Captain Benjamin Merrill and Jemima Smith

WALNUT HILL TEXAS COMMUNITY SETTLED BY ELI MERRILL

This site is dedicated to the memory of Captain Benjamin Merrill a martyr of the Regulator Movement in North Carolina. Regulators were organized in April, 1766 to protest the unfair taxes and fees imposed upon them by the British Colonial government in general, and its governor, William Tryon in particular. The movement culminated in a crushing defeat of the Regulators by the militia controlled by Governor Tryon at the Battle of Alamance Creek in North Carolina on May 16, 1771. Captain Benjamin Merrill, although not at the battlefield, was captured as a leader of the Regulators and hanged, along with five other men on June 19, 1771. This Web Site was inspired by the reunion ceremony of the descendants of Benjamin Merrill and Jemima Smith that took place at the Jersey Baptist Church in Lexington, North Carolina on July 1, 2006. All material published on this site is contributed by these descendants and may contain factual errors.

Contact the WEBMASTER Tom Merrill