Hannibal Hamlin - Later Life and Death

Later Life and Death

Not content with private life, Hamlin returned to the U.S. Senate in 1868 to serve two more 6-year terms before declining to run for re-election in 1880 because of an ailing heart. His last duty as a public servant came in 1881 when then-Secretary of State James G. Blaine convinced President James A. Garfield to name Hamlin as United States Ambassador to Spain. On June 30, 1881, Hamlin was appointed as the United States Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain (the ministerial post's official title until 1913 when it became Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary). On December 20, 1881, Hamlin was officially presented with ambassadorship credentials and held the post until October 17, 1882.

Upon returning from Spain in the fall of 1882, Hamlin retired from public life to his home in Bangor, Maine, which he had previously purchased in 1851. The Hannibal Hamlin House – as it is known today – is located in central Bangor at 15 5th Street; incorporating Victorian, Italianate, and Mansard-style architecture, the mansion was posted to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

On Independence Day, July 4, 1891, Hamlin collapsed and fell unconscious while playing cards at the Tarratine Club he founded in downtown Bangor. He was then placed on one of the club's couches and died in the evening a few hours later. He was 81. Hannibal Hamlin was buried with honors in the Hamlin Family plot at Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor, Maine. He survived 6 of his successors: Andrew Johnson, Schuyler Colfax, Henry Wilson, William A. Wheeler, Chester Arthur, and Thomas A. Hendricks and from 1887-1889 was the only living Vice-President having outlived all of his successors.