Of note across the street from Dover’s Quaker meetinghouse

The home Isaac Wendell built by 1827 sits across Central Avenue from the Quaker meetinghouse.

I often parked next to it on the side street and admired the bird boxes and woodworking details on the ample barn and house additions.

He’s most noted as the cofounder with John Williams of the Dover Cotton Factory, the forerunner of the big mills downtown, but of interest to my story, he had married Anna Whittier, a close cousin of the celebrated poet John Greenleaf Whittier.

We can assume Greenleaf was a welcome guest there on his many visits to Dover.

Let me add, the relatively humane working conditions in the mills deteriorated drastically after Williams and Wendell lost control to new investors, leading to the first labor strike by women in America in 1828.

Wendell also shows up in the founding of the Sawyer Mills, which I discussed a week ago, as well as a foundry.