2008 Reunion
June 13-15
Lexington, North Carolina
On June 13, three carloads of Merrell descendants left the
Comfort Inn in Lexington
bound for the Alamance Battlefield State Park. For those who had visited the
park before,
it was a good refresher. Our old friend and guide demonstrated the firing of a
flint-lock
rifle similar to what would have been used during the battle.
After touring the park headquarters, viewing the Alamance
film, and walking the battleground,
the group heading for Raleigh and the State Library and Archives. After a
harrowing trip, the
group finally arrived at the North Carolina State Capitol complex, where the
Library is located.
Merrell descendant Mark Valsame, who works there, reviewed the documents which
he had
pre-selected for us to view. This including old wills, land grants, deeds
and the like. Copies of
interesting documents were secured by many of the group. In one book of the
history of
Davidson County, Tom Merrill of Birmingham found a reference that stated that
Jemima Smith
Merrill Butner, Captain Benjamin’s wife, was thought to have been buried in a
cemetery on what
is now the Murph Farm. More about that later.
Due to the amount of time spent in the archives, the
traveling Merrills had to skip the planned
trip to Hillsborough to the site where Captain Benjamin Merrill was hanged.
The formal group meeting was held on Saturday, June 14th
at the Jersey Baptist Church near
Lexington, North Carolina. Presentations were made by Thea Fabio Merrill on the
Merrill line
from her husband Richard back to Benjamin. Carolyn Jones made a presentation on
some of
the Texas Merrells to whom she is related. After a lunch of traditional North
Carolina Barbeque,
Tom Merrill made a presentation about the ongoing relationships between the Smiths
and the
Merrells, culminating in developing Gloria Baran’s lineage. Tom also presented
Gloria with a
certificate of gratitude for her unceasing leadership in keep this reunion
going.
A general group discussion followed with questions being
asked of those that had been doing
research on the Merrill/Merrell family lines. Mark Valsame was a big help with
this since he
works with history.
After the Jersey Church Historian heard Tom Merrill’s remark
about Jemima Smith Merrill
Butner maybe being buried on the Murph farm, she contacted Essie, a former
Murph that
had lived there. It turned out that she lived near the Comfort Inn and that the
cemetery was
just behind there. Arrangements were made to meet her at the Comfort Inn. When
she arrived,
she was with her identical twin sister Jessie. They are 85 years old but are a
picture of delight
and loved to talk history of the area. They had a book that was written about
Penelope Stout,
one of Jemima’s famous relatives, and had known the author when she was writing
it. They
told us of playing in the cemetery as children and that some of the graves had
begun to surface.
Once, when they could see the corner of a pine box, they pried it open to find
hundreds of
native Indian artifacts including arrowheads, trinkets and other obvious
relics. According to them,
there had been a huge battle between the settlers and the Indians near their
farm. Sadly, the location
of the cemetery was right in the middle of where I-85 was to be built. The
State Highway Department
moved the graves and reburied the remains, but only a few retained their
markers. The girls witnessed
some of this and stated that no care was attempted to respectfully rebury the
remains, and that in most
cases the debris from the boxes, bodies and markers were uncerimoniously dumped
in the new hole.
They also claimed that a list of who was buried there (approximately 37 graves)
but that the State took it
and never returned it. Essie and her husband attempted to mark those graves
left unmarked by placing
a slate rock at each site. They had intended to record on these slate markers
the appropriate names, but
her husband passed away before that task could be done, and then the list was
lost.
Essie & Jessie
One of the Few Marked Graves
A row of unmarked graves