Merritt, Nehemiah

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: T. W. Acheson, “MERRITT, NEHEMIAH,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/merritt_nehemiah_7E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Businessman and jp; b. 1 Dec. 1770 in Rye, N.Y., fifth son of Thomas Merritt and Amy Purdy; m. 29 Jan. 1802 Isabella Milby of Shelburne, N.S.; d. 25 May 1842 in Saint John, N.B.
    • The Merritt family were loyalists of modest circumstances who left Westchester County, N.Y., following the American revolution. Merritt began his career as a fisherman and was admitted a freeman fisherman of the city of Saint John in 1795. He gradually moved from the retailing of fish to the function of general merchant, working for a time in partnership with Gregory VanHorne. By middle age he had been admitted to the inner circle of the city’s merchant élite. He owned his own wharf in Saint John Harbour – and was one of the first merchants permitted to extend his wharf past the low-water line – participated in the marine carrying trades and in the purchase and sale of ships, and in 1820 was among the 20 men who successfully petitioned for the creation of the Bank of New Brunswick. Merritt shared in the expanding timber trade of the 1820s and 1830s.
    • Apart from the considerable investment he had in his firm, Merritt left an estate valued at more than £40,000. He had invested heavily in city bonds and by 1842 had been the city’s largest private creditor, holding more than £8,000 of the civic debt. Most of the remainder of his estate was invested in real estate. He owned 12 lots and houses in Saint John and 17 acres of prime development land around the city, another 1,100 acres in the Saint John River valley, 800 acres in Nova Scotia, more than 3,300 acres in Northumberland and Norfolk counties, Upper Canada, three New York City houses, and farms at Niagara Falls, N.Y., and Pembroke, Maine.
  • Son of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=5813
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/96440623/nehemiah-merritt