John Stockbridge served in the Revolutionary War for seven years and four months. He spent three years in a Regiment with General George Washington
Stockbridge was born in Pembroke, Massachusetts, on August 11, 1757. He married Mary Dillingham on March 9, 1786. Both were of North Yarmouth, Maine.
John and Mary Stockbridge had five children, all born in Freeport, Maine (then Massachusetts), John Jr. b. 1787, William b. 1788, Edward b. 1790, twins Keziah and Polly (Mary) b. 1795.
After their children were born, they moved west to a settlement later known as Dixfield, where it is said that Stockbridge built the first cabin in that settlement. John and his son, John Jr., are both listed as families in the 1810 census of Dixfield. Apparently he did not stay there long, although his married children did.
Caroline W. D. Rich, daughter of John Stockbridge, Jr., writes of her grandfather: “About the year 1813 the State of Massachusetts sent surveyors into the western part of Maine to locate towns. John Stockbridge was well fitted for such work because of his Army life of marching and threading unbroken forests. He was engaged for the Commonwealth and spent much time during the next two years in this way. It was during one of these expeditions that his part came to the hills near the Ellis Ponds. The southern slope and hardwood growth made it seem admirably fitted for raising wheat and other grain. So he selected the slope of the spur of Mt. Pleasant for a home for his sons.”
John Stockbridge died in Byron, Maine, on August 23, 1820, the year Maine became a state. His widow, Mary Dillingham Stockbridge, then made her home with her eldest son, John Stockbridge, Jr. She died January 4, 1840, at the age of 84.
John Stockbridge, Jr. married Caroline Leavitt of Turner, Maine. Their daughter, Caroline Webster Dillingham Rich, organized the Mary Dillingham Chapter, Lewiston, Maine, in 1895 naming it in honor of her grandmother. This 126-year-old continues to be very active.