The Mi'kmaq were the first to settle near the river, and used it as part of a portage route between Shubenacadie and the village of Petitcodiac, where they had a winter camp. Acadians from Port Royal, Nova Scotia colonised the region in 1698, but were expelled in 1755 during the Seven Years' War. Acadian resistance fighters in Village-des-Blanchard (now Hillsborough) fought under the command of French leader Charles Deschamps de Boishébert in the Battle of Petitcodiac to fend off British troops and suffered the destruction of most of their settlement. The British troops revisited the river three years later and conducted the Petitcodiac River Campaign. In the 1840s, the Greater Moncton area saw a shipbuilding boom, but this was halted following the arrival of the steam train, and forced the town to unincorporate. These changes eventually marginalised the Petitcodiac River.