View from Oldtown Hill - Looking Southeast

   In the foreground is Newbury Oldtown, its houses grouped about the Lower Green. At the right is the old bridge across Parker River, connecting with the Neck, where John and Nathaniel Merrill's first homestead lots were situated.

   At the left of the picture, just below the little flock of birds, is the mouth of the Parker River, Cape Merrill being the point of land at the mouth of the stream on the left. Beyond Cape Merrill lies Plum Island, and on the horizon, just at the left of the birds, far out in the Atlantic, is seen the extremity of Cape Ann, a dozen miles away.

   At the right of the center of the picture, at the southern extremity of Plum Island, is the mouth of the Ipswich River. Salt marshes, dotted with stacks of hay, are seen in the middle distance, on both sides of Parker River.

(From a photograph made in 1892.)

    Source: A Merrill Memorial, Samuel Merrill, 1928, reprint 1983, p61.