pg 182 Maines Most Scenic Roads, by John Gibson, Down East Enterprise, Inc. 1998

"From 1764 on Major Joseph Wallace was the preeminant Revolutionary period shipbuilder here amongst a gathering of shipbuilding families, including Leightons, Sawyers, Gays, Dyers and Hinckleys. French ships attacked a harbor full of Wallace-built ships at anchor in 1807, and destroyed this small fleet and the Wallace shipyards. The family soon rebuilt and Wallace ships were a factor against the British in the War of 1812"

Mr. (Everett) Wallace's ancestor, Joseph Wallace, was Milbridge's first settler. Her was born in Gloucester, Mass., in 1733 and when a young man migrated to Cape Elizabeth, where he married Lucy Thorndike. He owned a coasting vessel and traded up and down the coast of Maine, bartering for fish and furs. He was employed to carry the first 16 settlers to Machias, arriving there in 1763. Early Shipbuilder: When Joseph Wallace settled in Milbridge,he opened a general store and started a shipyard and some of his vessels sailed to the West Indies with lumber and returned with cargoes of rum and molasses. He was unquestionably one of the earliest builders of ships on the Maine coast. According to the old records in the store he built the schooner Hopewell in 1766, and later launched a full rigged ship of 240 tons. There is a record of the schooner Friendship sent to the West Indies in 1788, and that Joseph Wallace owned and operated many sawmills is shown by his ledgers. He filt the first sawmill at Cherryfield, and there are records of wages paid to men employed on the "Mill Good Intent" , "Upper Mill", and "Lower Mill". Joseph Wallace, Jr., was born in 1763 just after his father settled in Milbridge, followed in his father's footsteps as a merhcant, trader and shipbuilder, and was a trustee of the historic Washington Academy at East Machias. Resourceful and sturdy early settlers these Wallaces but no more sturdy and thrifty than their descendant Everett Wallace who runs capably the business founded by his great, great grandfather 173 years ago.

http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/26289802/person/1883067443/mediax/2?...