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Pioneer Database

1847–1868

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Date Unknown

Date Unknown

Birth Date
12 November 1820
Death Date
15 September 1904
Gender
Male
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Philemon Christopher Merrill Sr.

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  • Merrill crossed the plains several times. On his first trip, in 1847, he served as the 3rd Lieutenant for that company. He served as a clerk in the Silas Richards company, traveling with his wife and three children. He crossed the plains at least two more times, once in 1851 and again in 1856.

    The inscription on his gravestone in Arizona shows his name as "P. C. Merrill."

Levi W. Hancock/Jefferson Hunt/James Pace/Andrew Lytle Company (1847)

  • Age at Departure: 26
  • Head of Household

Silas Richards Company (1849)

  • Age at Departure: 28
  • Head of Household

Traveled with

  • Cyrena Merrill (Age: 32)
  • Sabrina Lodena Merrill (Age: 7)
  • Philemon Christopher Merrill Jr. (Age: 4)
  • Melissa Jane Merrill (Age: Infant)

Thomas S. Williams Freight Train (1851)

  • Age at Departure: 30

Philemon C. Merrill Company (1856)

  • Age at Departure: 35
  • Company Captain

Sources

  • 1850 Utah Census, Salt Lake County.
  • Camp of Israel schedules and reports, 1845-1849.
  • Crook, John, Autobiography, in Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Collection, 1828-1963, reel 12, item 6, 8-10.
  • Early Missionary Database
  • Find a Grave (Website)
  • Higbee, Emma Isabelle Carroll Seegmiller, Biographical Sketch of Kazia Giles Carroll, in Family histories [n.d.].
  •  Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Supplement after 31 December 1849, 5G.
  • Merrill, Philemon Christopher, Autobiography [ca. 1890], 6
  • Norma Baldwin Ricketts, The Mormon Battalion: U.S. Army of the West, 1846-1848 (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1996), 23.
  • Philemon C. Merrill autobiography, circa 1890, 5.
  • Saints By Sea: Latter-day Saint Immigration to America
  • Samuel A. Woolley papers, 1846-1899, Volume 6, 213-44 and Volume 7, 1-15.
  • Silas Richards company, 1849 September in Camp of Israel schedules and reports, 1845-1849.
  • Silas Richards diaries, 1846 May-1855 July, Diary, 1849-1853, 1-36.
  • Silas Richards letter to Brigham Young, 24 August 1849.
  • Silas Richards reminiscences and journal, circa 1849-1871, transcribed by Ailcy C. Morrell, 4-12.
  • "Thatcher, Arizona: Philemon C. Merrill Dead," Deseret Evening News , 22 Sep. 1904, 9.
  • Treasures of Pioneer History, vol. 6, p. 60
  • Tripp, Enoch B, Autobiography, in Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Collection, 1828-1963, reel 17, item 13, 19.