George Merrill

Quick Facts

Significance:

Boston Vigilance Committee member, Merchant

Place of Birth:

Newburyport, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

August 10, 1803

Place of Death:

Newburyport, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

March 9, 1872 

Place of Burial:

Newburyport, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Oak Hill Cemetery

Merchant George Merrill served as a member of the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee.

Born on August 10, 1803, in Newburyport, Massachusetts, George Merrill lived and worked in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as a commission merchant. In 1831, Merrill married Margaret Coolidge of Newburyport. Eventually, Merrill left Philadelphia for Boston. There, the couple raised their family, and George continued to work as a merchant. Merrill also became ordained as a Unitarian minister.¹

Following the passage of a newFugitive Slave Law in 1850, Merrill joined others in “Rocking the Old Cradle of Liberty,” by calling for a meeting to be held in Faneuil Hall. Abolitionists there created the third and final iteration of the Boston Vigilance Committee, an organization dedicated to helping freedom seekers coming to Boston on the Underground Railroad. Merrill served as a member of the committee, however, his direct contributions remain unknown.²

In addition to abolition, Merrill supported other social reforms such as pacifism. He joined the League of Human Brotherhood and served as treasurer for the Peace Congress Committee, alongside fellow Vigilance Committee members such as Theodore Parker, Samuel Sewall, Elias Gray Loring, Henry I. Bowditch, and Francis Jackson.³

Merrill also founded the “Children’s Mission to the Children of the Destitute,” after being inspired by his daughter Fannie who had taken it upon herself to collect money from her classmates to help children in need. The organization provided children in need with support such as food, shelter, and education.⁴

Merrill died on March 9, 1872. He is buried in Newburyport, Massachusetts in the Oak Hill Cemetery.⁵ Others remembered Merrill’s commitment to helping others: 

Mr. Merrill’s life was quiet, unassuming and uneventful; but, in all its relations, a life dictated by an ever active conscientiousness, and a sense of duty that governed it throughout, in small matters as well as great.⁶

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Footnotes

1. “The Death of Mr. George Merrill,” Boston Evening Transcript, March 9, 1872, 8; “Married,” The United States Gazette, November 4, 1831, 3.
2. “Rocking of the Old Cradle of Liberty,” Liberator, October 18, 1850, 2; Merrill is mapped at 5 Commercial Street, as is listed on "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850, Massachusetts Historical Society. 
3. The National Era, May 1, 1851, 71.   
4. “Obituary,” Boston Globe, March 11, 1872, 8; “The Death of Mr. George Merrill,” Boston Evening Transcript, March 9, 1872, 8. 
5. “George Merrill,” Find A Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20881929/george-merrill. 
6. “The Death of Mr. George Merrill,” Boston Evening Transcript, March 9, 1872, 8.