|
Samuel
Merrill, 1928, reprint 1983
Three
Students of the Family History - Chapter I,
pp1-16
Rev.
Samuel-Hill Merrill
To
Rev. Samuel-Hill Merrill, more than to any other individual,
is due credit for the collection and preservation of data
relating to the early generations of the Merrill family
in this country. His interest and industry saved from
oblivion many facts which otherwise would have been lost,
and the work which he performed, incomplete as it was,
has been the foundation on which all later students have
sought to build.
<
image Rev. Samuel-Hill Merrill autograph >
Mr.
Merrill’s son wrote that his father began his genealogical
work in 1850. Pastorates in various places in northern
New England gave him opportunity for much research in
town and church records, and this in his later years he
supplemented by correspondence with persons in more distant
places.
Not
long after Rev. Mr. Merrill’s death, Gyles Merrill
of Haverhill, Mass. chanced to be in Portland, and called
upon the widow to make inquiries with regard to the clergyman’s
genealogical papers. It appeared that members of the family
were little interested in the work which Mr. Merrill had
done in this field, and an arrangement was easily made
by which all the books and papers relating to the family
history came into the possession of Mr. Merrill of Haverhill.
These papers, now in the possession of the compiler of
this Memorial, have been freely used in the present work.
Rev.
Mr. Merrill was a painstaking student, and later research
has brought to light few serious errors in the written
records which he compiled. He seems not to have made much
effort to trace the history of the family in England,
and had made comparatively little progress in gathering
data regarding the later generations in this country,
but his tabulation of the descendants of Nathaniel2,
Abraham2, Daniel2 and Abel2,
for the first three or four generations, has been of great
value to those who have succeeded him in the work. To
the descendants of John2 of Hartford he paid
little attention.
Biographical
(see p535)
Samuel-Hill
Merrill was in the eighth generation of the American Merrill’s.
He descended from Daniel2 through John3,
Thomas4, Samuel5, Humphrey6
and James7, and was born 12 May, 1805, in Buxton,
Me.
After
preparatory studies in Troy and Albany, N.Y., he pursued
a theological course, from 1827 to 1830, with Rev. Jacob
Cummings, a Congregational clergyman of Stratham, N.H.
He was ordained 23 Feb. 1831, in Barrington, N.H., where
he remained as pastor about four years. In 1834 he went
to Indiana as agent of the American Tract Society, and
in 1836 became colleague with Dr. Lyman Beecher, pastor
of the Second Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati. He preached
at Center Harbor, N H., as stated supply, in 1838-40,
and was pastor at Amesbury Mills, Mass., from 1840 to
1844. After supplying pulpits at Kennebunkport and Old
Town, Me., he was installed as pastor of the Old Town
church, remaining there from 1846 to 1854. Later he held
pastorates at Bluehill and East Machias, Me. In 1856 he
took charge of the Bethel Church for Seamen in Portland,
and remained there until 1864, when he resigned to fill
a chaplaincy in the army.
Mr.
Merrill was commissioned chaplain of the First District
of Columbia Cavalry 19 Feb. 1864. He served with this
organization until it was merged with the First Maine
Cavalry, and then served as chaplain of the First Maine
until it was mustered out, 1 Aug. 1865. After the war
he wrote “Campaigns of the First Maine and First
District of Columbia Cavalry,” which was published
in Portland in 1866.*
In
July, 1866, Mr. Merrill was appointed agent of the American
Bible Society for New England, and held this position
three years. At the time of his death he had been supplying
the pulpit of the Congregational church in Scarboro, Me.,
for more than two years. He was stricken by paralysis
while in his pulpit, 31 Aug. 1873. There had been recent
deaths in the parish, and for this reason he took for
his text I Samuel, xx, 3: “There is but a step between
me and death.” Shortly after beginning his sermon
he paused, and seated himself on the sofa. He was carried
to his room, but his work was ended. He died in Scarboro
18 Sept. 1873, aged 68.
A
reunion of his regiment was being held in Bangor at the
time of his death. When the telegraph announced that his
life was over Rev. Dr. Teft, a former chaplain, said of
him, addressing the assembled veterans:
“He
was as good and faithful a chaplain as ever held the office.
Both in camp and on the battle-field he closely imitated
his Master; for he, like Him, ‘went about doing good:
Other men in his position would think it enough to do
what was set before them; but he waited for no man to
point out the ways of usefulness. He sought and found
them for himself; and yet nothing, as you all know, ever
did him so great a pleasure as to be informed where he
could be of service to his suffering comrades and to his
country’s cause. To bless the soldier, to encourage
him in the hour of danger, to impart to him the consolations
of religion when stricken down, was more than his meat
and drink. But I need not enlarge; you know it all. His
memory is sacred to every one of you; it will remain with
you till your own dying day.”
Mr.
Merrill married Hannah Prentice, daughter of Rev. Josiah
Prentice of Northwood, N.H., 9 Nov. 1832. His children
were:
Edward-Payson9
Merrill, born 7 Nov. 1834; a 1st Lieutenant in Co. D,
First Maine Cavalry, while his father was chaplain, and
later a commission merchant in Portland. (He was still
living there in 1920.)
Susan-Frentice9,
born 6 April, 1840; married 12 Mar. 1873, Thomas Brackett
Reed, for twenty-two years a member of Congress from Maine,
and for six years Speaker of the House. (Mrs. Reed died
28 May, 1914, at her home in Portland. She left an estate
of more than $600,000. Of this $100,000 was given to her
brother Edward, and most of the remainder to her only
child Katherine, wife of Arthur Ballantine of San Diego,
Cal.)
Marion-Calista9,
born 10 Jan. 1842; married Rev. Charles Dana Barrows,
D.D., a Congregational clergyman who held pastorates in
San Francisco and in Lowell, Mass.
Some
years ago a veteran of the First Maine Cavalry told me
of Chaplain Merrill and the high esteem in which he was
held by the men of the regiment. On one occasion, he said,
a portion of the regiment was on a transport floating
down one of the Virginia rivers. It was a Sunday, but,
to pass the time away, some of the men, idling on the
deck of the steamer, began a game of cards. Soon the chaplain
chanced that way. He looked sadly at the card-players,
and slowly passed on, but said nothing.
“We
knew that the chaplain didn’t like it,” said
the narrator. “He didn’t say anything, but he
looked grieved, and none of us wanted to hurt his feelings.
It was surprising how quickly we lost interest in that
game! So the cards were put away, and the game ended.”
David
Norton, author of “Sketches of the Town of Old Town,”
(published 1881, page 101), describes Mr. Merrill as “a
man of distinguished ability, personally attractive, of
the greatest suavity of manner and address, winning his
way into the good graces and opinions of all classes of
society. . . . He was of that kind of temperament which
required a good deal of exercise, and he was fond of getting
away into the forest and spending a week or so in hunting
and fishing. . . . He was very fond of children, and the
parson was ever ready to unbend himself and ‘become
a boy again,’ and was as much interested as they
were in a game of romp or hide and seek.”
*
An episode which occurred before Petersburg
in the winter of 1864-5 is related by Chaplain Merrill
at Pages 310-314. It is a vivid account of a visit which
he paid during a heavy bombardment to a fort in which
was stationed the Twentieth Michigan Volunteer Infantry,
Lieut.-Col. Grant commanding. Some twenty-five years ago
I met Judge Claudius B. Grant of Lansing, Mich., a justice
of the Supreme Court of the State, and he told me that
he was the Lieut.-Col. Grant mentioned in the narrative.
Judge Grant was a native of Maine, the son of Joseph and
Mary-A.7 (Merrill) Grant, and grandson of Nathaniel6
Merrill (Nathaniel5, John4,3, Nathaniel2)
of Brownfield, Me.
Judge Grant was born 25 Oct. 1835, and
died 28 Feb. 1921.
A portrait of Chaplain Merrill, in military
uniform, is given in Tobie's "History of the First
Main Cavalry" (1887), page 320.
NEXT
If
you have further information on the book, "A Merrill
Memorial" and would like to share it with others,
please contact
me.
|
