Browse Exhibits (4 total)

This exhibit tells the story of Mali Agat an Abenaki woman of the Pigwacket subgroup whose lifetime (ca. 1744-1816) spans an important and particularly tumultuous period in this region's past. Born at Saco, Maine, Mali Agat—baptized "Marie Agathe" and more commonly known to white people in the region as Molly Ockett or Mollockett—is one of the best-known individuals from the local past in the mind of the average resident of western Maine. As an itinerant healer and herbalist for both natives and newcomers, Mali established close relations with the early settlers in such communities as Andover, Fryeburg, Poland, Paris, and Bethel during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  Such ties enabled her to gain an intimate view of white society as it spread throughout the vast wooded domain long occupied by her ancestors.

One of the largest rivers in New England and the third largest in Maine, the Androscoggin drains an area of over 3,400 square miles in Maine and New Hampshire.  The 170-mile waterway begins its journey near Errol, New Hampshire, where the outlet to the Rangeley Lakes and the Magalloway River join, and—punctuated with numerous rapids and impressive waterfalls (including that at Rumford, shown at left)—eventually mingles with the waters of the Kennebec River in Merrymeeting Bay below Brunswick, Maine, before flowing into the Atlantic.