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MERRIMAN'S name first appears upon our Class roll in the autumn catalogue of 1860,
and it was some time during the first term of that year that he joined our Class, and
continued with us during the remainder of the course. He was a member of the 'Logian
Literary Society, one of its treasurers during Junior year, and one of its vice-presidents
during Senior year; he was one of the orators in the Adelphic Debate, February, 1862, and
one of the disputants in the debate of October, 1862; had the appointment of an English
oration on the Junior exhibition, April, 1862, and was one of the orators on the Prize
Rhetorical Exhibition, August, 1862; was a member of the Mills Society; had the assignment
of the ethical oration on the Commencement program, and was made a member of the Phi
Beta Kappa fraternity. With this preliminary paragraph, your Historian is most happy to
give our classmate's personal sketch without change. Of especial interest, taken in
connection with what Professor Bascom has written for us, are Merriman's statements about
college life and college ways now and when we were undergraduates:
My ancestor on my father's side was Lieut. Nathaniel Merriman, who came to New
Haven about 1643, and later settled in Wallingford, Connecticut, from which some of his
descendants went to Dalton, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. In the adjoining town of
Hinsdale, my father, Addison Merriman, was born. My mother, who was born in Peru, near
Hinsdale, was the daughter of John Adams, a soldier of the Revolution, born in Lexington,
and descended from Henry Adams, who settled in Braintree in 1634. Her mother was
Prudence White, of Goshen, who came from the Whites of the Plymouth Colony.
When their first children were young, my father and mother removed from Hinsdale
to Manchester, Vermont, for the sake of a better school, and I, their sixth child, was born
there December 3, 1838. Burr (now Burr and Burton) Seminary, at Manchester, gave me
a partial fit for college, when my father removed to Chicago, and the rest of my preparation,
including the substance of Freshman year, was secured at the early beginnings of the
Chicago University, which afterwards was rechartered and completely reorganized in the
great institution that now bears that name.
In the autumn of 1860, I entered the Class of 1863 as a Sophomore, conditioned in
several studies and badly trained in others. However, by the end of Sophomore year I had
gained a decent place in the Class.
Whatever may have been the defects in the methods of study and instruction in our
day and it is the fashion now to disparage this old r‚gime my three years at Williams,
in addition to giving me a very good time and some very dear friends, taught me how to
think straight and how to work hard at disagreeable tasks two results for which I have
always been grateful.
On graduating, I returned to Chicago, and after some experiments in business
entered the army for a short term of service as first lieutenant and adjutant of the 132d
Regiment Illinois Infantry Volunteers. After the war, I began studying for the ministry at
Chicago Theological Seminary, where I spent one year. Then went to Andover Seminary,
from which I was graduated in 1868, having just before accepted a call to the Broadway
Congregational Church in Norwich, Connecticut, where I was ordained and installed
September 30, 1868.
With this church I spent nearly seven laborious but delightful years, in the meantime
declining several flattering invitations to be a professor in college and theological seminary.
Impaired health compelled me to resign in 1875, and to remain almost absolutely idle for
more than a year, when I gradually began preaching again, and finally was settled over the
Central Congregational Church at Worcester, Massachusetts, February 12, 1878, in which
connection I still remain, though for the last three years I have been relieved from active
service, and am what they call pastor emeritus.
In Worcester the greater part of my professional life has been spent; there, under my
guidance, my church built a new and beautiful house of worship and parsonage; there it has
been my fortune to take an active part in shaping several public institutions; there my legal
residence still is, though my winter home is at 73 Bay State Road, Boston, and my summer
home is at Intervale, New Hampshire. My hands are still full of preaching and other public
and semipublic duties.
My life has thus been the life of a minister, and while I have had much to do with
educational and philanthropic institutions, and have traveled pretty widely, I have, in spite
of many temptations to leave it, stuck to my calling, in which, though most imperfect in its
service, I have found and still find the keenest satisfaction. During all these years my health
has been, much of the time, very imperfect, the headaches which troubled me in college
persisting in their attacks, so that no little efficiency has been lost.
My publications have been limited to occasional sermons and addresses, and
contributions to the periodical press. I have been lecturer on pastoral theology at Andover
Theological Seminary; visitor to the divinity school of Harvard University; annual preacher
to the State associations of Connecticut and Massachusetts and to the Congregational Home
Missionary Society, and occasional preacher to Wilhams, Dartmouth, Yale, and Harvard.
I am corporate trustee of Williams College; president and director of the Worcester
Art Museum; trustee and secretary of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute; trustee and
secretary of the Worcester Memorial Hospital; trustee of Atlanta University; president of
the trustees of Abbot Academy, Andover; member of the American Antiquarian Society;
companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, and member of several clubs and
societies, literary, exegetical, historical, social, etc.
September 30, 1874, I married Helen, only child of Hon. Erastus B. Bigelow, of
Boston, inventor of the power loom for weaving carpets, and a writer on the tariff and
similar subjects. We have one child, Roger Bigelow, who was born in Boston May 24, 1876;
fitted for college at Worcester and Boston schools, and was graduated at Harvard in 1896,
taking his Master's degree the next year. He then spent two years at Balliol College,
Oxford, where he obtained the research degree of B. Litt. in history, and published his thesis
on the "Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell," two volumes, large octavo. One year more
was spent at the universities of Berlin and Marburg, and still another in Paris and Spain,
when he received his Ph.D. at Harvard, and is now instructor in history in that university.
My interest in our Alma Mater, always keen, has increased in recent years as I have
had something to do with its administration, and have studied the unending problems of
education. It is amazing to contemplate, in the light of the present wealth and amplitude
of comforts, facilities, courses, and instruction, the poverty and limitations of our
surroundings and resources forty odd years ago. Yet it is doubtful if, in the actual
development of mind and character, any better results are attained now than then. We must
bear in mind, however, that society and its demands have changed even more than the
college. Yet even so, real education consisteth not in the abundance of the things which the
college or undergraduate possesseth; but rather in drawing out and training the powers of
thought, and especially of self-control and initiative. That this can best be done by
mastering a few subjects in immediate personal contact with a man like Mark Hopkins
seems to be clearer every day. When we have tried experiments enough we shall doubtless
come back to this simple method, and then the small college will find its high opportunity.
Source:
Class of Sixty-Three Williams College Fortieth Year Report, by
the Class Historian, Thomas Todd Printer, Boston, 1903
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