Background
James Griswold Merrill was born on August 20, 1840, in Montague, Massachussets, and was the son of the Rev. James Hervey and Lucia (Griswold) Merrill and a descendant of Nathaniel Merrill, an early emigrant to Massachusetts.
James Griswold Merrill was born on August 20, 1840, in Montague, Massachussets, and was the son of the Rev. James Hervey and Lucia (Griswold) Merrill and a descendant of Nathaniel Merrill, an early emigrant to Massachusetts.
In 1863, Merrill received the degree of A. B. from Amherst, then studied for a year in Princeton Theological Seminary, then transferred to Andover Theological Seminary, where he graduated in 1866.
In January 1867, Merrill was ordained a minister of the Congregational Church and was accepted for service by the Congregational Home Mission Society. His first assignment was at Mound City, Kansas, where he continued for two years (1866 - 68). He then went to Topeka, Kansas (1868 - 69), and for the following three years he was the superintendent of home missions in the state of Kansas. Following this period of service, he was in the regular Congregational pastorate for some twenty-two years. From 1872 to 1882 he was at Davenport, Iowa, and during this time he published two volumes of children's sermons. For seven years (1882 - 89) he was pastor of the First Congregational Church in St. Louis, and for five years (1889 - 94) of the Payson Memorial Church at Portland, Maine. In 1874 Merrill left the pulpit to become the editor of the Christian Mirror, which was subsequently absorbed in the Congregationalist. He left editorial work to accept in 1898 the chair of logic and ethics at Fisk University and also became dean of the institution. In 1899, owing to the failing health of Erastus Milo Cravath, the first president of Fisk, Merrill was named an acting president. On the death of Cravath, Merrill was elected president of the university and served in that capacity for seven years (1901 - 08). Primarily owing to the failing health of his wife, in 1908 Merrill resigned as president of Fisk University but continued his active interest in the University by service on the board of trustees during the remainder of his life. On leaving Fisk, for three years (1909 - 12) he was pastor at Somerset, Massachusetts, and following that for five years (1912 - 17) was pastor at Lake Helen, Florida. In 1917 he retired from active work and spent the remaining three years of his life at Winter Park, Florida, Andover, Massachusetts, and Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. He died at Mountain Lakes, in his eighty-first year and was buried at Andover, Massachusetts.
On October 11, 1866, Merrill married Louisa W. Boutwell of Andover, Massachusetts.