The Journey Home: Back to My Roots
Deane Whitney Merrill, Jr.
September 1999 (revised January
2008)
This article was published in Mt. Massaemet
Shadows, Vol.21, Nos.2&3, Summer/Fall 1999,
published by the Shelburne
Historical Society, Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts.
In my childhood in South
Orange, New Jersey, I always knew
that Shelburne Falls,
Massachusetts
was the place where my grandfather was born and spent his childhood. But my
grandfather never took the time to take me there, and I had never even seen a
photograph nor consulted a map to determine the location of Shelburne Falls.
That was curious indeed, since I attended nearby Deerfield
Academy and later Williams College.
My grandfather, Charles Arthur Merrill 1875-1968, was graduated from Arms Academy
in 1893 and from Amherst
College in 1897. He took
me to see Amherst,
hoping to persuade me to select his own Alma Mater, but still he
neglected the short side trip to show me his birthplace! In retrospect I think
his lack of interest in Shelburne
Falls was related to his
taste for big-city life. Around 1900 he left Shelburne
Falls for New York
City, and later settled in northeastern New Jersey.
I and my father, Deane Whitney Merrill 1908-1987,
were both named after my great-grandfather Cordeanio Harley Merrill 1840-1908.
The source of the Italian-sounding name Cordeanio is a mystery. In our living
room in New Jersey hung an oil portrait of
Cordeanio as a young boy, painted above the Deerfield River
around 1845. Family records and other artifacts were packed away in trunks, but
we never thought to pull them out and discuss them while my grandfather was
still living. To an active young family, the past is never as interesting as
the present! After I had left home, I was aware that my father was busily
researching our family history, but I never gave another thought to Shelburne Falls.
In 1996 I was a research scientist in Berkeley, California,
contemplating retirement. My wife Chris had come from the mountains of North Carolina, and we were both tired of struggling with
the traffic, expense, and crime of urban America. I was in close touch with
my younger brother Jon, who continued studying the family history after my
father's death in 1987. Jon loved driving around the Northeast and
photographing the homes where our ancestors had lived. A few years earlier he
had come to Shelburne
Falls to photograph the
house at 22 Mechanic Street,
where Cordeanio had lived. The house was sold after the death of Cordeanio's
widow in 1940. On Jon's visit, he brought with him an 1898 photograph of the
house, which he shared with the family which was then renting the second floor.
They exchanged addresses, and when the house was offered for sale in 1996 the
family notified Jon.
Jon sent me photographs of the house - present day
and 1898. I was astonished by its size and its former beauty - totally unlike
what I had imagined. I learned that Shelburne
Falls, far from being a defunct New England mill town, is a charming, vibrant community
on an upward path. My wife had long cherished a dream of creating a Bed and
Breakfast. From California
we learned the condition of the house - sadly neglected but not beyond hope. I
could hardly sleep until our offer was accepted, dreading to let the seller
know how desperately I wanted this house that had once belonged to my family.
We settled on a price at long distance, from California. Driving into Shelburne Falls
for the first time in March 1997, I was surprised and overwhelmed by the lovely
streets and unblemished 19th century homes. Tears were in my eyes as
I first stepped into our new house - the 15-room ancestral home I had never
seen. The next 18 months were a delirious blur - I finished my research,
juggled mortgages and wrote endless checks from Berkeley, while Chris and her mother Laura
endured clouds of dust and supervised renovations for the future Bed and
Breakfast. Bear Haven B&B is named in honor of Chris' many Teddy Bears, who
arrived amidst sixteen tons of other belongings. We received our first guests
in August 1998.
The reason for this article is my exciting
discovery of the Merrill family history in Shelburne Falls.
In California
I continued the research done by my father and my brother Jon. I published
Jon's genealogy database on the World Wide Web and began to receive inquiries
from distant cousins. One message came from Ted Merrill of Shelburne Falls,
who I learned is my ninth cousin. On the Internet, I studied other databases
and continued to "grow" my family tree. Jon bought a scanner, and we
added family photos to our Web pages. I visited the local Mormon library
(Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and studied old Census records. I
found dozens of Merrills in Shelburne, most of whom I could not connect to my
family tree. I bought all the back issues of a Merrill newsletter. I was
visited by Howard and Jean Merrill of Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, who have spent years cataloging
every known Merrill, living or dead, in the United States.
Right after moving to Shelburne
Falls, I located all the Merrill
gravestones in Arms
Cemetery. (Doris Wheeler
has transcribed every inscription, in an enormous volume which has yet to be
indexed). The 1845 portrait of Cordeanio, painted above the Ravine at the end
of Mechanic Street,
hangs again in its original home. In Pratt Memorial Library I found vital
records for all the towns of Massachusetts
through 1849. I learned how the Merrills are related to other Shelburne families,
including Severance, Barnard, Whitney, Hardy, Bardwell, Howard, Coleman,
Childs, and Purinton. I visited the library in Shelburne
Center, and the Pocumtuck Valley
Memorial Association library in Deerfield. I
poked through land records and the probate records at the County Court House in
Greenfield.
Further afield, I visited genealogical libraries in Springfield
and Boston.
My continuing challenge is to disentangle the
origins and connections of the Merrills who lived in Shelburne. The definitive
Merrill genealogy, the 1928 Merrill Memorial, contains little about the
Shelburne Merrills. Local records mention at least two Merrills in Shelburne at
the time of the Revolution: Joseph Merrill 1773-1844 who married Lucinda
Whitney 1776-1857, and Thaddeus Merrill 1777-1855 who married Achsah Severance
1784-1872. The two wives were first cousins, and the origins of their families are well known. Although
firm evidence is lacking, I believe that Joseph and Thaddeus Merrill were first
cousins once removed, both descended from John Merrill 1706-1741 of Haverhill.
[note added in 2008]: My
original guess was correct, but it took ten years of research to find the
proof. See:
Who was the father
of Joseph MERRILL who married Lucinda WHITNEY and died in 1844? and
Who
were the parents of Thaddeus MERRILL 1777-1855?
Joseph Merrill, my great-great-great-grandfather,
was the first postmaster of Shelburne
Falls. In the 1830's he
operated a tavern on present-day Bridge
Street, then on the stage route between Boston and Albany.
Joseph had eight children and at his death owned five properties in Shelburne
and Buckland. One daughter, Emily, married the banker Jarvis B. Bardwell. A
son, Joseph Jr., married Martha Bardwell and built the Shelburne Falls Hotel in
1851. The youngest son, my great-great-grandfather Moses Whitney Merrill
1817-1859, worked in the hotel with his brother Joseph Jr., and in 1852
purchased from his brother-in-law Jarvis Bardwell the property that would
become 22 Mechanic Street.
The hotel tradition continued with my great-grandfather Cordeanio Merrill, who
managed the Crawford House hotel in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and
with Cordeanio's brother Henry Whitney Merrill, who managed hotels in California, and now with
our Bear Haven Bed and Breakfast!
Thaddeus Merrill 1777-1855 fathered eleven sons
and two daughters in Shelburne
Falls. His wife Achsah
Severance Merrill was the granddaughter of the Indian fighter Martin Severance
1718-1810, who built the first cabin in Shelburne Falls.
The house where Achsah was born is the oldest residence still standing in the
Village. A newspaper article relates that in her seventies she won the female
equestrian competition at the county fair, and that her hair had not a trace of
gray. Thaddeus' son Ira Merrill 1803-1866 followed in his father's footsteps
and became a prominent stone mason in Shelburne Falls.
Ira patented innovative techniques for the quarrying and finishing of stone.
Two other sons, Solomon Fellows Merrill 1820-1898 and Martin Severance Merrill
1818-1887, along with Jonathan Nims b.1817, formed in 1835 the Shelburne Falls
Military Band, which has continued uninterrupted until this day. Other early
Merrill band members were my ancestors Moses Whitney Merrill and Cordeanio
Harley Merrill.
Appropriately for a master stone worker, Ira's
grave site in Arms Cemetery, Shelburne
Falls, is an imposing
pink granite monument, surrounded by smaller markers for many of his family
members. Ira and his sons built dozens of major stone structures in western
Massachusetts between 1850 and 1900, including banks, hotels, churches,
libraries, and bridges as far away as Williamstown and Northampton. Most
prominent of Ira's sons was George Gilson Merrill 1836-1912, whose name appears
on the 1890 iron bridge which crosses the Deerfield
River at Shelburne Falls.
The most prominent building in Shelburne
Falls today is the former
Shelburne Falls Hotel, constructed by Ira Merrill for Joseph Merrill Jr. In the
late 19th century, the Shelburne Falls House was renowned for its unique dance
floor, which was supported on springs! Another local attraction is a stone fire
observation tower on the summit of nearby Mt.
Massaemet, which was constructed in
1909 by George Gilson Merrill's son Roy Stanley Merrill, who was graduated from
Dartmouth College in 1902.
I would like to hear from other persons who know
about the Merrills of Shelburne Falls, or other families related to them. What
I have learned so far is available on the Internet, at http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=dm_franklin.
More generally, I am interested in the history and genealogy of all the
families of Shelburne
Falls, and I invite
others with similar interests to contact me.
[note added in 2008] Bear
Haven Bed and Breakfast was sold in 2006 and renamed the Dancing Bear Guest House. Chris and I moved to Asheville,
North Carolina; a few months later
my brother Jon followed, and is living nearby.
Deane Merrill, 96
Beverly Road, Asheville NC 28805.
Tel. 828-505-0763. Email: dwmerrill@charter.net
Jonathan Merrill, 285 Haw Creek
Mews Drive, Asheville NC 28805.
Tel. 828-505-1043. Email: jonmerrill@aol.com
roots2.html revised
1/11/2008 in:
dennie2:\\c:\dwmerrill\shs\massaemet\990901\
http://merrill.olm.net/shs/massaemet/990901/
Cordeanio Harley
Merrill 1840-1908
at The Ravine, Shelburne
Falls, ca.1845
Moses Whitney
Merrill 1817-1859 and Cordeanio Harley Merrill 1840-1908
in Shelburne Falls Military Band, ca.1855
22 Mechanic Street, Shelburne Falls,
ca.1898
Moses Whitney Merrill homestead, 1852