The Merriams of Mason, New Hampshire

Yesterday we left Sarah and Abraham Merriam in Lexington at what might have been a low period of their marriage.

Their son Jonas died in 1772. In 1773 the confession of Levi Ames, hanged for burglary, suggested that Abraham had given Ames all the information he needed to rob Sarah’s father, Daniel Simonds. In 1774 Abraham Merriam was assessed as one of Lexington’s poorest men.

In 1775, of course, the first fatal shots of the Revolutionary War were fired in Lexington. Over the next few years, Abraham Merriam or his namesake eldest son, born in 1757, served several stretches in the army and Massachusetts militia, often as substitutes for other men. That was one way poor men could support themselves.

In April 1776 Daniel Simonds died, followed two months later by Abraham’s father, Jonas Merriam. The couple may have inherited some property, or might simply have been relieved of the burden of caring for an elderly relative.

That same year, Sarah gave birth to the couple’s last recorded child, Zadock. That offers our first evidence that the Merriams were still together as a couple.

Sarah Merriam’s older sister Mary was mother to Benjamin Mann of Woburn. In the early 1770s he moved just over the province’s northern border to Mason, New Hampshire, which is celebrating its sestercentennial this year. Mann returned to Massachusetts as a captain in the Col. James Reed’s Continental regiment, seeing action at Bunker Hill, and he stayed in the Continental Army through 1776. Back in Mason, he served in many town offices.

Over time many of Mann’s relatives joined him in Mason. His 1773 house, shown above, remains the town’s anchor, home of the selectmen’s offices, historical society, and library.

About 1780 Sarah and Abraham Merriam and their children moved to Mason as well. Abraham’s last military service was linked to that town. The family settled “on the Wilton road” on part of the land granted to Mann. Most of the Merriam children married in Mason, though the youngest, Zadock, appears to have gone to Boston.

According to the Mason town records, “Mr. Abraham Merriam” died in that town on 26 Nov 1797. Sarah, “Widow of Abraham Merriam, [aged] 69 y.”, died there on 12 Sept 1807. Their life doesn’t seem to have been easy, but they did stick together, and they appear to have found a measure of stability in post-independence New Hampshire.

(Bonus trivia: Benjamin Mann was both an uncle of John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman and the father-in-law of Samuel “Uncle Sam” Wilson.)