Mary Dillingham Chapter was organized January 1895 as the second chapter in Maine. The organizing Chapter Regent was Mrs. Caroline Webster Stockbridge Downs Rich, daughter of John Stockbridge, Jr. and Anna Leavitt; granddaughter of John Stockbridge and Mary Dillingham of Byron, Maine and Joseph Leavitt and Anna Stevens of Turner, Maine.

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A Real Daughter

Julia Wendell Butler

Mrs. Butler was a member of Mary Dillingham Chapter. She was the daughter of Thomas Wendell, born in Marblehead, MA, July 13, 1779, and died in Farmington, Maine, November 19. 1862, and Elizabeth Eaton, born in Farmington, April 6, 1774 and died June 17, 1843. Julia Wendell was born July 23, 1815, married Francis G. Butler July 23, 1842, and they were the parents of four children. Julia died in 1907.

The Wendell family was of Dutch origin, emigrating to New York in 1640. At the outbreak of the Revolution, Thomas Wendell and his family were living in Marblehead, Massachusetts. While in his aid to the Colonies, he was captured by the British and died on the prison ship Jersey in New York Harbor in 1777, leaving six children.

The eldest child, Thomas was born July 13, 1770. His boyhood was spent amid the early hostilities of the Revolution. The fortune of his family was lost, with his father dead and his mother having to raise six children alone. He obtained a position in 1780 as cabin boy on the ship Porus, a privateer fitted by Hon. E. Haskett Derby, a wealthy merchant of Salem. At the close of the war, Mr. Wendell accompanied his uncle Moses Starling to Farmington in 1786 where he worked as a carpenter. When he became of age in 1791, he began clearing a farm and pursued farming as well as mechanical industry.

He was a strong Congregationalist and was one of the founders of the Old South Congregational Church in Farmington. After his death in 1862, a Memorial Window was designed in his memory. He was an avid reader and took an interest in the establishment of the Farmington Academy in 1807. He served the town of Farmington as selectman and surveyor of highways.

Thomas Wendell and Elizabeth Eaton were married in 1795 and had eleven children.