By Will Tuell

Four generations of Downeast women credited with keeping the Machias area’s rich Revolutionary War-era history alive are being immortalized on a coin designed by artist Tom Brennan, which the Downeast Revolutionary War Reenactors are selling as part of an annual fundraiser to help preserve local history. The women include Rose Hall, Michelle Stanhope, Heather Vose, and a woman widely regarded as the “Matriarch of Machias History,” former reporter and lifelong historian Valdine Atwood, now in her early 90s.