A few years before the genealogy bug bit me, a cousin had sent my mother a copy of our Merrill line. So thankfully, when I first started researching my family tree I had names to plug into Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org and Google. Yes, I'm one of the internet generation. It took my awhile to visit courthouses and libraries!! As these sites worked their magic, I watched generations of my Merrill ancestors unfold before me. Woo Hoo!!! But in my excitement at my findings, I probably made every mistake a newbie can make. Believing everything I read, having no documentation and not citing the sources I did find. Uggg!!Online, I had found the basic information about Nathaniel. Where he was born, who his family was and how he ended up in Massachusetts. But it didn't seem like enough. Something drove me. I felt a burning desire to know Nathaniel Merrill. And I thought, was the information I found about him even true? He had come to the Massachusetts Bay Colony between 1635 and 1639. But why? I wondered what made him leave his home and country, board a rickety ship (by our standards) with his family and brave the hardships of sea travel. I realized I needed to know what was going on in his world at that time, that would cause him take that ship and sail to a new land.
My studies brought me to the 1917-1928 work of Samuel Merrill, " A Merrill Memorial: An Account of the Descendants of Nathaniel Merrill, An Early Settler of Newbury Massachusetts". That's where I started. After I'd gleaned as many facts and clues as I could, I went on to study the Massachusetts Bay Company, Puritans, John Winthrop and English history during that time frame.
In a nutshell this is what I found. After Henry VIII's break with the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England (Anglican) was the state religion. During the 1630's, Charles I was king. Charles, seeking religious conformity through out England, was at odds with the dissenter Puritans (a derogatory name for them at that time) over the use of the Book of Common Prayer. They did not want to use it in their church services. The King and the Archbishop of Canterbury put increasing pressure on the Puritans to embrace a form of worship they did not agree with.
It was in this atmosphere that the members of the Massachusetts Bay Company sought and received their charter to set up a plantation in Massachusetts. This company was mainly Puritan, so through their influence, many Puritan individuals, families and even church congregations left for the new world. They wanted to be part of John Winthrop's "City on a Hill". Since Suffolk Co. England was a hotbed of Puritan activity, it is no surprise that brothers John and Nathaniel Merrill joined the exodus.
It is estimated that 80,000 English men and women left England for New England during the Great Migration from 1620-1640.
After sifting through all my information and finding my own documentation and connecting each generation, here is my Merrill family branch. Stephanie, Annabelle, Lewis W., Samuel W., Lewis L., Samuel, Nathaniel, John, John, Nathaniel, Nathaniel (Patriarch)
Nathaniel Merrell, baptized May 4, 1601, Wherstead, Suffolk, Eng. Born to Nathaniel and Mary (Blacksoll) Merrell. His brother John's August 16, 1599 baptism was also found in the Register of Wherstead, Suffolk, Eng. He married Susanna (poss. Wilterton/Wolterton) probably in England, as there is no marriage record in America. Nathaniel arrived in Massachusetts between 1635-1639 with his brother John. It is speculated that he and his brother arrived on the Hector in 1635 and that Nathaniel then went back for his family but no documentation has been found for this theory. A newly found record does place Nathaniel in Lawford, Essex, England for the baptism of his daughter Susanna , Dec. 12, 1638. Records also show that that John Merrill applied for a home site of four acres in Newbury for his unnamed brother and that said brother was not there to claim it himself as of July 23, 1638. This lends more credibility to his 1639 arrival date. Nathaniel died March 16, 1655 in Newbury and is buried in the Bury Ground of the First Settlers in Newbury, MA. His will was proved March 27, 1655 in Essex Co., MA. His children were: Nathaniel, John, Abraham, Susanna, Daniel and Abel.In 2004 I was able to take a "roots trip" to New England with my mother and sister-in-law. We visited the cemetery where Nathaniel is buried and noticed that one of his descendants had placed a new stone for him. We also saw the First Settlers monument that bears his name. Visiting the town he lived in and walking where he might have walked had a deep impact on me.
Of all the things I studied about Nathaniel, what touched me the most was his will and the inventory of his possessions. Reading his words, "I, Nathaniel Merrill of Newbury..."and seeing his bequests and modest estate, he somehow became real to me. Actually, after all these years it still surprises me. What do I feel for you, Grandfather with so many generations separating us? Is this just my genealogist's heart speaking? I do know that I'm very grateful for your leap of faith. That I find myself on this side of the Atlantic instead of the other. Also, I feel very blessed to have gotten a glimpse into your life and I appreciate your efforts to live in a godly manner. I know I'll never see your likeness in this life but maybe I'll see you in the next. Thank you, Nathaniel, for the decisions you made that have influenced my life, your contribution to making me who I am today and for the heritage you left me.