Enjoying Dunkin’s coffee with Hannibal Hamlin

Imagine meeting Vice President Hannibal Hamlin for hot coffee and a doughnut, maybe a Boston cream doughnut (popular in New England). Imagine settling into comfortable chairs at a local coffee shop and chatting with Hannibal Hamlin about his vice presidency and his opinion of Abraham Lincoln.

Vice President Hannibal Hamlin might not mind the particular business now occupying the site where his house stood in Hampden, Maine. (Library of Congress)

Where we live in Hampden, Maine, the idea isn’t that far-fetched. We would meet Vice President Hamlin at the Dunkin’ at 76 Main Road North, a half mile from home.

There’s a particular reason why.

Hamlin and his new bride, Sarah Emery Hamlin (both hailed from Paris Hill in Oxford County) moved to Hampden in 1834, after Hannibal briefly practiced law in Lincoln, some 50 miles up the Penobscot River. Another Hampden lawyer, Charles Stetson, had recently moved to Bangor, and “Hamlin was the first lawyer to appear on the scene as Stetson’s successor, and quickly ascertained that Hampden offered him an excellent field,” reported his grandson, Charles Eugene Hamlin.

A shipbuilding and farming centre when Hamlin settled there,” Hampden gave him “plenty of business” from the get-go. He hung his shingle on “a little box-like office on the principal street [modern Main Road North] and went to work,” Charles noted.

The Hamlins had five children. Born September 30, 1835, George Emery died at age 8. Charles was born in mid-September 1837 and Cyrus in late April 1839. Sarah Jane Emery was born in January 1842. Also named George Emery, the fifth child lasted from late February 1848 to early September 1849.

The Hamlins had a farm, as visiting politicians noted. I assumed the farm and thus the Hamlin home lay on a side road.

Hamlin’s grandson and biographer, Charles Eugene Hamlin, later described Hampden as “a thriving country town of several thousand inhabitants,” actually 2,663 residents in 1840 and 3,195 residents in 1850. Around 7,700 people lived here in 2020.

Hampden’s heart is the traffic light-controlled Main Road North-Western Avenue intersection, only 0.5 miles from our home. Businesses stand on three corners; the town will tear down the dilapidated house occupying the fourth corner. The business district extends a half mile west along Western Avenue to another traffic light and about a half mile south on Main Road North to Academy Hill.

Opened several years ago, Dunkin’ stands one property removed from the MRN-Western Avenue intersection. We’ve driven past Dunkin’ countless times and cannot remember what occupied the site previously.

A plaque affixed to a boulder outside the relatively new Dunkin’ in Hampden, Maine identifies the property as the “Hamlin Home.” (Brian F. Swartz Photo)

Then I recently walked to Walgreen’s on Western Avenue. While strolling past Dunkin’, I suddenly noticed a small boulder set among the landscape shrubs near the sidewalk. One thousand-plus times I’d passed this site, and I’d never noticed the boulder nor the plaque it bears.

Home Site of Hannibal Hamlin U.S. Vice President 1861 – 1865,” the raised letters spell. The plaque was provided by Whitcomb-Baker VFW Post 4633, located in Hampden.

Hannibal Hamlin’s home site? Really? All these years I’ve lived a half mile from where Hannibal and Sarah Hamlin had raised their children?

So Dunkin’ occupies the Hamlin homestead! What better place to meet Hannibal for coffee and a doughnut (maybe an apple fritter) than the land so familiar to him from the 1830s to when he moved to Bangor after becoming the vice president?

Ironically only private interests preserve Hamlin’s memory in Hampden, which does not have a street or public building named for the vice president. Developed by local businessman Bion Foster, nearby Hannibal Hamlin Plaza occupies the site of Hamlin’s law office. Foster donated that building to the Hampden Historical Society, which displays the law office next to the HHS-owned Kinsley House at 83 Main Road South.

According to the HHS, the Hamlins constructed a large, two-story brick home where Dunkin’ now stands. The house was torn down in 1959, and “a gas station/garage” then went up on the site. We do not remember the gas station,

On this wild spring day when wind-driven rain again pounds eastern Maine, I should call or text ol’ Hannibal and invite him to meet me at Dunkin’ at 76 Main Road North. Maybe he’ll share memories of his house, Sarah (tuberculosis killed her in the mid-1850s), and raising his children.

I will certainly ask him about Abraham Lincoln.

Sources: Charles Eugene Hamlin, The life and times of Hannibal Hamlin, Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1899, p. 44; U.S. Census for Hampden, Maine, 1840, 1850, 2020


“Swartz delves into the personal stories of sacrifice and loss…” — Civil War News

If you enjoy reading the adventures of Mainers caught up in the Civil War, be sure to like Maine at War on Facebook and get a copy of the new Maine at War Volume 1: Bladensburg to Sharpsburg, available online at Amazon and all major book retailers, including Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble. —————————————————————————————————————–

Available now: Passing Through the Fire: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the Civil War, released by Savas Beatie.

This new book chronicles the swift transition of Joshua L. Chamberlain from college professor and family man to regimental and brigade commander and follows him into combat at Shepherdstown, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and the Petersburg and Appomattox campaigns.

Drawing on Chamberlain’s extensive memoirs and writings and multiple period sources, historian Brian F. Swartz follows Chamberlain across Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia while examining the determined warrior who let nothing prevent him from helping save the United States.

Order your autographed copy by contacting me at visionsofmaine@tds.net

Passing Through the Fire is also available at savasbeatie.com or Amazon.

—————————————————————————————————————–

Brian Swartz can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net. He enjoys hearing from Civil War buffs interested in Maine’s involvement in the war.


Brian Swartz

About Brian Swartz

Welcome to "Maine at War," the blog about the roles played by Maine and her sons and daughters in the Civil War. I am a Civil War buff and a newspaper editor recently retired from the Bangor Daily News. Maine sent hero upon hero — soldiers, nurses, sailors, chaplains, physicians — south to preserve their country in the 1860s. “Maine at War” introduces these heroes and heroines, who, for the most part, upheld the state's honor during that terrible conflict. We tour the battlefields where they fought, and we learn about the Civil War by focusing on Maine’s involvement with it. Be prepared: As I discover to this very day, the facts taught in American classrooms don’t always jibe with Civil War reality. I can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net.