Burnham Tavern Museum

Historic Burnham Tavern

Just off Route 1 in Machias sits the Burnham Tavern, built in 1770. Inside its yellow clapboard walls, a group of townspeople hatched a plan in June 1775 to rebuff the British and save their community from food shortages.

Less than two months after the conflict erupted in Lexington and Concord, the war reached Machias by sea. Three British ships, two sloops and the lightly armed Margaretta, carried provisions the townspeople of Machias badly needed. The merchants aboard the ships offered a trade: provisions for lumber. With the armed Margaretta anchored close enough to fire into the town, a group of townspeople met in the tap room of Burnham Tavern and devised a plan for capturing the British ships. With pitchforks, scythes, and a few muskets, townspeople and local militia members carried out their plan (see the First Naval Battle of the American Revolution). Emboldened by their success, they then refitted and used the captured vessels to intercept and capture additional British supply ships. It was also used as a hospital for the wounded of both sides following the battle in 1775.

Burnham Tavern is one of the few surviving Revolutionary-era buildings in eastern Maine