Caledonia

MERRILL, David

Vermont Historical Magazine, No. XI, October 1867, pp 365-366
(extracted from a section on the history of Peacham, Caledonia County, 
Vermont)

David MERRILL was born 08 September 1798 at Peacham [Caledonia County, 
Vermont], son of Jesse and Priscilla MERRILL. He was of the seventh 
generation from Nathaniel MERRILL, who settled in Ipswich [Essex County], 
Massachusetts, in 1638. His parents came to Peacham in March 1789. Their 
children, all born in Peacham, were twin sons and three daughters. Three of 
their sons have been members of Dartmouth College; James, the oldest, 
graduated in 1812; David in 1821. David MERRILL made a profession of 
religion in 1817, along with sixty-nine others, who united with the church 
the same day. Turning his attention to the work of the ministry, he 
graduated at Andover [Andover Theological Seminary] in 1825; was licensed to 
preach the gospel the same year, and the year after emigrated to the West. 
After preaching in various places in Indiana and Illinois, he came in 1827 to 
Urbana [Champaign County], Ohio, was installed over the Presbyterian Church 
in that town, and there remained fourteen years. Unanimously invited to 
succeed Rev. Mr. Leonard WORCHESTER at Peacham, the invitation was accepted, 
and he was installed 09 September 1841.

Mr. MERRILL was the author of the popular temperance tract, "Oz Sermon." It 
was written and published in a village newspaper in Urbana in 1832. The 
Temperance Society next published it in an extra newspaper form, issuing more 
than two million copies. Nest it was adopted as a permanent tract by the 
American Tract Society, who printed more than 200,000 copies. In this way it 
ahs had an immense circulation, and no doubt does great good. That sermon 
reveals that cast of his mind, as original, shrewd, logical, and sagacious, 
one who knew what he was going to say, and having said it, knew when to stop. 
Having taken his position, he was not easily driven therefrom. He respected 
human authorities, but his convictions were superior to authorities, the 
Bible being his great guide in policy and theology. As a preacher, earnest, 
sincere, awakening, he made a most faithful application of truth in the 
hearts and consciences of his hearers. Dying in "manhood's middle day," he 
still lives, and will live long in the hearts of many, both east and west. 
He [Rev. Mr. David MERRILL] died of erysipelas, after a short and distressing 
sickness of four days, on 22 July 1850, aged fifty-one years. A volume of 
his sermons, compiled by Thomas Scott PEARSON, was published in 1855, in 
which is prefixed a short biographical memoir. It is a fact of interest that 
the last sermon of the volume, from the text, "What I do thou knowest not 
now, but thou shalt know hereafter," was never preached. He left a widow and 
ten children, of whom all but one are living at this writing.

Submitted by Cathy Kubly