One of the enterprising farmers of Polk township, Nodaway county, is Abraham Merrill, who was born in Wayne county, New York, April 3, 1843. the son Ripley and Maria (Van Alstine) Merrill, both natives of the state of New York, from whence they emigrated to Wisconsin when that state was a territory, about 1847, and settled in Rock county, where they spent the remainder of their lives. Abraham Merrill accompanied his parents to Rock county and was reared there and was living there when the Civil war began, and in July, 1862, he showed his patriotism by enlisting in Company E, Twenty-second Regiment Wisconsin Infantry, in which he served until the close of the war. He took part in the following engagements: Resaca, Dallas. Rocky Face Ridge, Buzzard Roost, New Hope Church. Dalton. Georgia. Brentwood, Tennessee, Kenesaw Mountain, Peach Tree Creek, siege of Atlanta, his brigade being the first to enter Savannah, Georgia; Bentonville, Goldsboro. Averysboro, in North Carolina, and he was in the grand review in Washington City. He was mustered out in June, 1865. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At Brentwood, Tennessee, in March. 1863, Mr. Merrill was taken prisoner and spent three months in Libby prison.
After the war he worked at odd jobs, whatever he could find to do, to make an honest living, running a threshing machine for several years. He remained in Wisconsin until 1867. or until he came to Nodaway county. Missouri, in September of that year. He purchased eighty acres in Polk township where he now lives. The land was wild but he soon placed it under cultivation and good improvements and has lived here ever since. He has erected excellent buildings, and as he prospered added more land, adding forty acres, now owning a choice farm of one hundred and twenty acres, carrying on general farming very successfully, also keeping some good stock from year to year.
Mr. Merrill is a member of Sedgwick Post. Grand Army of the Republic.
On February 9. 1869, Mr. Merrill married Sarah E. Senians, who was born in Knox county, Illinois, the daughter of Clovis and Mary Semans, who came to Nodaway county, Missouri, in the fall of 1867; they both died in Polk township. Seven children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Merrill, named as follows; Alice is the wife of J. R. Carmichael, of Union township; Carrie E. is the wife of H. S. Cochrane, who for years has been in the employ of the Standard Oil Company and for four years was in India; Charles lives in Polk township; Cora E. is the wife of D. W. Hubbard, of Kansas City; Walter died when four years old; Mabel E. died when eighteen years old; George L. is living in Polk township. The mother of these children passed to her rest on January 18, 1904, when fifty-four years old.
The Merrill family is well known in Polk township and enjoys a wide circle of friends.
Source: B. F. Bowen & Company. Past and present of Nodaway County, Missouri. Indianapolis, Indiana: B. F. Bowen & Company. 1910.