LEWISTON — Mary Dillingham-Burnt Meadow Chapter, Daughters of the Revolution – as it is now called since its merger with the Burnt Meadow Chapter of Sabattus in 2015 – is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. To celebrate, the DAR Chapter has donated $450 to the Androscoggin Historical Society.

When the Sons of the American Revolution voted to exclude women, the DAR was chartered in January 1895. “It must become apparent that if women were to accomplish any distinctive patriotic work, it must be within their own circle and under their own leadership,” said co-founder Letitia Green Stevenson. And accomplish they have, from the DAR Hospital Corps (now the Army Nurse Corps) to local achievements such as founding the Androscoggin Historical Society and the Lewiston Public Library.

The Androscoggin Historical and Antiquarian Society was conceived on June 10, 1922, at a meeting of the Mary Dillingham Chapter. The meeting was an outing, and the talk turned to preserving historical items owned by the members, as well as needing a place for the collection of Sen. William P. Frye, whose daughters were charter members of the chapter.

At the next meeting, the chapter discussed founding the society and appointed a committee to look into the matter. “Thus it was,” wrote an early president of the society, James Philoon, “that the Daughters of the American Revolution became the Mother of the Society.”