Louis E. & Clara H. Merrill House

Attention

The object that is described in this article is located on private property. Trespassing is punishable by up to six months of prison time. Permission should be granted before passing on private property.

History

Marriner Wood Merrill and family moved to Richmond in 1860, making it their permanent residence. In 1875, he granted a few lots of land to his wife Almira J. Bainbridge, who then built a home that still stands today on the corner of Main and Highway 91. After her death in 1906, the property was passed to three of her children, one of them being Charles E. Merrill, who then sold the southwestern part of the land to his stepbrother, Louis Edgar Merrill.

Louis E. Merrill is the eighth of ten children of Marriner Wood Merrill and Sarah Ann Atkinson. He married Clara Hendricks, daughter of William D. Hendricks and Almira Davenport, in 1893. They both purchased the aforementioned land in 1921, then began building the following year. In 1945, he sold the home to Dalton E. and Sylvia Hunt. The following year, they sold the home to the Sego Milk Product Company to house their executives and plant managers, one of them being the current home owners, who later purchased the home in 1968.

The Louis E. & Clara H. Merrill Home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004 for its "events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history," and the "property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction." Area of significance are architecture, social history and agriculture/subsistence.