Notes for Robert Merritt:

1. D.G. Merritt notes:
Text of the following two items in Family Tree Maker “Scrapbook” for Robert Merritt;

1. Othniel Merritt Letter (1958)
2. ‘Merritt’ Cemetery Record

2. Following note from internet file ‘Robert1720Descendants_1242882.FTW’:

1. Robert and his family came to New Brunswick in 1783 on the ship “Montague”.

More About Robert Merritt: Immigration: 1783 “the Kings Loyal Americans” “The Canadian Fact Passenger List” by B. Wood-holt 1991. Occupation: Carpenter.

More About Robert Merritt and Elizabeth Robinson: Marriage: 1762, Long Island, New York, USA.

Children of Robert Merritt and Elizabeth Robinson are:

1. Gilbert Merritt, b. 16 Nov 1765, Rye, Westchester Co. NY, USA, d. 16 Oct 1840, Hampstead, Queens Co, N.B. Canada.

Merritt Genealogy courtesy Carol Brown Parker

Children of Phoebe Birdsell and Gilbert Merritt are:

1. Benjamin Merritt, b. 10 Jul 1813, Hampstead, Queens Co, New Brunswick, Canada, d. 25 Aug 1882, Hampstead, Queens Co, New Brunswick, Canada.
2. Deborah Merritt, b. 1791, d. 1846.
3. Ann Merritt, b. 26 Oct 1795.
4. Abraham Merritt, b. 13 Jan 1797.
5. Caleb Merritt, b. 14 Mar 1798, Hampstead, Queens Co, N.B. Canada, d. 16 Sep 1874, Scotland, Oakland Twp, Brant Co, Ontario, Canada.
6. Sarah Merritt, b. 15 Dec 1800.
7. Isaac Merritt, b. 15 Mar 1802, d. 14 Feb 1834.
8. Elizabeth Merritt, b. 24 May 1805, d. 10 Jan 1888.
9. Gilbert Robinson Merritt, b. 11 Sep 1807, d. 07 Oct 1857, Hampstead, Queens Co, N.B. Canada.
10. Phoebe Merritt, b. 10 Jan 1811, d. 09 Mar 1885.
11. Mary Merritt, b. 01 Dec 1816, d. 27 Mar 1907.

Merritt Genealogy courtesy Carol Brown Parker

February 14, 1857, New Brunswick Courier, Saint John
m. 21st ult, at residence of bride’s father, by Rev Benjamin Merritt, George L. GOOD, Studholm (Kings Co.) / Charlotte M. SLIP fourth d/o late James SLIP, Hampstead (Queens Co.) Source: Daniel F Johnson: Volume 16 Number 1752

I had a nice visit with my Aunt Francine (Elder) Ormiston (my Dad’s twin sister) from Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan on Monday, Feb. 16. She has loaned me the small brown photo frame with photos of George Leonard Good, (son of John Good & Hannah McLeod) & wife Charlotte Merritt Slip (daughter of James Slip & Phoebe Merritt). George Leonard Good born 14 Sept. 1831, died 29 Dec. 1890 and married 21 Jan.1857 to Charlotte Merritt Slip born 4 Dec. 1836 and died 9 Sept. 1885. They had one son, James Elbridge Good, my great grandfather.

I remember this little brown picture frame always sitting on my Grandma Gretta (Good) Elder’s bookshelf in the living room. Now Aunt Francine keeps it on her bookshelf. Charlotte’s photo is on glass & George’s photo is on tin stuck to glass. Rather strange each photo was done differently. That’s why George’s photo is darker. Then each photo is framed with a decorative tin frame.

Photos shown here without frames and cleaned up a bit from original scans. Click on photos to see larger versions.

George Leonard Good

Charlotte Merritt Slip (Mrs. George Leonard Good)

Framed Versions of Photos

George Leonard Good

Charlotte Merritt Slip 1836

When fire broke out at a hay barn at York Point Slip at 2:30 PM on June 02, 1877, the residents of Saint John were under the impression that no conflagration could match the fire department’s state of the art Amoskeag steam powered, horse drawn fire engines.

Unfortunately, recent cost cutting measures had forced the newly formed professional fire department to share its horses with the public works department. When eminent disaster struck, the horses were all at work on roads projects some distance away and so had to be brought back to the firehall before they could attend to the city’s most pressing need ever. By the time they arrived on site, the Great Fire of 1877 was well under way. By disaster’s end, two fifths of Saint John was lost.

Loyalist House, built in 1810 by David Merritt – a cousin of my direct Merritt ancestors, is one of the few buildings to have survived and now stands as a museum to the Loyalist era at the corners of Union and Germain.

Visit these related links for more information:

• Loyalist House website
• The Great Fire of Saint John

Hello everyone. I am sending these pictures of The Merritt and Slipp Cemetery as I have seen in so any places on the internet that the cemetery is listed as the Slipp Cemetery.

As you all probably know the Merritts and Slipps inter-married but this cemetery was always located on Merritt land not Slipp land. The Merritt house, a large white two story located to the left of the small bungalow beside the cemetery was owned last by Benjamin Merritt who died in 1981 as left to Batemans as he had no children. The Merritt house was passed generation to generation. I have plot maps showing who owned these properties. The first Leonard Slipp owned a plot about 3 minutes from this cemetery which is still owned by a Slipp descendant.

Carol Brown Parker

See also: More photos and info from this cemetery

This is a History of that Merritt Branch, descended from Robert Merritt, a Loyalist of Westchester County, New York State, who, early in 1783 went to Nova Scotia to establish for himself and his family a new home, under the British Crown. Like several thousand other Loyalists, he went first to Port Roseway (now Shelborne) in present day Nova Scotia. He filed on two land claims – on the Mainland, the other on McNutt Island out in the Shelborne Harbor.

(ed. note – a more general history of New Brunswick follows)

By June, 1784, after a very discouraging winter of extreme cold, gales and storms, and on discovering during the winter clearing away of forest, that the Shelborne soil was very rough and rocky and ill-fitted for profitable farming, more than 9,000 of the 10,000 then at Shelborne, decided to and did move away. A few went to Halifax. Some 200 went to Digby. The very largest lot of them went to Parr Town (now Saint John City) at the mouth of the St. John River. Of these a 100 or so stayed at Parr Town while the rest went up the river and its branches to settle on lands assigned to them by the British Government, There, out of the solid forests, they began to clear farms (sic) and to build homes for their families.

In 1604 Champlain landed some French settlers at the mouth of the St. John River, and started a settlement there, (sic) That same year he planted another such colony on an island just off the present town of St. Andrews, New Brunswick. The following summer saw him back again from France with fresh supplies for these two settlements and more new settlers which he planted in the Annapolis Valley of now Nova Scotia and its environs. Thus began France’s colonization of North America.

Under the French rule all that is now New Brunswick as well as all that is now (sic) Nova Scotia was, by the French Government, made one Province and named Acadia. This name applied to all this territory up to 1713 when, by the Treaty of Utrecht, France ceded (sic) Acadia to Great Britain. Once this territory became a British Province, many of the settlers and their sons from the other older American Provinces began to move over to Acadia to settle there. Even more British settlers came there from the Old Country. Among those were many from Scotland. Soon thereafter the name Acadia was changed to Nova Scotia (New Scotland).

All Acadia (both what is now New Brunswick and what is now Nova Scotia carried this name Nova Scotia up to August 8, 1784, when the British Parliment (sic) separated the Northern half of Nova Scotia from the Southern half. To the Northern half they gave the name New Brunswick. They also gave it a Provincial Parliment (sic) and a Governor of its own with the town of Fredricton as its capitol. This Act of August 8, 1784 left the Southern half a separate Province to be called as before Nova Scotia. At this time, New Brunswick had a British population of about 30,000 of whom 20,000 Loyalists came direct from the States during 1783 and early 1784. Thus New Brunswick was on its own, free from Halifax.

SOURCE- Gerry Black (Maine, USA) EMail address jblack@ainop.com
ITEM: Letter from Othniel Merritt to David R. Merritt in 1958
ADDED BY: David G. Merritt, February 2001

Page numbers in text (?) coincide with a typed copy, scanned, and sent to David G. Merritt, Feb., 2001. Latest source ~ Carol Brown Parker to John Charlton – Jan, 2007. OCR from JPG scanned and edited by John Charlton.