On May 25, 1778, during the American Revolutionary War, the Battle of Freetown was fought when about 150 English soldiers, under the command of Major Ayers, sailed up Mount Hope Bay in the night and landed near the mouth of the Quequechan River.
Later in 1788 during the Revolutionary War, the area was visited by the Marquis de Lafayette, the famed French war hero who was a guest of Joseph Durfee's father Thomas Durfee.