in Newfoundland met.

In the decades following the Second World War, the fishing industry boomed in Trepassey, and the town became increasingly affluent.