Molly Ockett

• Master's Project for Brandan Roberts at the University of Maine.
• Spring 2020

The Abanaki medicine woman, Mary Agatha - more commonly known as Molly Ockett - is a real figure from Maine's history. Born around 1740, Molly lived in the region during the state's early development, as such most local knowledge regarding her stem from folklore rather than historical fact. Utilizing research from primary and secondary sources alongside interviews with local historians, and conversations with anonymous residents of Western Maine, and the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Nations, this StoryMap represents an ethnographic analysis of the stories revolving around Molly Ockett. The aim of the project is to evaluate the various folktales and the public perception of Molly, and does not endorse any legend presented to be historical fact.

Should you have any questions, concerns, or additional information, you may contact the author at brandon.roberts1@maine.edu

Simply put, folklore is the traditional art, music, stories, knowledge, and literature of a group of people passed down through generations. These usually-oral traditions help bind the individuals of a group together, creating a sense of identity while establishing common beliefs and specialized knowledge across the population.[1] Folklore has a social, economic, and political impact beyond what one may think simple stories are capable of. Because these stories help a group define who they are, folklore unconsciously holds sway over what people believe is acceptable or unacceptable, which in turn helps create and enforce the local taboos, mores, and ultimately, laws. They separate the "Us" from the "Other," creating a common structure on how specific "Others" are to be handled,[2] which in turn become reinforced through medias such as literature, television, movies, drama, historical reenactment and, of course, other folkloric stories.[3]

Folklore grows from stories that members of a population share with one another, jokes, and knowledge which is relevant for the people; because of this, folklore is remarkably diverse. For people to be “folk” they simply must have a single common factor.[4] For the purpose of this project, the folk in question is the white population of western Maine and eastern New Hampshire – the links that bind them are not only the region in which they live and work but also the stories and legends regarding the Abenaki medicine woman Molly Ockett which many know and can recite to some degree. As it is put in the Bethel Journals regarding the town’s history:

Few can visit Bethel for more than a week and not hear about Molly Ockett. [5]

Molly Ockett has come to be a folk figure in Western Maine and Eastern New Hampshire because of her unique position with the early communities. Not only was she an independent woman in a time where such a thing was nearly sacrilegious, but she became so critical a component to the new towns because of her medicinal skills that she was welcomed into their homes. Due to her upbringing, she could speak English, French, and Algonquin fluently and was known to be a great storyteller. According to a history about her written in the late 1920s by the local historian Arthur D. Woodrow, “It is claimed that she was a great talker, quite a hand to tell stories and anecdotes. In that respect, she does not portray the characteristics of the Indian.”[6] Her familiarity with the settlers despite being Indian, Catholic, and a woman has led to many legends and antidotes to blossom in the region, and caused her name to be found across the region. Few today know the real Molly Ockett; true facts are derived from scarce recollections of first-hand interactions written in personal journals and autobiographies, as well as several legal and business documents that have survived the years. Despite this, many claim to know who she is and her name has become popular. Now, Molly Ockett's folkloric persona has become more known than the historical figure itself, and that persona shapes the view of how people currently view her and even how they see Native Americans as a whole.

What's more, there are also several landscape features bearing her name either officially or unofficially. This is notable because naming locations after people is a Euro-American tradition. Most Native American tribes, including the Abenaki, named landscape features based on their properties or role within their culture, meaning that these Mollyockett locations were put there by white settlers, not by her own people:

It’s no surprise that this woman has gained so much popularity in the region; numerous tales and legends are associated with her because of how crucial she was for many of western Maine’s fledgling communities in the late 1700s and early 1800s. From her birth to her death, Molly Ockett’s life has become embellished in legend, some likely rooted in fact while others completely fictional. Many of the tales defining her do more than represent this historical woman, but they create an entirely new persona based on truth but exaggerated by White ideals, fears, and desire for entertainment.  

Often attached to Molly Ockett’s name is the title of “princess,” as she was believed to be (and reportedly claimed to be) the daughter of Paugus. As an early 1970s news article said: 

Pretty Molly Ockett was an Indian Princess, daughter of Paugus, who was sachem of the Pequaket in the Fryeburg-Lovell area … Her grandfather was also chief of the Pequawkets, a branch of the Sokokis tribe and part of the Great Abanaki nation. Paugus, her father was killed 1725, when Capt. Lovewell, with Roger’s Rangers, determined to rid the locality of hostile Indians and to put an end to all of the fighting once and for all.[7]

This apparent heritage of Molly perhaps came from Hannibal Hamlin’s biography, written in 1899. In it, she was introduced as, “The Princess Mollyockett, daughter of Paugus, the chief of the Pequakets,”[8] and the label still holds today - she is even referred to as a princess in the Molly Ockett School’s Parent/Student Handbook.[9] Most legends place her birth in the early 1700s (some as far back as 1685), but evidence suggests she was born around the year 1740 – fifteen years after her “father” was killed in battle.[10] According to Doctor True, an early resident of Bethel who had tasked himself with recording the region’s history, Molly Ockett would often boast of her ‘nobility,’ which, alongside the stories she told of past events, such as the Battle of Lovell Pond, he put her to be around 140 when she died.[11] One factor that Doctor True did not account for, however, was the characteristic of Abenaki storytellers to narrate their oral history and legends in the first-person, which would easily account for the age discrepancies.[12] The article which included this information was first published in 1863, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude that Charles Hamlin utilized these notes when writing his grandfather’s biography and made the “link” between Molly and Paugus himself. Unfortunately, at this point, the question of who Molly’s parents were will probably never be known, but it can be said for certain that it wasn’t Chief Paugus.

Needless to say, Molly Ockett was not a princess. The term princess was often given to daughters of tribal chiefs (or, in the case of the Abenaki, the sachem), but no such label existed within Native cultures, just as there were no tribal kings or queens and the position of sachem was not hereditary, permanent, or even singular. The use of royal titles was initially given to a people that European explorers and colonists didn’t fully understand. As the importance of the Americas grew for Europe, and then the United States, literature and folklore began to develop in which Indian women came to represent North America and be seen as a mother figure. What’s more, in their role as princesses, Native American women became seen as even more exotic, powerful, dangerous, and beautiful – an image of sexual desire and lust.[13] By calling “Pretty Molly Ockett” a princess, the legends elevate her to be regarded as greater and more desirable than her contemporaries: both amongst her tribe and the White community. They add another layer of mystique to her life and persona while further defining her as being separate from both the Native Americans and Colonists - a position worthy of a folk-hero.

After growing up, Molly continued to follow the migratory traditions of her people and, like her ancestors, the town of Fryeburg became a central hub for the medicine-woman during her life.

Historically, the Pequawket band of Indians routinely trekked the Saco River in their travels between the Atlantic Ocean and St. Lawrence River in Canada. The location of one of their largest villages existed where the town of Fryeburg is today. The original Native American village – Pequawket – is what the European colonists used to name Molly’s band of Abenakis for their own records.[19] After Fryeburg was settled, Molly continued to make stops in the village and several folk-tales are based on these visits; while there, she was said to routinely stay in the small cave at the base of the granite outcropping known as Jockey Cap, giving the cave its name - Molly Locket's Cave - which now acts as a jump-off point for not only the locals telling stories of Molly Ockett to curious tourists, but to also begin the curriculum on Native Americans for the Molly Ockett Elementary School located a short walk away.[20]  

Molly wasn't only known in Conway, NH, but her presence was felt across much of the Maine-New Hampshire border and various locations bear her name because of that. Amongst these are the "Mollywooket" Brook in Errol, NH.

The Mollidgewock is a small brook which flows from the much larger Bear Brook near the Mollidgewock Campground. It meanders through the Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge, and is a critical component to an ecosystem important to local waterfowl, birds, and aquatic species.[23] While the brook’s official name is the Mollidgewock, some locals and sources refer to it as the Mollywooket Brook because of her presence in the area, just as a stone peninsula in Umbagog is also believed to be named after her - Moll's Rock.[24][25]

On the Maine-side of the border is the similarly named Mollidgewock Pond in Upton, Maine. Like the brook, this pond was either initially named after Molly Ockett (Mollywooket) before the official title was changed to “Mollidgewock,” or in recent years has started to be misnamed because of Molly’s popularity and name-recognition. Either way, Mollidgewock Pond is occasionally referred to as Mollywooket Pond by some residents of the Bethel-Upton area. The pond itself is difficult to get to utilizing unmarked skidder trails and a pathless hike through the woods – but it is supposed to be an excellent place to fish! [26]

Last on the Maine-New Hampshire border is Mollockett Brook in Berlin, New Hampshire. This is the second stream above Berlin Falls, though on most maps today it is listed as “Horne Brook.” According to one of the books on Berlin’s history, Traditions and Recollections of Berlin (1897), it received its name because:

Before this country was settled by white men the Androscoggin river was the great thoroughfare of the Indians from Canada to the seacoast, and as long ago as 1800 to 1810 there was an aged Indian woman by the name of Molly Ockett, who used to make frequent pilgrimages between Canada and the seacoast, and as she was the last of her race to hunt up and down this river, the probability is that the early white hunters and trappers gave her name to this brook. [27]

Molly Ockett's range of travel during her life was immense and not restricted to modern-day borders. Deeper into Maine's interior than the waterways, there is a small mountain in Bryant Pond that bears the medicine-woman's name because of her association with it. Molly's healing skills were utilized in many fledgling towns in the late 1700s and early 1810s, some of her patients included individuals from the founding families of Sumner, Maine before there were any resident doctors. Some believe Mollyockett Mountain was named after her because it is what you see when looking west from the east shore of Pleasant Pond where she had set camp to help others. An alternative is that Molly occasionally took residence in a cave located on the mountain as she was passing through, and that there was once a large stone fireplace on its slopes that she had built by herself. [28]

As has been noted above, Molly's name became associated with an array of organizations and clubs in the region to honor her herself, or because they were acquired by the names of the surrounding landscape. One such instance of the latter was the Molly Ockett Chautauquan Circle in West Sumner, which was established in 1887 and named as such because it laid in the shadow of Mollyockett Mountain.[29] The Chautauqua Movement and Circles were founded by Bishop John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller in 1874 and, though Methodist in nature, primarily promoted literature, the arts, and sciences, helping to provide education to adults and also sought to bring entertainment and culture to rustic communities.[30] Although the Molly Ockett Circle and 5 other establishments in Maine did not last (very few of the Circles nationwide did), the primary Chautauqua Institution and a handful of Circles still exist today,including the Ocean Park community in Old Orchard Beach. [31]

As indicated by the numerous landmarks that bear her name, the early settlers of the region were intimately familiar with Molly Ockett. Her status as an outsider and reputation as a helpful medicine woman put her in the public eye more than any other Native American in the area. This unique position set her up perfectly for not only the folk stories that are told today, but also likely with gossip amongst her English neighbors. One such topic which has since turned into local legend was her personal life - even today, many locals in the region could tell you that Molly had several husbands and partners. Most notable of these were Piel Susup and Sabattis. Piel Susup (Peter Joseph) was a Wabanaki hunter whom Molly married around 1762 and had a daughter (Molly Susup) with before his untimely death.[32] Jean Baptiste Sabattis, was another Pequawket with whom she was involved with for several years – they never married, however, because Sabattis was already married and the Catholic Church did not allow for divorce. The couple’s so-called “stormy” relationship came to an end when his wife returned. Some stories say he told them to “fight it out” while he watched and smoked a pipe.[33] A more descriptive account of the story can be read in Mountains of Maine where it tells of the origins of Sabattus Mountain's name:  

Sabattus had been living with Molly Ockett in 1783, having fathered two children by her. Then an earlier wife returned after a long stay in Canada and claimed to be his lawful spouse. To settle the dispute, Sabattus brought both wives to the home of Mr. Wiley so there would be witnesses. Mr. Wiley was away, but his wife and Sabattus watched the two women fight much of the afternoon – hair and cloth flying everywhere. Mrs. St. Francis, as Molly Ockett called the former wife, was the stronger of the two and won out. Molly Ockett left and moved to Andover. [34]

Other accounts, however, say Molly won but left Sabattis anyway, having had enough of his antics. The winner is not the only issue that comes with the story; for one, Molly Ockett had either three or four children with Sabattis (one son, Susup, and two or three daughters including Paseel and another who’d eventually have Molly’s granddaughter Abbesqua).[35] The second issue with this telling is Molly did not go to live in Andover after the separation, but was recorded to have gone to the Fryeburg-Bethel area. Finally, Molly’s years with Sabattis were not in 1783, but rather in the 1770s, before the American Revolutionary War.[36] 

Some other sources state that Molly Ockett had gotten together with Edward Marden, a minute man in the Revolutionary War, as well. There is almost no evidence apart from family lore born from the fact that the physical features of Edward’s grandchildren looked “Indian” alongside a recognition of Molly Ockett's name.[37]

Unlike Molly's fight for Sabbatis and the "Molly's Locket" rhyme which were based on her everyday life, other legends place Molly as the center of tried and true legend types. A commonly recurring motif in folk stories, both historically and today, is that of hidden treasure. The popularity of the stories likely stem from the promise of something for nothing; from changing one’s social class and standing with little ingenuity or effort. These legends all contain a set of characteristics which lead to a common structural pattern, essentially broken down to:

1. The treasure is accounted for and then hidden and/or lost, and;
2. The treasure is searched for but never found.[38]

Treasure stories are so convincing because not only are they spoken of as truth, initially as a friend-of-a-friend tale (a hallmark for the spread of urban legends), but because they make sense.[39] As folklorist Gerald Hurley wrote on the subject, “The fact that most of the tales are brief and to the point helps to make them seem convincing. More important in achieving verisimilitude is the fact that the tale takes place in a known period-either the identifiable present or an exact historical era-and in an area that can be geographically located.”[40] Most of the lost treasures are protected in one of two ways – first, even though these legends remain completely rational, they often feature supernatural elements acting as guardians, preventing them from being easily obtained by fortune seekers.[41] Second, they are not easily accessible, “…memories will be faulty. Indians will be hostile. Men will fight among themselves…”[42] and the treasure remains out of reach. After all, it is more important to have the legend then the reality of finding it.

When it comes to Molly Ockett, there are four distinct treasure stories which follow Hurley’s formula - in West Paris, Andover, Byron, and Bethel/Newry, and each are thought to have occurred on or near the year 1775, as the American Revolutionary War was being fought and the Natives communities in Maine were divided on their allegiance between the Colonists and the British. [43]

The first of these treasure stories take place in the hamlet of Trap Corner in West Paris, Maine. Typical of hidden treasure stories, it is brief and consists of two parts. This story is also unique in the fact it also gives one explanation as to why Trap Corner is called Trap Corner. As written by E.G. Kimball for a tourist guide in the early 1970s:

Trap Corner was so named because she [Molly Ockett] was supposed to have buried the Indian cache there while her tribe escaped to Canada, and that she placed a bear trap in the tree to mark the spot. In 1860, a man saw a trap hanging from an old tree and, the legend was remembered, digging was commenced all about the area, but no cache was ever found. [44]

This story appears to be mostly rooted in logic, though there are some gaping holes in the narrative. First, there’s the relatively minor issue which it could be seen as a stretch that an expensive bear trap was left behind to mark the treasures spot – it would have been just as likely as the treasure to have been stolen![45] More significantly, however, Molly Ockett’s tribe, the Pequawkets, were mostly forced out of the area in 1725 following Lovewell’s Fight (also known as the Battle of Pequawket)[46] – which occurred roughly 15 years before her birth.[47] Even though some of the tribe returned, in later conflicts they tried to remain neutral to no avail; continuously forced to choose sides, first between the French and English in 1744 and then again in 1755. Unfortunately for the remaining Pequawkets, the English refused to take neutrality for an answer and put a bounty on their scalps, forcing the tribe to flee to Canada. Though this would have been an opportune time for 15-year old Molly Ockett to hide a treasure, it was still twenty years before all the stories say the event occurred. The closest incident to such a retreat was in 1781 when a band of Abenakis under the leadership of Tumtumhegan was being pursued in retaliation to their raid against Sudbury Canada (now Bethel, ME). This story, however, does not fit any better because other folktales and historical records infer Molly’s opposition with the chief (despite some fictional accounts stating he was her brother)[48] and her ex-partner Sabattis led the hunt for Tumtumhegan.[49] The fact this area has been associated with Molly’s treasure isn’t a surprise though, because it is directly next to Snow’s Falls – the location of her most popular legend – but, depending on who you talk to, the location of the Paris treasure may not even be in Trap Corner, but perhaps at the base of Paris Hill, or anywhere in the eight-mile stretch between the two.[50]

Like the legend in Paris, the treasure story in Andover follows a similar thread and is typically told in the same way - except instead of Paris, the treasure was buried near “White Cap” (now known better as Farmer’s Hill) in Andover. This narrative probably gained traction when an article about it was published by the Bangor Democrat in 1856. The article, titled “Money Found,” gives the best telling of the tale. According to it, “Moll Locket” arrived at Andover with another Native American who had served in the French and Indian War and who had left his wife to be with Molly (likely Sabbatis). They brought with them a large amount of money which he told Molly to bury in a hill on the east side of the Ellis River. She did so and marked the place by notching crosses in the trees (others say with arrows carved into stones). The location, however, was lost when a fire decimated the forest there.[51]

Unlike most treasure stories, however, this one ends slightly differently but still within the realm that Hurley laid out. A common characteristic of folklore treasure stories is that the treasure is never found – or at least, almost never found. The hook of the tale is there’s still treasure that can be stumbled upon. With this particular legend, it stays true to being a “wish” story rather than one of “wish fulfillment”[52] because, “The place was known – it was somewhere on Dunlap hill, but all search for the particular spot was unavailing. At last a man by the name of Eastman obtained permission to dig for the treasure, and a week before last found an iron vessel containing four thousand and twenty-eight dollars in ancient coins.”[53] Why then can it still be a wish story? Because in the following article several weeks later, the editor debunks the story as an urban legend because such a find would without a doubt be a popular topic amongst the residents – but there was no recognition of the event by those from the area.[54]

Ironically, a human habit is to believe what is read, so even though the second news article stated the story was fictional, it likely only added to the story spreading.[55] What’s more, it even mentioned the treasure in Paris as well! It’s interesting to note here that there’s yet another legend of Molly Ockett based on the same spot – some say she claimed to have found “valuable ores” on Farmer’s Hill and was willing to sell the information, but nobody did, and the secret died with her.[56]

One aspect of a treasure story is that the treasure was not necessarily wrought by man, unmined treasures are just as relevant as buried treasures. These stories follow the same simple formula: the location is known, then the location is lost. Like the valuable ores it is claimed that Molly Ockett spoke of on Farmer’s Hill in Andover, she was also reputed to have known the location of the source of gold which can be panned in Swift River in Oxford County, particularly in the area around Byron, ME, but, that knowledge was lost upon her death.[57] Swift River and its tributaries are some of the best locations in Maine to pan for gold and some people believe there is an undiscovered gold vein which the river flows through;[58] with so many other treasures associated with Molly Ockett, it’s no surprise some people would think she’d know that secret also!

The fourth treasure story locates the treasure on Hemlock Island on the Androscoggin River between Newry and Bethel. Unlike the other folktales, this one incorporates supernatural elements as well with Molly Ockett’s ghost and other nameless members of her tribe keeping watch of the treasure. A longer version of the story even tells of the gold having been stolen and a family cursed by Molly Ockett – the long form of this story was even turned into a singing rhyme which has been printed over the decades in various forms and lengths – the most complete having been published in a newspaper article by E.G. Kimball in 1969.[59]

As the song indicates, people have claimed to see and hear ghosts haunting the island. Some locals believe Hemlock Island is the possible location of Molly’s gold because it’s assumed to have once been a Native American burial site – the perfect bit of ‘history’ (itself likely a bit of contemporary folklore) to spark this legend.[60] Either way, the story also falls under the distinction of being an “Indian Curse legend,” which typically proclaim Native American burial sites to be haunted – a motif that has gained popularity within the American mainstream culture and rooted to New England’s Puritan origins in which “beliefs in the accursed dimension of nature stem from the conflation of the devil with Native Americans and their territories.”[61] According to the earliest settlers of New England, the Native Americans were allies to Satan against the spread of Christianity, and therefore the places of their burial (and ceremonies) were believed to be ripe with unholy energy that brought nothing but ill to the Christians that tread there. While many Puritan beliefs have been whittled away from the contemporary mainstream culture, the idea of Indian curses in their burial grounds has persevered because of their popularity in folktales and mass media.[62]

Another, more notorious, Native American who lived alongside Molly Ockett and gained a reputation for himself - both in the past and present - was Chief Tumtumhegan (Tomhegan for short). Unlike many other Abenakis in the area, Tomhegan sided with the British instead of the colonists during the American Revolutionary War. It was he that led the attack on Sudbury Canada (Bethel, ME) in 1781 which was considered the last Indian raid in Maine. According to the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society, early sources attribute this allegiance to the British to be because of his hatred towards the colonists based on disputed land claims in the Rumford area.[63] Whatever the reason, at one point he was said to be scheming the murder of a Colonel Clark from Boston, which Molly found out about and decided to stop.

Going even deeper into Maine's interior, Molly Ockett was also a known figure in Poland during her life. There are two different stories are associated with her from this community. The first is a small anecdote that reveals her pious nature as well as how stubborn and headstrong she was known to be. The second is likely a piece of “fakelore” in which her name and familiarity with the community was utilized to help a business commercially.

The first story (which is more likely to be based on true events), involves the fact that as a Native woman, Molly was refused a seat at a church service. Instead of being turned away, Molly instead went outside, collected a shingle bolt from a nearby mill and returned to the church to place it on the floor directly in front of the pulpit where she sat and attentively listened to the entire sermon.[71] This example shows how Molly Ockett broke the mold of her people at the time and refused to be overlooked. Without actually ‘taking a seat,’ she still managed to insert herself into the situation while also helping forge the religious aspects of her lore. Despite its believably, there is some doubt with this folktale. While most sources say the story took place in Poland, the 1890 history describes it as having occurred in a “neighboring village,”[72] thus effectively going full circle in a type of friend-of-a-friend tale. 

The second story for Poland relates to the famous Poland Springs and the Ricker family. In the early years of Poland Springs, the water was thought to have curative properties, which lead to the Rickers utilizing the spring to create a summer resort for the urban upper class to retreat to. The fact that Molly Ockett was said to know the Rickers personally helped add a bit of “lore” into the sales. According to the December 1896 Journal of Medicine and Science:  

In the summer of 1844, the discovery was made, purely by accident, that the crystal spring, flowing from a fissure of the tree-embowered ledge on the crest of the hill… had medicinal properties. That the spring was known also to the aborigines, and, doubtless, its curative properties, is clear from the evidence of their presence about it, disclosed by the uncovering by the plow and spade of long buried Indian implements.[73]  

Eventually, it became “common knowledge” that Molly Ockett herself knew of the water’s properties, and this fact has been added to numerous papers and articles about her. What’s more, because there was an acclaimed Native American medicine-woman who had “agreed” with the Poland Springs Resort about its water, its importance (and ultimately its price) was verified. Whether or not it’s true, it makes sense her name was used in marketing because according to Poland’s records, Molly was the last of the Native Americans to reside in the area.[74] Of course, this too is a legend because when Poland Springs resort began to become popular, Native Americans would routinely sell their crafts at the base of Ricker’s Hill. [75]

Connections such as this are not surprising considering one of the de facto explanations for Molly Ockett’s inclusion in many communities was due to her friendships with various families of White settlers who opened the doors to even more associations in those towns. While it was the Rickers in Poland, in Bethel she had close ties to the Chapmans and Bartletts, in Andover there were the Merrills, the Fifields in Newry, and the Swans in Fryeburg.[76] When these families moved, its easy to imagine Molly making even more ties with the settlers, such as when the Swan family moved from Fryeburg to Bethel, which is possibly how her friendship with the Chapmans and Bartletts was initially established.[77] When it comes to folklore, these connections allow storytellers to embellish true facts: she knew the Rickers, ergo she knew about the water.

Because of how many communities knew Molly, many of the stories about her are hard to determine exactly where (and if) they occured. One such motif of Molly's Life that's been written and spoken of in multiple communities is her love of liquor. The most prominent of these is believed to have taken place back in Fryeburg, though It has been attributed elsewhere as well. In this case, the short tale tale depicts Molly’s clever ways of getting rum. While the brief narrative is occasionally told as an oral story (which can differ greatly from person to person), it is most commonly found printed in local histories. One of the best adaptations of this legend comes from an 1869 volume drafted by the Maine Historical Society which states the incident occurred in Fryeburg (though this one does not have a date, other sources put it somewhere between 1790 and 1810):

While it's possible this anecdote is based on real events, and it is true that since its introduction alcohol has had a devastating affect on Native lives and culture, the story nevertheless helps flesh out age-old stereotypes. First, as stated, the entire purpose of this piece is to make humor out of alcoholic dependence which was, and still is, a major concern for the Native population of Maine and the United States in general. By repeatedly making light of Molly’s addiction, it de-emphasizes the current issues faced by contemporary Native Americans and enforces the stereotype that all American Indians have substance abuse issues.[79] As addiction is normalized, it undermines the work needed to fix it and disregards the root issues: high unemployment rates, low high school graduation numbers, undeveloped support systems, and undergoing a generations-long systematic process of cultural eradication as White culture tries to forcibly assimilate them.[80] Then, of course, there is the issue of the self-fulfilling prophesy in which being exposed to negative stereotypes increases the chance of actually developing that very mindset.[81]

A second issue with this piece is the language used for Molly’s dialogue – according to most sources, she could speak English, French, and Algonquin fluently. By making a point to muffle and slur her speech, it gives the audience a sense that she is uneducated, unsophisticated, and more ‘primitive.’ She comes off not as a real person but as a caricature of the Native American stereotype. Even if done with the best of intentions or for believability, writing out dialects such as this is seen as derogatory. Granted, this piece in question is nearly 150 years old, but when people tell the story they try to mimic the speech as described here and, again, at the time the book was written Native Americans were thought of as inferior. Today it’s advised against to write dialogue in such a fashion – the same can, and should, be said about speaking it.[82]

Not all folktales are told equally, and by far the most popular of Molly's legends regards her cursing Snow’s Falls in West Paris, Maine. Unlike some of the "smaller" stories, residents from many different communities as well as the area itself can recite the legend to some degree even if it’s just, “Molly Ockett cursed that place and now no restaurants can stay in business there.”[83] This particular story is usually described to be near the end of Molly Ockett’s life, when she was in her nineties,[84] and passing through the Snow’s Falls hamlet in Paris – a journey she commonly made: 

Legend has it that one of these excursions going from Andover to Paris, she sought refuge at an Inn in a settlement near a beautiful waterfall in the Little Androscoggin River. She wished only for a place in the stable because of the adverse weather, but even this she was refused. Upon leaving the Inn she cursed the Inn Keeper and the whole settlement, saying they would be short lived and none of their work would prosper, nor would their children’s. Thus the settlement of Snow Falls, as it was later named after the Captain Snow who was slain here by renegade Indians, slowly disappeared. The Inn burned in the early 1900’s and all that is left are the cabins, which were built after the Inn burned, the old school-house (which is now the River Restaurant) and one dwelling. [85]

The above version of the story comes from the menu of said River Restaurant which operated in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s – before the establishment, the building had been the location of Katie’s Kitchen, the Snow Falls Restaurant, and then Cysco & Honchos, amongst others.[86] As it turns out, The River Restaurant wasn’t immune to the “curse” either. After it went out of business it was replaced by Barbara’s Chowder Barn, the All American Tavern, the Rustic Grill and Tavern, and is currently home to Coop’s Place, LLC. Of course, a damper on Snow’s Falls’s curse and the inability for businesses to thrive there comes from the slightly different version of the tale in which it takes place at the hamlet next door – Hungry Hollow – which also failed to flourish after its attempted settlement. Some even believe Hungry Hollow obtained its name from the story because Molly Ockett went hungry when she was turned away![87]

Molly Ockett has become a catch-all for the area; when new restaurants are established, the owners and staff are asked if they think they can overcome the curse,[97] and when anything “odd” happens, it quickly gets pinned at the workings of the Abenaki woman. One of the most recent, public exhibits of this trait found life on Facebook in the beginning of 2019, when Coop’s Place, LLC wrote “Okay Coop’s family – as we’re all in the kitchen prepping for dinner and no one is [in] in restaurant, our jukebox started playing “I Love This Bar”. Any ideas why?” The question was quickly answered with three different responses relating directly to Molly Ockett:

• "Molly is letting you know she is happy you're there.."
• "I have heard about a curse. The indian girl. Folklore, but still interesting. I'd find a person who does these things and have a gathering...It could be interesting."
• "Molly wanted music." [98]

Quotes such as these not only show the legend still sits on many minds, but they also provoke imagery that her spirit remains and is actively selecting who is worthy or not of residing or conducting business in the area.

The major legends that revolve around Molly Ockett are not only tales of curses and treasure, but she is also believed to have been able to prophesize and heal otherwise incurable ailments. The greatest and most known legend which contains both these traits is the tale of how she saved Hannibal Hamlin, the Vice President of the United States under Abraham Lincoln. Coming directly from Hannibal Hamlin’s biography, written by his grandson, the story goes:

It is an odd coincidence that both boys [Hannibal Hamlin and his cousin Cyrus Hamlin] were sickly and puny infants. Hannibal’s life, indeed, hung by a thread; but a somewhat dramatic incident occurred which probably turned the scales in favor of the child. As Mrs. Hamlin was sitting in her doorway one day, rocking her feeble infant, old Mollyockett, the Indian Princess, appeared. She looked at the child very intently for a short time, and then said with great earnestness to Mrs. Hamlin: “You give papoose milk warm from cow, or he die.” As the infant’s lack of vitality baffled Dr. Hamlin’s skill, he [Hannibal’s father] and his wife tried the remedy suggested by Mollyockett. The result was instantly favorable; the child thrived with great rapidity, and was soon a lusty, healthy boy. He rarely knew ill health again. [99]

Even though the remedy itself seemed rather simplistic, this piece of advice given from Molly Ockett to Dr. Hamlin could be true – she was, after all, an important figure during her time because of her skills in healing. This story, however, has been embellished over time – including the fact that Molly prophesized Hannibal Hamlin would one day grow to be a great man. One such example of this modification was printed in the Tourist Guide to Rumford Area in 1971: 

…she found the sick child almost dead. Hurriedly, she made a concoction of various herbs and treated the baby for three days and nights. The baby survived and she made the prophecy that he would become a great man someday – her prophecy came true, for he was Hannibal Hamlin, son of Dr. and Mrs. Cyrus Hamlin, who became the Vice President, under Abraham Lincoln, during his first term. [100]

Prophecy, a form of divination, is a “culturally encoded process of extraordinary human insight arising from intuition and reflection or through the extrahuman agency of inspiration… Divination entails perspectives on time and space spanning regression into the past and foreknowledge of the future.”[101] Prophesying the future is common in folktales, so it’s no surprise when the capability is added into Molly Ockett’s already impressive set of skills. Not only does prophesying Hannibal Hamlin’s fame add to the mystique of the Abenaki medicine-woman, but it also injects flair into Hamlin’s story. Already renowned in Maine because of his Vice Presidency, being saved by Molly Ockett gives the politician an extra bit of charisma and unique heritage. Whether the story is true or not, heritage has the tendency to pass on exclusive legends of origin to increase the prestige and purpose not only of the individual in question but also their family and even the community as a whole. Heritage becomes a sense of pride and, fictional or not, remains resistant to established facts.[102] This idea of ‘heritage over history’ is revealed in many local texts – one such book, State O’ Maine by Louise Dickinson Rich, recounts the tale of Molly Ockett and Hamlin and pointedly states that in regards to the public’s knowledge of Molly’s prophesy, “So, no one in Oxford County expected anything less of Hannibal Hamlin than that he should become Maine’s twenty-third governor, a United States Senator, and finally, in 1861, the Vice-President of the United States.”[103]

It is not uncommon to find the most popular of Molly Ockett’s legends grouped together as a single narrative even though many state (directly or indirectly) the point of Molly’s life which they occurred. The two legends that are most popular to combine are those of cursing Snow’s Falls and the saving and prophesying of Hannibal Hamlin. Typically, the narrative goes that Molly is caught in the snowstorm on her journey to the Hamlin home to save Hannibal and she curses Snow’s Falls (or Hungry Hollow) and then makes it to the top of Paris Hill.

Another slight variation is that she stumbled upon the Hamlins by chance after being refused shelter at the inn on her way to Norway, Maine, and her healing of the infant was as repayment. This second version was made into a poem by Dorothy Gross titled “The Legend of Mollyockett and Snow Falls,” printed in the Advertiser Democrat in 1987, and reproduced here. It’s also important to note that the seventh stanza is dedicated to Molly Ockett’s faith and her role as a healer began because of her conversion to being a Christian lady fair, “The rest of her life was spent outpoured, / Helping sick folks for the Lord.” Ironically, the way this passage is placed in the narrative of the poem makes it appear this happened after Molly helped save Hannibal, which makes sense because no fair disciple of God would be able to cast a curse on the settlement as she did. This leads to some more issues because, one, Hannibal was born seven years before Molly’s death and, by most accounts, he was one when cured of his sickliness. Two, Molly Ockett was acting as a healer for decades before the event, assisting communities without doctors from Maine to Vermont and Canada. Three, Molly Ockett was born into the Christian faith, albeit one based on a combination of Jesuit Catholicism and traditional Native beliefs.

Part of what made Molly Ockett remarkable was the level of trust and respect she had from the English despite her being a Native American and a Catholic, both of which were populations that English colonists shied away from at best and where violently hostile towards at worst. And four, the remedies she used were all Native American in nature and not Western medicine.[113] Of course, Molly Ockett was said to have converted to Methodism by the end of her life, which was likely a relief to some of the settlers considering the local folklore latched on to this fact, as depicted here. This poem is not an outlier; when asked about Molly Ockett, many residents of Western Maine attribute her healing abilities to her conversion to Christianity just as much as they do to the Native remedies that she used.[114]

Because of its proximity to Snow’s Falls and Paris Hill, the buried treasure story involving Trap Corner is also occasionally clumped into the single narrative. While the first two legends do have the believability to have occurred around the same time, the treasure story does not consider the common belief of its date was near the Revolutionary War in the 1770s. Nevertheless, it creates an entertaining story told by the locals and went on to influence West Paris’s local songwriter and humorist Joe Perham for his song, “The Legend of Mollyockett,” which had attracted a number of individuals in the region to become curious about Molly Ockett in general, but also interested in the real history of the local Native tribes.

Molly's own legends are not the only ones to be merged together, and it's not hard to find stories where the medicine woman's life overlaps with other Native Americans of the region, blending them together. One such case of this can be examined by a landscape name at Umbagog Lake in Errol New Hampshire. On the western shore of Umbagog, there is a small stone peninsula called “Moll’s Rock” which is only accessible by hiking through the woods (there is no path) or by boat. While most texts refer to Moll’s Rock being named after Metallak’s second wife, Molly Oozulak, because it was one of her favorite spots and she was buried somewhere near it, [116] the common perception in the Errol-Bethel-Upton area is that it was named after Molly Ockett.[117] While it is possible Molly also visited the site during her life – she traveled with Metallak and a band of other Abenakis when she returned from Boston after living with Colonel Clark for a year, and stayed around the Richardson and Umbagog Lakes for the last sequence of her life[118] – the common perception of it being named for Molly Ockett likely stems from her popularity and name-recognition in contrast to Molly Oozulak’s.  

After a time near Umbagog Lake, and perhaps waundering as far as Rumford, Maine, Molly Ockett died on 2 August 1816 in Andover, Maine when she was roughly 76 years old. Even her death has some discrepancies to it beyond her age (if you remember, she was believed to be in her ninties when she cursed Snow's Falls and other sources state that she lived to be over one hundred), and it has become a legend unto itself. First is the issue of when and where she died. One account, made by Reverend S. R. Hall of Rumford, Maine stated, “She was at last found dead, on Mount White Cap, in East Andover, Maine, in 1817, where she had resided for some weeks, gathering blueberries, Her body when found had been partly eaten by a wild animal.”[119] Contrary to this story is the more common variation in which Molly spent the last months of her life in Andover under the care of Captain Bragg, paid for by the town itself.

Several years before her death, Molly Ockett had taken Colonel Clark’s offer to stay with his family in Boston for the remainder of her life as repayment for saving his life from Tomhegan in 1781. After a year in the confines of the growing city, she longed for Maine, and so Clark built her a wigwam at Rumford Falls. Back in her homeland, she started wandering again and eventually grouped up with a band of Abenakis, including Chief Metallak, living in the area between Umbagog Lake and Rumford, Maine when she caught sick in 1816. Metallak brought Molly back to Andover where he knew friendly settlers would help, which is when the town appointed Captain Bragg to watch over her. By her request, she spent the last days of her life in a wigwam within a camp of cedar. After she died, her remaining possessions were auctioned off for $20, which probably covered the costs of her final care. Molly’s funeral was said to be well-attended and she was buried at the Woodlawn Cemetery in an unmarked grave. In 1867, 51 years after her death, the women of the Andover Congregational Church had a Fourth of July celebration in which they gave Molly Ockett her gravestone using her Catholic name, Mary Agatha, and declaring her to be “The Last of the Peqwaukets.” [120]

By calling Molly Ockett the last of her tribe, a new legend was established, one that was and still is detrimental to the Native Nations of Maine today. First and foremost, Molly Ockett was not the last of her tribe; she had five – possibly six – children of her own, as well as documented grandchildren - several Native families in Vermont even trace their genealogy back to Molly. Molly Ockett is one amongst many in a long line of “last Indians” of the United States, most of which had living relatives when they died and still have descendants today. These stories and labels, alone and grouped together, give a clear message that local Indians have disappeared, lost to history. Speaking of this trait of local folklore and histories in her book Firsting and Lasting, historian Jean M. O’Brien states:  

These local stories were leashed to a larger national narrative of the “vanishing Indian” as a generalized trope and disseminated not just in the form of the written word but also in a rich ceremonial cycle of pageants, commemorations, monument building, and lecture hall performance. They both served as entertainment and they inscribed meaning in particular places… The collective story these texts told insisted that non-Indians held exclusive say over modernity, denied modernity to Indians, and in the process created a narrative of Indian extinction that has stubbornly remained in the consciousness and unconsciousness of Americans. [121]

Often these misrepresentations of Native Americans manage to keep afloat despite contrary evidence because the names used were local bands, not tribes. In Molly’s case, the Pequawkets were a band of the Abenaki tribe. Further, these names were not typically what the Native Americans called themselves, but what they were labeled by White settlers based on their geographic location (Pequawket meant “The Cleared Place,” and was designated to the village in what is today Fryeburg on the Saco River)[122] to make their society more similar to Western concepts.

Bands were never stable, independent entities, but were always shifting based on marriages and food resources – because of this a single Native individual during colonial days could belong to multiple bands. Molly Ockett herself started as Pequawket but was also later considered a St. Francis Indian (which consisted completely of other bands splintered from the conflict between the French and English),[123] and at times was also called a Sokosis, Rokomeko, and Anasagunticook Indian. Should she have lived longer and remained with Metallak and the others in his group, it’s very possible they may have earned a new name of their own by the American settlers. Just because there are no Native individuals who identify as “Pequawket” today does not mean they have vanished – the Abanaki tribe still exists, as do the other members of the Wabanaki confederations (the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Mi’kmaq), of which many Abenaki refugees, which undoubtedly included “Pequawkets,” fled to and joined while others assimilated into colonial society by way of marriage and conversion.[124][125]

Whether intended or not, continuously overlooking Native American populations and claiming their extinction is a form of colonialism that seeks to erase the cultural presence of the contemporary tribes today in the same manner as reservations, blood quantum, boarding schools, and forced sterilization.[126] All of these attempts at forced cultural assimilation against the Native American ethnic group stems from the colonial framework of Western culture and its need for land and resources. Always a barrier for colonialism, the Native American presence and rights prevent easy access to the resources under their domain, so by eliminating the people – either through genocide or assimilation – obstacles are reduced, land and resources open up, and expenses relating to their status as Federal wards is eliminated. What’s more, Western culture remains dominant and there is no threat of minority cultures, traditions, or values undermining its supremacy.[127] At worst, continuing to tell the legend of Molly Ockett being the last Pequawket helps undermine a repressed culture, helping to slowly whittle down Native sovereignty until they are forcibly assimilated into the American mainstream. At best, the legend helps enforce a lasting ignorance.

Local folklore, such as Molly Ockett's legends, have the tendency to grow and be adopted by the towns and villages that gave them life, incorporating names and events into the community where the continue to florish - even making them more popular and widespread than before.

A common practice for many towns in Maine and New England is to have some form of annual “Old Home Day” similar to a traditional harvest festival. For all intents and purposes, these local holidays are a folk tradition unto themselves and act as a way of strengthening bonds in a community, prompting those that left the community to return, and encourage those who had never left to stay.[128] For sixty years, Bethel’s iteration of this practice came in the form of Mollyockett / Molly Ockett Day, held annually on the third Saturday of July.

Molly Ockett Day originally started as the Bethel Bazaar, but in 1957 the host of the event, the Bethel Health and Service Council announced:  

As the present publicity over the adventures of the second Mayflower gains prestige and the pageantry of the festivals of Jamestown is receiving national attention, the planning committee of the Bethel Health and Service Council has decided to develop a bit of our own local folklore through the character of Mollyockett, the famed Indian “doctor” of this area during the eighteenth century, when our ancestors were just starting to settle the area. [129]

Most telling of the language used in the press release was referring to Molly Ockett as a character and the goal of developing the town's folklore to try and capture some of the publicity and success that Jamestown was experiencing. Just as O’Brien stated was common in Firsting and Lasting, Molly Ockett was used as the centerpiece of the commemoration, components of Native culture were used for entertainment (such as medicine men and telling of legends) , and a Princess Mollyockett (a “full blooded Indian girl from Old Town”)[130] was crowned and paraded through the village. In the following years, a young woman was crowned “Princess Mollyockett” in a pageant.[131]

True to their intention, Molly Ockett Day did in fact create (or rather, enhance) local folklore for the area – apart from several historical texts, it wasn’t until after the first Molly Ockett Day that newspapers really started to accumulate articles based on her legends while fictional and nonfictional books featuring her began to be published. The increase of legends, however, were not “fakelore,” because there is evidence it existed beforehand. According to folklorist Richard M. Dorson, fakelore consists of stories and legends that found their creation by being published and not naturally through the interactions and local knowledge,[132] but there is record of many of the more factual stories before 1957 as well as one of the treasure stories printed as a factual event and then debunked in 1856,[133] and a fictional story based on another treasure story published in The Companion in 1913.[134] It is unknown if the story of the curse at Snow’s Falls existed before the first Molly Ockett Day, but even if not, there is no record signifying that it was created or published to help promote the festival.

In recent years, as the mainstream population has become more sensitive to colonialism and cultural appropriation, Molly Ockett Day had been the center of some controversies and had undergone changes for the sake of political correctness. One of the most positive changes to have occurred is the removal of the “Princess Mollyockett” pageant. Due to the backlash of both the title of the award as well as the inaccurate “Hollywood-type” regalia that the young lady wore for the parade, Bethel’s Chamber of Commerce (who are now the host of the event) replaced the tradition with an essay contest in 2013. Praising the decision, the Indian Country Today news stated:

Until this year, the annual Molly Ockett Days Festival in Bethel, Maine, had little to do with her, or Native history or the Native culture that continues to thrive among the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot Communities of the Wabanaki Confederacy… the festival [has turned] into a meaningful event that celebrates both Molly Ockett and the present-day Native communities that often struggle against the state’s lingering indifference or rejection of indigenous life and culture. [135]

Along with this change which honors both a male and female essay writer who wrote of Molly Ockett’s significance and importance to the community, came more Native participation, including Native American drumming, dancing, storytelling, and traditional craft makers and merchants.[136] More recently, however, another more complicated, issue developed based on what floats were permitted to participate in the Molly Ockett Day parade.

Making a call to avoid controversy, the Bethel Chambers unintentionally sparked an issue by denying a float to be included in the parade. The float in question included carousel horses, a kayak, and a wooden Indian statue. The float had participated the year before but had drawn complaints because of the wooden Indian, prompting the committee to tell the Barnard family they were not welcome in the parade because the float hadn’t been changed enough.[137] While some applauded the decision, many griped that such a verdict was a product of political correctness, with one family writing to the Bethel Citizen’s “Citizen Opinion” column stating they were “disgusted” at the decision and that the float and family “represents what this country is all about. This country is about freedom of speech and expression. They made us proud.”[138] The opinions were fairly well split about the decision, some saying society has gotten too politically correct while others said such floats and events such as Molly Ockett Day, in general, are disrespectful towards Native Americans. Especially when the participants on the float appeared to be white people dressed up in Hollywood-style Indian clothing.[139] The complication comes with the fact that the Barnard family are Native Americans themselves, so as they sum up the town’s decision: “It’s disrespectful to us.” [140]

As Molly Ockett Day continued to shift towards being more inclusive of Native Americans and the real Molly Ockett as compared to her folkloric counterpart, questions such as these continued to crop up, but the trend of going in a more historically accurate and inclusive direction did have advantages for the Native populations in Maine, as one member of the Penobscot Nation stated in an anonymous interview:

I grew up in Bethel, and a few years ago they did away with having Molly Ockett on the float. This was huge. As a kid, I was very proud to be represented by her. Some Natives were upset because they didn’t portray or represent her right, and it was disrespectful. I remember Mollyockett Days being an awesome event, I really wish that Natives would step up and embrace this day and bring culture to the Bethel community such as joining in on the celebration. [141]

While the growing pains of the festival were encouraging – they forcing the mainstream culture to think and continue to grow as a whole – the name of Molly Ockett Day was put in jeopardy as more voices begin to speak up in desiring the festival to revert back to the Bethel Bazaar. Ultimately, the Bethel Chamber of Commerce announced on 13 February 2020 that they chose to officially change Molly Ockett Day's name to the Bethel Summerfest in time for Maine's bicentennial. [142]

What’s interesting about all these works, fiction and nonfiction, is that they all were derived from the local folklore in some way and in-turn added to the legends as well. While the nonfictional works attempt to set the legends straight, the information contained in them is simply added to the legends while the historical fictions are simply taken as truth; as Randall Bennett of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society put it, “You could put ‘FICTIONAL’ at the top of every page and, by heavens, it will come out as the truth as soon as the book is finished!”[147] One such legend change which the BHS has been dealing with comes from Pat Stewart’s novel Mollyockett which states that Molly was born in Fryeburg, Maine when it’s a historical fact she was born in the Saco area. Now it’s part of the local folklore (even amongst those who have never read the novel) that Molly was born in Fryeburg.[148] Likewise, Singing Bird by Karen Johnson states within its glossary “Pigwacket” is a derogatory term for “Pequawket” and means “Pigs in the House,”[149] while Pigwacket is actually the Anglo spelling of the French-based Pequawket, which is in itself a corruption of the Abenaki word Apikwahki which translates along the lines of “the cleared place,”[150] “land of hollows,”[151] or “land of caves.”[152]

Despite these works unintentionally spreading misinformation on a historical figure who is already misperceived, stories such as this can and do have a positive impact as well. For many, it opens a door to a subject they’d otherwise have no interest in and can be utilized as a starting point for delving deeper into the history of the region as well as education on the contemporary Native Americans who live in Maine and New England today. As one teacher said on an Amazon review of Mollyockett: 

I used this novel with my high school English class last fall. I teach in an urban environment where kids are reluctant to read, period. But I found that the students were REALLY into it. I had students who I suspect never read, reading it and telling me so. They kept saying, all year, "can't we read another novel like Mollyockett?"… Pat Stewart weaves the stories together seemlessly[sic] so that nothing seems forced or strange. If anything, she makes the reader want to know more about the real story… they wanted to know about Native American Medicine practices, since they were studying that as part of their unit. [153]

While every book listed above was written by white authors, there is one historical-fiction play-script written by an Abenaki: Molly Has Her Say by Margaret Bruchac, published in the Keepers of the Morning Star anthology. The narrative of the story revolves around the spirit of Molly Ockett trying to speak to Molly Marie and make her address her heritage. The story addresses issues of mixed-blood identity, oral and written history, and the importance of language when it comes to Native viewpoints as well as Native values.[154] While this play does not address the folklore based on Molly Ockett, the character itself had been made available because she’s remained in the public conscious of both the local mainstream culture as well as the Abenaki culture itself – a feat which could at least be partly credited to the persistence of her legends. 

Despite the best efforts of historians and nonfictional book authors, the common perception of Molly Ockett today is starting to be based more on the legends involving her, especially the cursing of Snow’s Falls, saving and prophesying Hannibal Hamlin as an infant, and the various treasure stories. Utilizing these, Molly is paradoxically seen as a wandering maiden or crone who, for much of her life, lived in sin, cursing and curing as she pleased until she atoned and became a devout Christian. Molly's overall story and personality have, however, remained surprisingly intact when compared to other historical Native figures which have experienced more limelight in mass media because her stories have remained primarily in the region that she lived and died rather than in the national mainstream. Even so, because of evolving mindsets, her life is occasionally stripped bare and seen as worthwhile only where it becomes a curiosity, or used as a reflective Other to Western society and culture – in these cases it is typically not the truth that is used, but the legends developed after her death or a value that she can be seen to represent.

This mindset is no surprise considering from the beginning her name was associated with British adversaries; as Gudrun Cram-Drach and Neva Cram put it in appendix added to the 150th anniversary print of Charles Ilsley’s Forest and Shore: Legends of the Pine Tree State: 

When we think of what was nearly a hundred years of hostilities, death, and destruction in New England, it is not difficult to comprehend the mutual fear, distrust, and loathing that must have developed between the [English] colonists and the Abenakis. The colonists lives in constant fear of French-allied Abenakis coming out of the endless forests to the north to ravage their homes and murder or kidnap their families. [155]

Just as Molly’s tribe was historically associated with the French, they also practiced a religion based on a combination of their pre-colonial beliefs as well as the Jesuit Catholicism which, again, was in direct opposition to English Puritanism and Protestantism. One of the primary reasons why she was accepted as much as she was is due to her persistence in remaining in her people’s homeland when most others had fled as well as her ability and willingness to help the colonists when they were in need. It was a trust earned by familiarity and need rather than one based on a shared past and prior relationships.

Now that Molly’s persona has been built up in local legends, she has begun to be looked upon as a folk-hero and role model. The mainstream perception of Native Americans has begun to change since the mid-1800s as the colonial mindset began to morph its perception of its conquered peoples. With little threat remaining from the Native population, the Other they represented was no longer such a distinct threat, but could still be utilized by Americans to define themselves.[156] As American Indians began to be looked at more as "Noble Savages," they have become a beacon to members of White society who feel that Native Americans who lived closer to the land were fundamentally superior to the Western culture which was responsible for spiritual bankruptcy, health problems, and environmental destruction. This portion of American society appropriated what they wanted from the Natives and continue today to pick and choose what fits their ideology and ignore the rest – including the people themselves.[157] The mainstream media tends to do the same thing: if they aren’t the bloodthirsty opponents in traditional Westerns, they are portrayed as being stoic in conversation, battle, and torture while also being brave, simple, independent, loving, and in tune with nature.[158] They are viewed with nostalgia, representing the past as they vanish. For many people over the last several decades, Hollywood Indians have likely seemed more real than actual contemporary Native Americans of whom the media often avoids unless there is controversy involved, at which point they are the Other and shown at odds.[159] Interestingly, stories based in a region’s time of settlement have three types of characters according to the historian Robert Berkhofer:

1. The agents of civilization, such as townspeople, settlers, especially the schoolmarm,
2. The outlaws or the Indians, and
3. The hero, who frequently represents some blend of both sides. In fact, his [or her] main task is to resolve the conflict between the two sides. [160]

Molly Ockett squarely takes on the role of the third character – throughout her life, she straddled the line between the Native Americans, English, and French and it is often noted in historical works about her that she “repeatedly crossed the line between these divergent and often antagonistic groups. Welcomed into the homes of New England settlers, especially during their most vulnerable times of illness and despair, she gained an unusually intimate view of their lives.”[161] She became so well known in such a wide area that today some people believe she was half-white[162] while others insist there must have been two women with the name.[163]

With her status of folk-hero and role-model comes admiration, especially as works like Clarissa Pinkola Estes’s Women who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype (1992), emphasize Native Woman and others who fall into the category of Other as opposed to the established mainstream. Since at least the 1970s, Molly Ockett’s grave has been noted to never be bare, and today there are always coins, polished stones, flowers (real and artificial), a dreamcatcher, and small knickknacks placed on and around the stone as though it is the site of a pilgrimage. Behind the tombstone is a Tupperware bowl with a stamp book likely used for a variation of geocaching, with the book is a homemade rubber stamp depicting an intricate rendition of Molly which has been used since 2008, but has recently turned more into a general guestbook. In the fall of 2019, as if to emphasize the meaning of these small gifts, among all the offerings in front of her stone was a handwritten letter which said: 

Mollyocket, I do so admire your bravery, oh how I wish I could wander (or should I say disappear) into the woods! OH how lovely that would be – to be alone with nature and the animals and the spirits, far far away from people. I do admire your connection to the earth and your sensitivity to energies, I wish I could heal like you did. I also love your sense of style and how you wore a Top Hat with your native garb. How creative and fun! You are forever special. ♥ M

Even more enticing for people, especially young women, to put Molly Ockett on a pedestal is because of her unique position in the world during her life. Many of the legends based on Molly stem from members of the white population, especially during her life and the years directly after it, believing in what could be called the Indian Mystique, or special powers. Dena Winslow, a Ph.D. graduate who had focused on folklore and local history and today works with the Mi’kmaq tribe surmised that, “Molly Ockett was a woman with an incredible amount of freedom. Unlike in European and early American culture, women in Native tribes had much fewer limitations than their colonial counterparts: she could come and go as she pleased, she could accumulate wealth of her own, she practiced medicine, she demanded respect. Would a white woman have been able to do that? Probably not.”[164] While most of history revolves around the Great White Men, Molly Ockett is a local exception to the rule, she is a prime candidate for any woman, girl, or minority to look up to. 

Some questions that can be asked (and often are now with the changing moral climate of White culture), are if these legends are racist, and if using Molly Ockett's name for landscape markers and businesses is a form of cultural appropriation. How exactly do Native Americans feel about Molly Ockett and her legends? As should be expected, there is no clear-cut line to answer them and there are differing opinions in both the Native American and White cultures. For many in the Western Maine community, the answer is they are simply a form of entertainment and may help promote interest in Native Americans themselves[165] while others are much more adamant that they should be discouraged and simply exist for profit's sake:

I hate those ridiculous legends… The public is interested in sensationalism, romance, fiction, and feel good stuff. The shame of it is we have lost who they [Molly Ockett and Metallak] really are and what their real stories were, because reality is not sensational or entertaining enough to cause the public to part with their money. [166]

Speaking on the other side of the cultural divide was an anonymous individual from the Penobscot Nation whose opinions on the legends was:

I don’t mind them, they can open dialogue between our people. I wouldn’t be surprised if stories such as these leads to more White people learning about the Abenaki, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy. More and more we are hearing of white people apologizing to the tribes and owning their past. This is amazing and can only improve the world for all of us. [167]

While a member of the Passamaquoddy tribe stated (when asked about Molly’s popularity), “it may be that she was loved by the Whites because she warned them that her people were going to attack. If this is true, she directed the course of history in the colonizer’s favor.”[168] Though there were several outliers, most of the individuals asked about their opinion, both those from Western Maine and the First Nations, were not particularly worried about the use of Molly’s name being utilized for businesses nor the legends about her that are told. Putting it simply, a Passamaquoddy teen said with a shrug, “It is what it is,” while her friend laughed, “I guess it’s not a bad thing if White people think we can curse you!” [169]

Ultimately, it seems the stories and legends of Molly Ockett, which have nestled themselves into the folklore of Western Maine, are here to stay and the general consensus is that they are harmless, possibly even beneficial to the relation between the peoples. So long as there is no animosity involved, the legends are light and “good fun.” A final quote from a member of the Penobscot Nation that puts each of these legends and pieces of lore into perspective: 

Thank you everybody who took the time to open dialogue with me and tell me your honest thoughts on the subject, including, but not limited to: Randall Bennett, Catherine Newell, Dena Winslow, and Ben Conant, as well as the numerous anonymous individuals from Western Maine and the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Nations. With your guidance, I was able to turn this project into something new and not just a recapture of past projects.

Cover

• [image] Mural of Molly Ockett at the Mollyockett Motel, photographed by author and displayed with permission from the Mollyockett Motel.

What is Folklore?

• [1] American Folklore Society, “What is Folklore,” accessed 10 October 2019,  https://www.afsnet.org/page/WhatIsFolklore 
• [2] Jill Terry Rudy, “American folklore scholarship, Tales of the North American Indians, and Relational communities,” Journal of American Folklore 126, no. 499 (Winter 2013), 24.
• [3] Ibid, 5.
• [4] Alan Dundes, “The American Concept of Folklore,” Journal of the Folklore Institute 3 no. 3 (December 1966), 232. 
• [5] Donald G. Bennett, ed., “Maine Indians in the Bethel Area,” The Bethel Journals (8 July 2010), accessed 20 September 2019,  http://www.thebetheljournals.info/Indians/Bethel_Indians.htm 
• [image] Sarah Winifred and Carey Pietsch. "A Lonely Line." In Colonial Comics, Volume II: New England, 1750-1775, edited by Jason Rodriguez, 22-31. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2016. Shown with permission from the publisher.

Molly Ockett as a Folk Figure

• [6] Arthur D. Woodrow, Metallak, the Last of the Cooashaukes: with the Life of David Robbins, the Story of Molly Ockett, the Adventures of Lieut. Segar, and the Killing of the Last Moose (Rumford, ME: Rumford Publishing Company, 1928), 73.

Legacy

• [Image] "The Molly Ockett: Maine Pink Tourmaline Tension Bangle," Harvest Gold Gallery. Accessed 1 November 2019,  https://harvestgoldgallery.com/products/the-molly-ockett-maine-pink-tourmaline-tension-bangle 

Princess Molly Ockett

• [7] E. G. Kimball, “Name of Molly Ockett Will Never Die Locally,” Tourist Guide to Rumford Area, 8 July 1971, 2.
• [8] Charles Eugene Hamlin, The Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin, (Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1899), 15.
• [9] MSAD #72, Molly Ockett School Student / Parent Handbook (2018-2019), 4.  
• [10] Bunny McBride and Harald E.L. Prins, “Walking the Medicine Line: Molly Ockett, a Pigwacket Doctor,” in Northeastern Indian Lives, 1632-1816, ed. Robert S. Grumet (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996), 324. 
• [11] Nathaniel Tuckerman True, “The Last of the Pigwackets,” Museums of the Bethel Historical Society Online Collections & Catalog, accessed 14 November 2019.  https://bethelhistorical.org/catalog/exhibits/show/mollyockett/last_of_the_pigwackets 
• [12] Bennett, Randall and Catherine S-C Newell, interview by author, tape recording. Bethel, ME, 30 October 2019.
• [13] Rayna Green, , “The Pocahontas Perplex: The Image of Indian Women in American Culture,” The Massachusetts Review 16 no. 4 (Autumn 1975), 701-703.

A Unique Childhood

• [14] Interviews with anonymous members of the Western Maine community by author. 16 August 2019 – 5 November 2019.
• [15] Bunny McBride, Women of the Dawn (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 47-50. 
• [16] “Phips Bounty Proclamation,” Upstander Project, accessed 18 November 2019,  https://upstanderproject.org/firstlight/phips 
• [17] True, “The Last of the Pigwackets.” 
• [18] McBride, Women of the Dawn, 53. 

Molly Locket's Cave, Fryeburg, ME

• [19] Alfred E Kayworth, and Raymond G. Potvin, The Scalp Hunters: Abenaki Ambush At Lovewell Pond – 1725 (Wellesley, MA: Branden Books, 200), 91.
• [20] Robert M. Moorehead, “The Last of the Pequawkets - Moll Locket,” The Western Mainer 1 no. 3. (December 1970): 1.

Molly Ocket's Pocket

• [21] Ruth B.D. Horne, Conway Through the Years and Wither (Conway, NH: Conway Historical Society, 1963), 97.  
• [22] Ellen McRoberts Mason, “The Town of Conway,” The Granite Monthly 20 no. 6 (June 1896), 358-359.
• [Video] Molly's Pocket rhyme recited by Novaleigh Roberts, 2019.

"Mollywooket" Brook, Errol, NH

• [23] “Mollidgewock Brook,” The Trust for Public Land, accessed 14 November 2019,  https://www.tpl.org/our-work/mollidgewock-brook 
• [24] Interviews with anonymous members of the Errol, NH community by author. 20 October 2019. 
• [25] Thaddeus Piotrowski, ed., The Indian Heritage of New Hampshire and Northern New England (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2002), 184.

"Mollywooket" Pond, Upton, ME

• [26] Interviews with anonymous members of the Western Maine community by author. 16 August 2019 – 5 November 2019.
• [Image] "Mollidgewock Pond." Map. Resurvey, second revision. Scale not given. Augusta, ME: Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, 1998. Accessed at  https://www.maine.gov/ifw/docs/lake-survey-maps/oxford/mollidgewock_pond.pdf 

"Mollockett" Brook, Berlin, NH

• [27] Bailey K. Davis, Traditions and Recollections of Berlin (Berlin, NH: Berlin Public Library, 1897), 153-154.  

Mollyockett Mountain, Bryant Pond, ME

• [28] Ben Conant, interview by author, tape recording, Paris, ME. 1 November 2019.
• [29] Theodore L. Flood, ed., The Chautauquan, Volume VII: From October, 1886, to July, 1887 (Meadville, PA: T.L. Flood Publishing House, 1887), 365.
• [30] Ferki Ferati, “The Rise and Decline of the Chautauqua Movement and its Lessons for 21st Century Civic Adult Education” (PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2017), 1-3. 
• [31] Ibid, 39. 

Fighting for Sabattis

• [32] McBride, Women of the Dawn, 54.
• [33] Ibid, 56-57.
• [34] Steve Pinkham, Mountains of Maine: Intriguing Stories Behind Their Names (Camden, ME: DownEast, 2009), 84. 
• [35] Catherine Newell, notes for presentation at Bethel Historical Society, 28 March 2009. Unpublished. 
• [36] McBride, Women of the Dawn, 57. 
• [37] “Howl of the Canyon Wolf: Ne-Do-Ba,” Vermont Native Justice Abenaki (24 April 2011), accessed 1 November 2019,  https://vermontnativejusticeabenaki.wordpress.com/2011/04/24/howl-of-the-canyon-wolf-ne-do-ba/ 

Treasure Stories

• [38] Gerard T. Hurley, “Buried Treasure Tales in America,” Western Folklore 10, no. 3 (July 1951): 197. 
• [39] Heather Whipps, “Urban Legends: How They Start and Why They Persist,” LiveScience, 27 August 2006,  https://www.livescience.com/7107-urban-legends-start-persist.html 
• [40] Hurley, “Buried Treasure,” 198. 
• [41] Ibid, 201.
• [42] Ibid, 200.
• [43] Charles Everett Johnson, The Legends of Mollyockett (Self-published, 1991), 7.

The Treasure in West Paris, ME

• [44] Kimball, “Name of Molly Ockett,” 2.
• [45] Johnson, Legends of Mollyockett, 7. 
• [46] Kayworth, and Potvin, The Scalp Hunters, 2.
• [47] McBride and Prins, “Walking the Medicine Line,” 321. 
• [48] G.R. Savage, Fletcher McKenzie and the Passage to Whole (Bloomington, IN: Westbow Press, 2016). 
• [49] Randall Bennett and Catherine S-C Newell, interview by author, tape recording, Bethel, ME. 30 October 2019.
• [50] Interviews with anonymous members of the Western Maine community by author. 16 August 2019 – 5 November 2019.

The Treasure in Andover, ME

• [51] E.C. Shanor, “Not So Good Old Days,” The Oxford Democrat, 17 September 2009.
• [52] Hurley, “Buried Treasure,” 204.
• [53] Shanor, “Not So Good Old Days.”
• [54] Ibid.
• [55] Dena Lynn Winslow, interview by author, tape recorded telephone conversation, 31 October 2019.
• [56] Johnson, Legends of Mollyockett, 8. 

Swift River Gold - Byron, ME

• [57] Kimball, “Name of Molly Ockett,” 2.
• [58] Hardcore Miner, “Maine Gold Panning – Exploring the Swift River and Coos Canyon,” HowToFindGoldNuggets, 28 December 2018, accessed 11 November 2019,  https://howtofindgoldnuggets.com/swift-river-maine-gold-prospecting/ 

The Treasure in Bethel/Newry, ME

• [59] E.G. Kimball, “Molly Ockett’s Ghost Guards Indian Treasure,” Lewiston Journal Magazine Section, 25 October 1969, 1A & 6A.
• [60] Johnson, Legends of Mollyockett, 8.
• [61] Darryl V. Caterine, “Heirs through Fear: Indian Curses, Accursed Indian Lands, and White Christian Sovereignty in America,” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 18 no. 1 (August 2014), 38.
• [62] Ibid, 40. 
• [Video] "Hemlock Island Gold" recited by Brandan Roberts, 2019.

Saving Colonel Clark

• [63] Catherine S-C Newell, “Well-Known Indians of the Bethel Area,” Museums of the Bethel Historical Society Online Collections & Catalog, 3 August 1981, accessed 11 November 2018,  https://www.bethelhistorical.org/catalog/item/SERIAL_1.5.X.6b 
• [64] Mason, “Conway,” 359.
• [65] Benjamin G. Willey, Incidents in White Mountain History (Portland, ME: Francis Blake, 1856), 259. 
• [66] Interview with an anonymous member of the Western Maine community by author. 12 October 2019.
• [67] Correspondence with anonymous author, email, 26 October 2019. 
• [68] Ibid.
• [69] McBride, Women of the Dawn, 61.
• [70] Henry Tufts, The Autobiography of a Criminal, second edition reprint (Port Townsend, WA: Loompanics Unlimited, 1993), 53-55. 

Time in Poland, ME

• [71] Randall Bennett and Catherine S-C Newell, interview by author, tape recording, Bethel, ME. 30 October 2019.
• [72] H.A. Poole and G.W. Poole, History of Poland (Mechanic Falls, ME: Poole Brothers Publishers, 1890), 34. 
• [73] Geo. H. Haynes, “The Ricker Family and Poland Spring,” Journal of Medicine and Science 3 no. 1 (December 1896), 224.
• [74] Poole and Poole, History of Poland, 34.
• [75] David L. Richards, Poland Springs: A Tale of the Gilded Age, 1860-1900 (Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire Press, 2005), 37-38
• [76] McBride, Women of the Dawn, 62. 
• [77] Randall Bennett and Catherine S-C Newell, interview by author, tape recording, Bethel, ME. 30 October 2019.
• [Image] Brian Harris, “PW_Flyer_1910,” The Historic Poland Springs, 22 July 2009, accessed 11 December 2019.  http://www.baharris.org/historicpolandspring/index.htm 

Toothache

• [78] Maine Historical Society, Collections and Proceedings of the Maine Historical Society, Second Series, Vol. VII (Portland, ME: The Thurston Print, 1896), 222.
• [79] Fred Beauvais, “American Indians and Alcohol”, Alcohol Health and Research World 22, no. 4 (1998), 253.  
• [80] Ibid, 256-257. 
• [81] Vivian M. Gonzalez and Monica C. Skewes, “Association of the Firewater Myth with Drinking Behavior Among American Indian and Alaska Native College Students,” PMC (13 October 2016), 3,  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5222774/ 
• [82] Arlene Prunkl, “Dialogue in Fiction: Part I – How to Write authentic dialects and foreign accents,” PenUltimate Editorial Services, 24 Abril 2014, accessed 14 November 2019,  http://penultimateword.com/fiction/dialect-in-dialogue-how-to-write-authentic-dialect-and-foreign-accents/ 

Cursing Snow's Falls

• [83] Interview with an anonymous member of the Western Maine community by author. 6 November 2019.
• [84] Kimball, “Name of Molly Ockett,” 2.
• [85] The River Restaurant, “Molly Ockett’s Curse on Snow Falls,” menu.  
• [86] Lisa Chmelecki, “A curse that won’t die,” Sun Journal (31 October 2003), A10.
• [87] Ben Conant, interview by author, tape recording, Paris, ME, 1 November 2019.
• [88] Charles Everett Johnson, A History of Snow’s Falls (South Paris, ME: Park Street Press, 1992), 21.
• [89] Kimball, “Name of Molly Ockett,” 2.
• [90] Alison Lima, “The Abenaki Indian Curse of Brunswick Springs, Vermont,” The Vermonter, accessed 7 November 2019,  https://vermonter.com/curse-of-brunswick-springs/ 
• [91] Caterine, “Heirs through Fear,” 54.  
• [92] Ibid, 40. 
• [93] Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature: A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books, and Local Legends (Bloomington, IN: 1958), 1598.
• [94] Natalie M. Underberg, “Curses: Motifs M400-M462,” in Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature: A Handbook, ed. Jane Garry and Hasan El-Shamy (New York, NY: Routledge, 2005), 317-318
• [95] Chmelecki, “A curse that won’t die,” A10.
• [96] Mollyockett Motel employee, interview by author, West Paris, ME, 6 October 2019.
• [97] Facebook comments on the Dockside Diner & Variety (Norway) business page between the owners closing the restaurant and opening Coop’s Place LLC in Snow’s Fall. Since deleted.  
• [98] Coop’s Place LLC. 2019. “Okay Coop’s family,” Facebook, 1 January 2019.  https://www.facebook.com/pg/Coopsplacellc/posts/?ref=page_internal  

Saving and Prophesying Hannibal Hamlin

• [99] Hamlin, Hannibal Hamlin, 18.
• [100] Kimball, “Name of Molly Ockett,” 2.
• [101] Thomas A. Green, ed., Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art (Denver, CO: ABC-CLIO, 1997), 192-193.
• [102] David Lowenthal, “Fabricating Heritage,” History and Memory 10 no. 1 (Spring 1998), 7-10. 
• [103] Louise Dickinson Rich, State O’ Maine, Regions of America Series (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1964). 
• [104] Tufts, Autobiography of a Criminal, 53-55.
• [105] Samuel Sumner, History of the Missisco Valley (Irasburgh, VT: Orleans County Historical Society, 1860), 27-28.
• [106] Woodrow, The Story of Molly Ockett, 72.
• [107] Interview with an anonymous member of the Western Maine community by author. 16 August 2019.
• [108] Barbara Tedlock, “Divination as a Way of Knowing: Embodiment, Visualisation, Narrative, and Interpretation,” Folklore 112 no. 2 (October 2001), 192. 
• [109] Dena Lynn Winslow, “Bloodstoppers of the St. John Valley in Northern Maine and Western New Brunswick,” (University of Maine at Fort Kent: The Acadian Archives: Unpublished, 2015), 5. 
• [110] Dena Lynn Winslow, interview by author, tape recorded telephone conversation, 31 October 2019.  
• [111] MSAD #72, Student / Parent Handbook, 4.  
• [Image] Bust of Hannibal Hamlin photographed and displayed with permission of the Hamlin Memorial Library & Museum. 
• [Image] Portrait of Molly Ockett created by Arla Patch. Displayed with permission of the artist. www.arlapatch.com

Merging Legends

• [112] Dorothy Gross, “The Legend of Mollyockett and Snow Falls,” Advertiser Democrat (16 July 1987) 4. 
• [113] McBride, Women of the Dawn, 46-54.
• [114] Interviews with anonymous members of the Western Maine community by author. 16 August 2019 – 5 November 2019.
• [115] Joe Perham, “The Legend of Mollyocket,” Tales from the Maine Woods Volume One, Tourmaline Media, 2009. CD. 
• [Video] "The Legend of Mollyockett and Snow Falls" by Dorothy Gross, recited by Brandan Roberts, 2019.
• [Video] Ibid. Presented with permission of Joe Perham's Maine Humor and Tourmaline Media.
• [Image] Coloring book page. Carol Whitmore and Michael E. Day. Maine Folk History: In Story, Legend & Myth. Peaks Island, ME: Tide Grass Press, 1978.

Muddling Legends: Moll's Rock, Umbagog Lake, Errol, NH

• [116] “Magnificent Tales of Metallak,” New Hampshire State Parks, 10 July 2014, accessed 1 November 2019,  https://blog.nhstateparks.org/magnificent-tales-of-metallak/ 
• [117] Randall Bennett and Catherine S-C Newell, interview by author, tape recording, Bethel, ME. 30 October 2019.
• [118] True, “The Last of the Pigwackets.”

The Last of the Pequawkets

• [119] Sumner, Missisco Valley, 29.
• [120] McBride and Prins, “Walking the Medicine Line,” 343-344.
• [121] Jean M. O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians out of Existence in New England (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), xiii.
• [122] McBride, Women of the Dawn, 45.
• [123] True, “The Last of the Pequakets.” 
• [124] Ben Conant, interview by author, tape recording, Paris, ME. 1 November 2019.
• [125] Randall Bennett and Catherine S-C Newell, interview by author, tape recording, Bethel, ME. 30 October 2019.
• [126] William G. Archambeault, “The Current State of Indian Country Corrections in the United States” in American Indians at Risk, ed. Jeffrey Ian Ross (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2014), 86-88.
• [127] Patrick Wolf, “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4 (2006), 400-403. 
• [Image] Morin, Stacy. 1988. Wabanaki country: the Wabanaki and their Native American neighbors from ancient times to the early 18th century. Orrington, Me: Country Rds., Inc.
• [Image] Ramona du Houx, "Three of Maine's Native American Tribes affirm their right to govern themselves," Maine Insights, 2014, accessed 26 November 2019,  http://maineinsights.com/three-of-maines-native-american-tribes-a 

Molly Ockett Day, Bethel, ME

• [128] Jim Collins, “Old Home Days: A New England Tradition,” Yankee Magazine (July/August 2009), accessed 11 November 2019,  https://newengland.com/yankee-magazine/travel/new-england/things-to-do/old-home-days/ 
• [129] Donald G. Bennett, ed., “The First Mollyockett Day in Bethel – July 27, 1957,” The Bethel Journals, accessed 20 September 2019,  http://www.thebetheljournals.info/Events/First%20Mollyockett%20Day.pd f
• [130] Ibid.
• [131] O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting, xiii. 
• [132] Richard M. Dorson, American Folklore (Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 1959), 4.
• [133] Shanor, “Not So Good Old Days.”
• [134] C.A. Stephens, “The Kettle of the Singing Bird,” The Companion – For All the Family 87 no. 38 (19 September 1913): 478-479.
• [135] ICT Editorial Team, “Molly Ockett Days Festival Beginning to Truly Honor Native Namesake,” Indian Country Today (3 December 2013), accessed 20 October 2019,  https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/molly-ockett-days-festival-beginning-to-truly-honor-native-namesake-SwrHVJfHiE-c2DpBmGLFqQ/ 
• [136] Ibid.
• [137] Samuel Wheeler, “Float draws controversy, discussion and more,” The Bethel Citizen (8 August 2019), accessed 10 August 2019,  https://www.sunjournal.com/2019/08/08/float-draws-controversy-discussion-and-more/ 
• [138] Craig Ryerson and Jane Ryerson, “Actions speak louder than words,” The Bethel Citizen (25 July 2019), accessed 10 August 2019,  https://www.sunjournal.com/2019/07/25/actions-speak-louder-than-words/ 
• [139] Interviews with anonymous members of the Western Maine community by author. 16 August 2019 – 5 November 2019.
• [140] Wheeler, “Float draws controversy.” 
• [141] Interview with an anonymous member of the Penobscot Nation by author. 27 September 2019. 
• [142] Samuel Wheeler, "Molly Ockett Day to change name; observe Maine's 200th," The Bethel Citizen (13 February 2020), accessed 14 February 2020,  https://www.sunjournal.com/2020/02/13/molly-ockett-day-to-change-name-observe-maines-200th/ 
• [Image] "Princess Mollyockett" and a parade walker at the 2011 Mollyockett Day in Bethel. Photos accessed from The Bethel Journals, 2011 Bethel Journal News Highlights page on 27 November 2019.  http://www.thebetheljournals.info/2011NewsSummary.htm 
• [Image] Samuel Wheeler, “Float draws controversy, discussion and more,” The Bethel Citizen (8 August 2019), accessed 10 August 2019,  https://www.sunjournal.com/2019/08/08/float-draws-controversy-discussion-and-more/ 

Literature

• [143] C.A. Stephens, “The Kettle of the Singing Bird,” The Companion – For All the Family 87 no. 38 (19 September 1913): 479.
• [144] Ibid.
• [145] Ibid, 478. 
• [146a] Vermont Native Justice Abenaki, “Howl of the Canyon Wolf: Ne-Do-Ba.” 
• [146b] Bunny McBride, Molly Spotted Elk: A Penobscot in Paris, (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 69-70.
• [147] Randall Bennett and Catherine S-C Newell, interview by author, tape recording, Bethel, ME. 30 October 2019.
• [148] Ibid.
• [149] Karen Johnson, Singing Bird (self-published, 2013), 283.
• [150] McBride, Women of the Dawn, 45.
• [151] Dean R. Snow, “Eastern Abenaki,” in Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 15: Northeast, ed. Bruce G. Trigger (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978), 146. 
• [152] “Pigwacket Indian Tribe,” Native Languages, accessed 12 November 2019,  http://www.native-languages.org/definitions/pigwacket.htm 
• [153] Dragon Mama, “Excellent Teachable novel,” review of Mollyockett, by Pat Stewart, Amazon, 17 August 2005, accessed 10 November 2019,  https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RQM9M3K2PP6U1/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1885435436 
• [154] “Smith College to Present “Molly Has Her Say”,” Smith College (16 April 1999), accessed 1 November 2019,  https://www.smith.edu/newsoffice/releases/molly.html 

Perception of Molly Ockett

• [155] Gudrun Cram-Drach and Neva Cram, “Appendix 3: The Indians of Maine,” in Forest and Shore: Legends of the Pine Tree State, 150th Anniversary Edition, by Charles P. Ilsley (Portland, ME; Afterflight Publishing, 2006), 374.  
• [156] Shari M. Huhndorf, Going Native: Indians in the American Cultural Imagination (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 20-21. 
• [157] Huhndorf, Going Native, I62-163.
• [158] Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., The White Man’s Indian (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1978), 28. 
• [159] Ibid, 71-88. 
• [160] Ibid, 97.  
• [161] McBride and Prins, “Walking the Medicine Line,” 321.
• [162] The River Restaurant, “Molly Ockett’s Curse on Snow Falls,” menu.
• [163] Randall Bennett and Catherine S-C Newell, interview by author, tape recording, Bethel, ME. 30 October 2019.
• [164] Dena Lynn Winslow, interview by author, tape recorded telephone conversation, 31 October 2019.  
• [165] Randall Bennett and Catherine S-C Newell, interview by author, tape recording, Bethel, ME. 30 October 2019.
• [166] Correspondence with anonymous author, email, 26 October 2019.
• [167] Interview with an anonymous member of the Penobscot Nation by author. 28 September 2019.
• [168] Interview with an anonymous member of the Passamaquoddy Nation by author. 28 September 2019.
• [169] Interview with anonymous members of the Passamaquoddy Nation by author. 28 September 2019.
• [170] Interview with an anonymous member of the Penobscot Nation by author. 8 November 2019.  
• [Image] Sarah Winifred and Carey Pietsch. "A Lonely Line." In Colonial Comics, Volume II: New England, 1750-1775, edited by Jason Rodriguez, 22-31. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2016. Shown with permission from the publisher.
• [Image] Plaque dedicated to Molly Ockett (2016) at the Doctor Moses Mason House in Bethel, Maine. Shown with permission by the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society.
• [Image] Quilt commemorating Molly Ockett created by Donna Gillis, displayed at the Doctor Moses Mason House in Bethel, Maine. Shown with permission by the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society.
• [Image] Mural of Molly Ockett at the Mollyockett Motel, photographed by author and displayed with permission by the Mollyockett Motel.