Merritt Genealogy 1921, courtesy of Newtown, Conn. Historical Society. 

Thursday

April 22, 1921

Washington, D.C.

Dear Cousin Jennie:

I don’t know how many letters I owe you, & this will be the fitting reply to any of them, but I must at once tell you that I rec’d the book safely. [Newtown’s History and Historian, Ezra L Johnson, compiled by Jane Eliza Johnson, the Jennie above, 1919].  It came yesterday morning, just after I had created chaos here in my one room, about ten o’clock…a few minutes & open the book, for I couldn’t wait to look at it!  Please mum, there I sat until plumb twelve o’clock & time to go to luncheon!!...

But I have gone back to my ancestors, & yours, & dear old Newtown & my young days there & remember my father’s abiding love for his native home, and recalled how he & Aunt Julia used to sit for hours and talk over those old familiar names & scenes.

I had an absorbing time… 

…I was glad of the sentences about my great-great grandfather, John Merritt, who came from the North of Ireland.  Do you know if he was a native of Ireland?  I’ve always felt a bit proud of my bit of Irish blood!  I am of British ancestry, sure—Irish and English, and on my mother’s side, Scotch & English.  And my grandfather Loomis was a Vermonter—a “Green Mountain Boy” – I’ve been proud of that.  I wish I had been more careful to get facts of genealogy when those now done were here & c—have told me.  To of my great-nieces [perhaps Irene Merritt, daughter of Isaac Merritt, of Denver, and Ruth Eileen Merritt, daughter of Frank Merritt, of Milford, Iowa] have wanted such facts that would admit them to the D.A.R. … The D.A.R. is here now this week in National Congress as it annually is in April (the week that has April 19^th in it, you know – Lexington Day).   This afternoon they were all “received” at the White House.

My great-grandfather, John Merritt, of “Merritt Hill”, I have always understood, was in the Revolutionary Army, But can it be proven?   The D.A.R. demand more than a “say—so”.  They will accept the evidence of an old diary or journal, I understand.  Also the sworn statement of some one reliable, I think.  I have made several beginnings at tracing records here, but am unable to keep it up persistently… Had just started afresh, at the D.A.R. library when my accident broke my shoulder…

I am hoping to start in soon at the Library of Congress & try again.  The D.A.R. felt sure I c— find some proofs there but I doubt it for I have tried before.  I know of no Merritt genealogy, do you?  If you c—tell me anything – Merritt or Sanford – that could be put forward as claims for Service in the Revolutionary War, I should be glad for it!  I’ve never heard of any Sanford in it, but it can’t be there were none. 

My great-grandfather, Rufus Chase, was in the War—that I know, but am still searching for proofs & can find no Chase genealogy. There is a volumimous Loomis genealogy in the Lib. Of Congress… I made many notes from it before we went to California, but at that time not with any desire to prove for the D.A.R.  I found my grandfather’s name [Roswell Loomis, Jr.] and traced it back to the ancestor who came from England in 1630.  I do think families ought to be thoughtful to preserve their line of descent in reliable records…

But I do thank you.

I enclose stamps for the postage on the book – 12 cents.  And now take my congratulations please…

With love Cynthia [Merritt]

…Hurrah for Harding!  You can’t think what a relieved atmosphere pervades this city since March 4^th.   As the new rector of Epiphany said in a sermon--  “God bless him!”

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WHAT I HAVE FOUND IN GENEALOGY:  GORDON MERRITT 11-4-2014

No proof found that John Merrit was in the Revolutionary War, though he may have been  a

soldier in the French and Indian War, with his brother.   John and his wife, Abigail Wheeler Merrit seemed to have moved to her father's land in Huntingtown, in Newtown, when it was wilderness, and no one knew which town it was in.  It was possibly a good way to avoid the draft into the service.

I also do not have any proof that Jonathan Sanford was in the Revolutionary War.  The Newtown history of Ezra Johnson says that his great-grandfather was too ill to be drafted into the Revolutionary Army. Perhaps this was his great-grandfather Jonathan Sanford.  

There is a good Chase genealogy book published in 1933.  Cynthia was able to see some of it about her family before her death when parts were published in the New England Genealogical and Historical Society journal.   The D.A.R. lineage books had a number of people who used Rufus Chase as their ancestor who served in the Revolutionary War.  His service is well documented.

The John Merrit may be our ancestor, or it may have been George Merrit.  No  evidence has been seen on a John Merrit; records were burned in the coastal towns during the War.  

No evidence seen on our Irish Ancestry...  

The are a couple of Loomis genealogies... none back up our claim the Roswell Loomis, Jr. married our Electa Chase before he died.  One says that he died before they would have have been married.  However, Electa's family had named a son Roswell Loomis Chase, and that seems to indicate that they knew and admired, or grieved him.