Hannibal Hamlin

The most famous story connected with Molly Ockett's healing powers has to do with her cure of the infant Hannibal Hamlin, who was born at Paris Hill, Maine, on August 27, 1809, and who later became Lincoln's first vice-president. During the winter of 1809-10, Molly Ockett was traveling through the town of Paris, some twenty miles south of Bethel, when, in foul weather, she sought shelter with the white residents at Snow's Falls. According to oral tradition, she was turned away, whereupon she uttered a curse on the place, said to be responsible for the lack of success of subsequent business enterprises in that neighborhood. Molly Ockett struggled along to the village of Paris Hill, where she was welcomed into the home of Dr. Cyrus Hamlin and his wife, Anna Livermore Hamlin. Returning later that spring, she found Mrs. Hamlin "sitting in her doorway one day, rocking her feeble infant." Molly Ockett "looked at the child very intently . . . and then said with great earnestness, 'You give papoose milk warm from cow, or he die.'" The infant, Hannibal Hamlin, "thrived with great rapidity" in response to this treatment, and Molly Ockett was thus able to repay the Hamlins for their earlier kindness.