MERRILL FAMILY LINEAGE

Those who have made an extensive study of the English and French histories, genealogies and works of heraldry tell us that the Merrill Family of England was descended from the French Huguenot family De Merle of the Province of Auvergne in central France. This family migrated from this mountainous section of France after the bloody events of St. Bartholomew’s Day in Paris in 1572. The tragedy of St. Bartholomew's Day marked the culmination of the great struggle between Catholics and Protestants which devastated France in the latter half of the sixteenth century.

During the reign of Francis I and his three successors the Huguenot (French Protestant) character was formed and the nation gradually separated into two parties so fanatically hostile that the extermination of the weaker seemed the only possible means of reestablishing the unity of France. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day is one of those historic crimes which defeated its own purpose by reacting against perpetrators and advancing the cause of those who suffered. One eminent authorly stated that the evidence presented in the old Coat of Arms, taken along with all the other facts, was conclusive that the Merrill family of England was of French Huguenot origin.

The Coat of Arms as used today is described as, “Arms. Argent, a bar azure between 3 peacocks’ heads, proper. Crest, a peacock’s head erased proper."

About a hundred years passed from the time the Merrill family came to England and the time its descendants appeared in America. Richard and his wife Sarah Wells Merrill of the little country town of Warwickshire, on a rocky hill on the right bank of the Avon, left their English home and sailed for America and settled in Northfield, Staten Island, New York, about the year 1675. They had five sons, William, who went out west; Richard, who became a member of the Colonial Assembly and Judge of the County Court; Thomas, Philip and john. William 1, the eldest son of Richard and Sarah Merrill, started on a western journey. Going west in those days did not mean what it does today; a journey of a few miles was a great undertaking. We are able to trace his course down through Monmouth, New Jersey.

He owned land in Middletown in December 1693. It is evident that he did not remain there, for “on Dec. 2, I715, James Hubbard recorded the cattle ear mark formerly used by William Merrill.” It was only a short time until William’s name appeared on the tax lists at Hopewell. In 1722 the tax lists of Hopewell showed that he and his sons, William, Jr., and Benjamin were assessed for taxes. In fact, William, Sr., was assessed for 300 acres of land, 24 cattle and horses, et cetera. William, Sr. lived only a few years after his arrival in Hopewell; his Will was proved on February 23, 1724, in Hopewell.

In this Will he mentioned his sons William, Benjamin, and Joseph, and his loving wife, Grace. Benjamin and Joseph received the estate of their father. It appears that William, Jr., had already been given his endowment. William, Jr. was married in 1729-30 to Mrs. Penelope Stout Jewell, widow of Thomas Jewell. This was his second marriage.

Penelope was a granddaughter of Richard and Penelope Van Princess Stout, who were among the first and most distinguished settlers of the Hopewell district. William, Jr., and Penelope had three sons and one daughter. After a careful consideration of all the available records together with the family traditions and stories, we concluded that Capt. Benjamin and William Merrill of Rowan County, North Carolina, were two of the three sons of William Merrill, ]r., of Hopewell, and that Thomas was the other.
William, Jr.“ of Hopewell, died in 1740, and his widow, Penelope Merrill, refused to trouble herself with the small estate of her husband because it "will be profitless trouble for me which I am not able to undergo.” Soon after his death she married Isaac Herrin and lived until July II, 1776, when she died “in good old age.”