Jonsson-Merrill Farmstead

Customary to many who practiced polygamy in the early years of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a home was constructed for the wives of the man who practiced.

Marriner Wood Merrill married Elna Jonsson on Feb 11, 1885 in the Logan, Utah Temple. Marriner purchased the land on which the home would be built in 1898 from Neriah Lewis. The barn was completed first in 1898, while the house was completed two years later. It is unclear how long Elna lived in her home, however, none of her children were born in Richmond. She had five children with Marriner.1

After Marriner's death in 1906, Elna lived in the home until the 1920s. The house was purchased by Hyrum Enos Crockett, who worked on the farm until his sudden death in 1935. The home was most likely deeded to his wife, Susette Turner. After his death, the Crockett family transformed the house into a hotel and showplace on the second floor. Sometime between 1949-1950, the home caught fire and was destroyed.

Calvin Williams Funk, a great-grandson of Marriner W. Merrill and Maria L. Kinsburry, and his wife, H. Carol Nobel purchased the "virtually abandoned" farm and "remodeled the handsome old barn." Calvin used some of the surrounding bricks to restore the first floor.2 Calvin raised his family in the home until 1962, when he and his father, Leroy Conrad Funk, did a home swap.

LeRoy and his wife, Grace Williams, lived in the home up until 1964 when they built a new home on State Street. The house was sold soon after. The current owners of the home purchased the property in 1990. After some time, the barn began to go into disrepair and became a danger to the family, so the owners tore demolished the barn in 2010.

1. Merrill, Melvin Clarence, (1937). Utah Pioneer and Apostle: Marriner Wood Merrill and His Family, pgs. 480-484. Digital copy Internet Archive, Contributed by the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/utahpioneerapost00merr/page/480/mode/2up

2. (May 14, 1959). Title Unknown. The Logan Republican. Uploaded to FamilySearch.org by Bryce Holt_1, March 26, 2022. https://www.familysearch.org/memories/memory/143961205?cid=mem_copy

3. United States Department of the Interior. National Register of Historic Places (Year Unknown). National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Merrill-Crockett Home (Author Unknown). National Archive Catalog. https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6v6ntkm