Ezra Merrick

Quick Facts

Date of Birth:

1744

Place of Death:

Albany, NY

Date of Death:

September 28, 1777

Ezra Merrick (born 1744) of Goffstown, New Hampshire, was the only son of a small Massachusetts-based family. Not long before the Revolutionary War began, Ezra left the colony and moved to New Hampshire to start a new life for himself. There, he met Sarah, ten years his junior, and the happy couple were wed on September 23, 1776.

With the Revolutionary War raging, Ezra decided to join the Continental Army to fight against British tyranny. On February 20, 1777, he signed up for a three-year term as a private soldier in Captain Stone’s Company, Colonel Alexander Scammell’s 3^rd New Hampshire Regiment. Having been married for only a few months, his departure from Sarah must have been difficult.

Ezra joined his regiment which was then located at the Northern Army fortress of Fort Ticonderoga, and he was present in time to face-off against the summertime British invasion from Canada. He evacuated with the rest of the Northern Army on July 6 before the British completed their envelopment maneuvers. The retreat south was a rough one, with sparse food, no shelter, and little in the way of spare clothing. Fortunes were reversed by mid-September, and the Northern Army was waiting for the British at Bemus Heights, located just north of Stillwater, New York.

But Ezra wasn’t there – he was a patient in the General Hospital at Albany. We don’t know what was wrong with him, but common ailments suffered amongst those from Scammell’s Regiment committed to the hospital that fall were the cough, dysentery, diarrhea, fractures, and those who were convalescing. Unfortunately, Ezra didn’t make it, and he died there on September 28, only days after his first wedding anniversary.

Ezra was probably buried near the hospital in an unmarked grave. He was 33 years old.

Sarah gave birth to their son, Ezra Jr., on August 29, one month before her husband’s death.