Jonas Merriam

Jonas Merriam (about 1805 to 1866) was a Boston trader who bought the old Crosby homestead farm in south Billerica in 1837, built the house on Wyman Road now known as the Jonas Merriam House, and lived there for most of the next thirty years, described in turn as a yeoman, a gentleman, a farmer, a trader and, at his death, a grocer. He was called Jonas Merriam Jr. in his early deeds and was born in Massachusetts about 1805.

On May 1, 1837, as "Jonas Merriam Jr. of the City of Boston, trader", he paid Michael Crosby $5,700 for "the homested Farm so called, of the late Josiah Crosby", about fifty acres south of the meeting house, together with the Waters land, the Guggin lot, the Ross land and the School House lot where the Little Red Schoolhouse stood, and he mortgaged the five parcels back to Crosby for $1,000. One of them was a lot opposite the Crosby dwelling house, at the corner of the road to Joseph Blanchard's and the Boston road. He built his own house there almost at once: in August 1838 Thaddeus Brown and his wife Susan sold him the little "Rebecca Sampson Place" at the corner, bounded by "the road leading from said Merriam's to Billerica Meeting house". He added "the Rockey Pasture" of five acres from Sereno Fisk in 1842, and in 1854 he and William F. Burrows exchanged strips of land to straighten the line of his Thompson lot. In 1847 he and his wife Sophronia sold the old Crosby farmhouse, with thirteen acres on the west side of the road, and the 32-acre School House lot and orchard to Enos Woodbury of Cambridge for $4,000, keeping the thirty-two acres around his own house between Wyman Road and the Boston and Lowell road. The 1853 map shows "J. Merriam" there.

His first wife, Sophronia M. Merriam, was born in New York about 1809. Their children were Harriet Bennett, born in Boston on August 27, 1834; George, born in Boston on October 24, 1835; Mary Elisabeth, born on August 23, 1839; and Caroline Augusta, born on March 13, 1844, who died on October 12, 1845. In the census of 1850 he was listed as a merchant with real estate worth $5,000. In November 1855 the town chose him, with William Gray and Dr. Bickford, as a committee to obtain the Fox Hill or Odiorne lot for a new cemetery, which became the Fox Hill Cemetery.

In 1860 he mortgaged the homestead to Otis Norcross of Boston for $3,000. In October 1861, then "of Boston", he deeded it to Charles F. Eaton, who two weeks later deeded it to "Mary Jane Merriam wife of Jonas Merriam", "for her sole and separate use" and "free from the interference and control of her husband". Mary Jane was his second wife, and they had two young children, Jonas A. and Helen L. Merriam.

Jonas Merriam died intestate on February 23, 1866, having "last dwelt in Billerica". His heirs were his widow, his children Harriet B. Vinal (wife of George A. W. Vinal), George Merriam of San Francisco, Mary E. Merriam, and the minors Jonas A. and Helen L. Merriam. Thomas Mair of Boston was appointed administrator. The inventory listed a house in Boston and the sixty-acre Waters land in Billerica, and among the personal estate a pew in the Unitarian church at Billerica and a horse shed. The homestead was already his widow's, and in September 1867 she sold "all my homestead estate" to William Whiting for $7,000.

References

1. Middlesex County Probate File Papers, case 37616 (Jonas Merriam of Billerica, grocer, administration 1866)
2. Vital Records of Billerica to 1850, births p. 135 (MERIAM: children of Jonas Jr. and Sophronia M.)
3. Vital Records of Billerica to 1850, deaths p. 379 (Caroline Augusta, d. Jonas Jr. and Sophronia M., Oct. 12, 1845)

Title References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted; Probate # is a Middlesex probate case, Ctf a Land Court certificate of title.