Roughly translated from Passamaquoddy as "
bad little falls" or "
bad run of water", the name
Machias refers to the falls in the Machias River within the town. Given that the falls, today named
Bad Little Falls, are the city's namesake, that is where I've placed the coordinates for the town.
Referred to by the American Guide Series Book,
Maine: A Guide 'Down East' and others as the site of the
First Naval Battle of the American Revolution, it was neither. Though still referred to as the
Battle of Machias, that marine battle took place off Machiasport, some five miles south of Machias. Neither was it the "First" Naval Battle of the American Revolution, the first taking place on May 14, 1775 at Fairhaven, Massachusetts, The
Battle of Fairhaven, in which the Dartmouth whaling sloop
Success captured a pair of vessels previously captured by the British. The
Battle of Machias, fought between citizens of Machiasport and a British warship, the
Margaretta, took place on June 11-12, 1775 with the British sloop tender
Margaretta being captured by the townspeople at the cost of one man killed and six wounded, one of which later died of his wounds.
At the time that the English first became aware of the area, around 1633, the French and English were bitterly contesting the ownership of much of North America. As a result the Machias area changed hands more than once before becoming British territory in 1711. Though visited several times earlier, the Machias area was not settled until 1763, with the arrival of 80 settlers, mostly from Scarborough, ME. During the American Revolution there was also at least one raid on Machias perpetrated by British patriots from New Brunswick.
Long the county seat of Washington County, Machias was incorporated as a town on June 23, 1784. The
Washington County Courthouse, a National Historic Place, thus predates the town, having been built in 1853. The oldest church in Machias, the
Centre Street Congregational Church, another National Historic Place, predates even the courthouse, being built in 1836. The oldest building in the town is likely the
Burnham Tavern Museum, still another National Historic Place, built in 1770. South of the town, at Machiasport, is the
Fort O'Brien State Historic Site.
In its early days Machias had a broad industrial base, with saw-mills, a sash, blind and door factory, ship-yards, an iron foundry and machine-shop, grain mills, a carding-mill, canned-food factories, carriage-factories, sail-loft, printing establishments, a tow-boat company and a silver mining company. Today the town is home to the
University of Maine at Machias, opened as a normal school in January 1911. It officially became UMM in 1970, a liberal arts college with approximately 800 students enrolled.
The American Guide Series book
Maine: A Guide 'Down East' gave Machias quite a lengthy entry. The beginning of that entry follows.
MACHIAS (Ind.: 'bad little falls') (alt. 80, Machias Town, pop. 1853), 65.1 m., seat of Washington County, lies along the Machias River; the town formerly included what is now the town of Machiasport (see below). The gristmill in the center of the bridge across the river looks down on the narrow gorge through which the waters tumble and roar ceaselessly. From the bridge are seen the buildings of the Washington State Normal School on a high hill overlooking the town.
After the destruction of the Plymouth Colony trading post at Pentagoet by the French, the English in 1633 here established another post under command of Richard Vines, in a spot much closer to the French headquarters; La Tour, French Governor of Acadia, wiped it out almost at once. In 1675 Rhodes, the pirate, used the site as a base for repairs and supplies; a few decades later another pirate, Samuel Bellamy, came here for the same purpose, and, liking the place and deciding that it offered him security, determined to establish a permanent stronghold. Piracy was rampant along the Atlantic seaboard at this time, partly because of English and Spanish trade restrictions, designed to force colonists to buy from the mother country alone; this created a good market for stolen 235 goods in the Colonies.
Privateering provided good training for piracy, as Cotton Mather warned in 1704 in one of his 'hanging sermons,' and many men who started out to prey on shipping for their governments soon decided to keep the booty for themselves. Bellamy, from all reports, developed a Robin Hood philosophy on the matter; when he had captured a ship he would harangue its crew, invite them to join him, arguing that the men had as much right to rob as had the shipowners, who were merely powerful bandits who had had laws made to protect their operations.
When Bellamy determined to settle on the site of the present Machias, he erected breastworks and a crude fort before leaving for another expedition with three objectives: recruits, loot, and women. He had left the mouth of the river and was plundering along the Nova Scotian banks when, by mistake, he attacked a French naval vessel. His vessel, the 'Whidaw,' was almost captured before he managed to escape. Sailing south, he had further bad luck; he captured a New Bedford whaler, whose captain pretended to join him and agreed to act as a navigator through the dangerous reefs and shoals. The whaling captain did his part for a time and then deliberately ran his ship aground on a sand bar near Eastham, Mass. The pirate ship, following the lead of the whaler, went on the rocks, and Bellamy and most of his crew drowned... Continued
From Maine: A Guide 'Down East', Page 234