Legends abound in the 178-mile course of the Androscoggin River from its headwaters at Umbagog Lake, Errol, N.H., to its confluence with the Kennebec at Merrymeeting Bay in Brunswick.

It’s said that Capt. John Smith first sighted the river on a voyage in 1614, some six years after his famed rescue by Pocahontas. Capt. Smith named it Aumouchawgan, according to a Lewiston Evening Journal Magazine Section story by Eloise M. Jordan printed March 7, 1981.

She touched on numerous legends associated with this great river. One story that’s familiar to history buffs in the L-A area tells of a Native American war party swept to destruction over the Great Falls one dark night when signal fires were set to mislead them.

Farther up the river, a celebrated Anasagunticook woman named Mollocket settled at Canton Point around 1775. Molly Ocket, as she came to be known, was widely respected for her herbal medicines. She lived to be more than 100 years old.

Legend has it that Molly Ocket visited Paris Hill at the birthplace of Hannibal Hamlin. Over his cradle, she prophesied that the baby would become a great man. Within 50 years, Hamlin became Abraham Lincoln’s vice president.

One of the river’s most fascinating legends concerns silver bullets and a lost silver mine. No, this was not an East Coast appearance of the Lone Ranger, but it had connections to the French and Indian Wars along the Canadian border in northern New Hampshire.

That mid-1700s struggle between the English and the Indians drifted back and forth between Maine and New Hampshire and the French rendezvous in Canada. It’s told that the Native Americans almost invariably used bullets (musket balls) which contained more than half silver.

“These remarkable bullets became the wonder of the whites, and the source from whence they were obtained was a mystery,” according to a Berlin website. “To this day, the secret has not been learned, but how near it once came to being known is told by an old resident of Berlin.”

That account written by Bailey K. Davis in the 1880s said the Androscoggin River, particularly between Berlin, N.H., and Newry, Maine, was a thoroughfare for powerful tribes.

“Some years before this town (Berlin) was organized, Mr. Benjamin Russell came through from Newry, Maine, on a hunting excursion, as far as what is now called Old Goose-Eye Mountain, but not meeting with the success anticipated, he started from that mountain to go back through to Newry, and got lost. It was four or five days before he came out on Bear River, nearly famished. When wandering around, about to descend a very steep place on the side of the mountain, and finding his hatchet a hindrance, he threw it down the declivity.

“To his surprise the tool embedded its edge in what looked to him a solid rock. Upon reaching the place he found that it was stuck in a vein of lead, so soft that it could be easily chipped. He stopped to cut out three or four pounds of the ore and, putting it into his pack, resumed his journey, thinking it would be an easy matter to find the isolated spot again,” Davis continued.

“He did succeed in finding his way out of the wilderness, and soon after he sent some of the ore to Boston to be assayed. It was found to be more than 60 percent silver. It was now evident where the Indians had found their ore for their silver bullets.

“Elated over his accidental discovery, Mr. Russell started to find the place again, but after days of anxious search he failed to find any sign which revealed the lost mine. This search he repeated from time to time, but he was never able to find the place, and to this day it remains undiscovered.”

Davis guessed that the vein of lead/silver resulted from ore that had been melted either by volcanic action or by lightning, so that vein had likely run out and no longer existed.

“So this old tradition is given for what it is worth,” Davis concluded, “but it seems very improbable that Mr. Russell should spend years of his life searching to again find the place where he obtained this valuable ore, if there were none.”

Dave Sargent is a freelance writer and a native of Auburn. He may be reached by email at [email protected].