Background
Merritt, Dixon Lanier was born on July 9, 1879 in Wilson County, Tennessee, United States. Son of Hatton and Fannie (Merritt) Abernathy.
Merritt, Dixon Lanier was born on July 9, 1879 in Wilson County, Tennessee, United States. Son of Hatton and Fannie (Merritt) Abernathy.
Adopted son of his uncle, L. Willis Merritt, and assumed uncle’s surname at 21. Educated country schools and University of Nashville.
He was a newspaper editor for the Tennessean, Nashville"s morning paper, and President of the American Press Humorists Association. He penned this well-known limerick in 1910:
The limerick, inspired by a post card sent to him by a female reader of his newspaper column who was visiting Florida beaches. lieutenant is often misattributed to Ogden Nash and is widely misquoted as demonstrated above.
lieutenant is quoted in a number of scholarly works on ornithology, including "Manual of Ornithology: Avian Structure and Function," by Noble South. Proctor and Patrick J. Lynch, and several others
Merritt served as Tennessee State Director of Public Safety, taught at Cumberland University and was editor of the "The Tennessean" and "Lebanon Democrat" newspapers and later contributed a column for many years called "Our Folks". In 1913 he collaborated with Will Thomas Hale on "A History of Tennessee and Tennesseans: The Leaders and Representative Men in Commerce, Industry and Modern Activities".
During the 1920s he was the Southern correspondent for "Outlook" magazine, a weekly newsmagazine aimed at rural readers. He edited a comprehensive "History of Wilson County (Tennessee)" in his eighties.
He worked for the United States. federal government twice, around the time of both World Wars, and ultimately retired from the Rural Electrification Administration"s telephone program office.
In 1919, Merritt was the Assistant in Charge for the Press Service at the United States Department of Agriculture where he wrote humorous press releases. A nature center at the Tennessee Cedars of Lebanon State Park is named for him. He served as President of the Society of American Press Humorists.
Following World War I he returned to the familial farm near Lebanon, Tennessee and using portions of various cedar log cabins nearly one hundred years old assembled a new structure on a hill which he dubbed "Cabincroft" - "croft" being a Scottish word for a place of shelter.
He maintained a working farm into his seventies preferring natural methods.
Member American Press Humorists (president 1916-1917), Tennessee Ornithological Society (founder), American Association for the Advancement of Science. Club: National Press.
Married Harriote Johnson, March 1903. Married second, Ruth Eloise Yates, August 1922. Children: Alice Philippa (Mistress Norwood Gant), Dixon Lanier.