There is some thought that the area was once the site of an Indian encampment before the coming of Europeans. They came for the abundance of green ash, which they used to make their baskets. Certainly Acadians were established in this locale before the Expulsion of 1755. Planters arrived from the New England States (mainly Connecticut) between 1759 and 1761, and were granted lands here - lands which had been worked by Acadian families for almost a hundred years. Saxon Street, one of the roads leading into Centreville, was formerly known as 'The Old French Road', and was part of an Acadian road which passed along the length of the Annapolis Valley.

The first church in Centreville was a Catholic Church, built sometime before 1858. A Baptist Church was built in 1918, and served the community until a new one was constructed in 1996

A railway through the village began operating in 1890. It was not long before a passenger train was making thirteen return trips each week between Kentville and Kingsport. Among other things, it transported children to school in Kentville, serving as a school bus of the time. Another line, known as the North Mountain Railway, was started from Centreville to Weston in 1912, and completed in 1914.

Over the years, until the apple industry became a causality of World War Il hundreds of thousands of barrels of apples were shipped through Centreville via the Weston Branch and the Kentville to Kingsport line on their way to Halifax, and thence overseas. The railway was abandoned in December, 1961.

During the first half of the 1900's, Centreville boasted four apple warehouses. There apples were graded and packed in barrels for shipment. After the war, the warehouses were converted to other uses, including the grading and bagging of potatoes, a potato chip factory and a car dealership.

During the past hundred or more years, Centreville has been home to a considerable number of businesses, such as stores, garages, sawmills, a tavern, cooper shops, an antique business, nurseries, a very popular skating rink, and even, at one time, a brick factory.

For many years, Centreville was essential to the surrounding district as a commercial centre, and besides the blacksmith shops where horses were brought from many outlying areas to be shod, Centreville contained a large general store, which sold clothing, food, dry goods, feed, hardware and groceries - a kind of Walmart of its day.

Family farms were established with the coming of the Planters in the 1760's. Between World Wars I and ll, apple growing was very manifest, and orchards were on every farm. Potatoes were also a huge crop. There were over thirty family farms in the Centreville district during the I800's and the 1900's, with most of them still operating even as late as 1970.