Highlighting Historical Hampden

Text by Karyn Field with images from the Hampden Historical Society and the Penobscot Marine Museum

Have you ever wondered what mental health activist Dorothea Dix, U.S. Vice President (1861-1865), Hannibal Hamlin, world renowned author Stephen King, Major League baseball player Mike Bordick, and NASCAR driver Ricky Craven have in common? The fact is all of these noted people have strong ties to Hampden, Maine. While some were born and raised in the area, and others came to live and work in the town later in life, they all spent time living in and enjoying the many wonderful aspects of the town, including its historic high school, Hampden Academy. Since the 1990s drivers on Route 1A entering Hampden have been welcomed by signs depicting Dorothea Dix and Hannibal Hamlin. However, long before these famous Mainers came to Hampden, the first settlers were laying the groundwork and helping create what would one day become a very desirable place to live and work.

Hampden has been described as “perhaps, the most famous of the old towns of the county—famous by reason of its antiquity, its favorable situation upon the Penobscot, and the stirring events which occurred within it during the last war with Great Britain.” (History of Penobscot County Maine with illustrations and biographical sketches 1882) The Penobscot River forms the east border of the town for just over six miles. The Sowadabscook Stream is the outlet for three ponds and its rushing water allowed for much needed water power early in the settlement of the town. This wealth of available water was very attractive to early settlers on Massachusetts’ frontier. Long before the settlement of Hampden, the native people named places for characteristics that they observed in their natural surroundings. The historian Fannie Hardy Eckstorm wrote that Native Americans named the Souadabscook Stream, which in their language meant “sloping ledge stream." (Eckstorm 1941)

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