Hon. Dixon L. Merritt,
Lebanon, Tennessee.

Dear Mr. Merritt:

          The inclosed clipping taken from the St. Jospeh Mo. New-Press a week or so ago will explain the reason why I am writing you. (The Newspaper Post is Not Included) It is because I am an old native of Tennessee, of a same name. I have always felt proud of the "Merritt" name as I met many of that name but never any whom I would be ashamed of as bearing that name.

     I was born March, 13, 1871 at Petersburg Tennessee, but when I was about 4 years old or three for it was in the summer of 1874 may father W.H. Merritt and mother moved to Lewisburg, in Marshall county where he opened a marble and tombstone business which he had taken up and become a master workman in lettering and carving hands or doves etc. on tombstones and monuments, he having served as a volunteer in the Confederate army the entire time of the Civil War surrendering with Joe Johnston's army at Greensboro, S.D. about a month after Lee's surrender at Appomatox. Then I was raised at Lewisburg, and lived there until February, 1900 when I removed to and located in Joplin, Missouri where I live and practiced law until October, 1915 when I moved to St. Joseph, where I have lived and practiced my profession since. I was admitted to the bar before Judge Cantrell at Lewisburg in July 1891 after I had studied law with Co. P.C. Smithson for two years, and then had passed the examination, and so I practiced law at Lewisburg until I came to Missouri. I knew Jim McCord the present governor of Tennessee, all the years since he came to Lewisburg and took a postition as clerk in the Book store there then. I was also raised next door neighbor to Bram Neil who is now presiding Judge of the Tennessee Sipreme Court.

    My grandfather B.B. Merritt died in the fall of the year of 1900 at the age of 93 years. He used to tell me how his grandfather and a brother came over into middle Tennessee, and his grandfather located in Williamson County and the brother went on up over the line and settled in Southern Kentucky, and I have in the years met many of the descendants of the one who located in Kentucky, just north of Springfield, Tennessee across the line about 15 or 20 miles.

     Granfather raised four boys of which father was the oldest. Uncle John Merritt who died at Pulaski, Tenn. had a daughter who was a clerk or eputy in a state office at Nashville, I think she was married and her name is now Leila Hargrove and she still lives in Nashville, and still works in the Capitol I think.

     When I first located in Joplin, Missouri in 1900 I has a call by a man who gave his name as Jack Maret, and he was a civil engineer who had superintended the grading of and construction of the interurban Electric lines running from Carthage Mo. through Joplin to Galena, Kansas, and was the superintendent of transportation. He seemed to have studied history of the family name, and said it was a Frence origin, the original French spelling was Maret and pronounced with Tsilent and E like it was "Maray" that when the ancestry began emigrating across the channel and locating in England, they began anglicizing the name by spelling it "Merret" - "Merit" and finally Merritt, that his father's brother adopted the Anglicised name of "Merritt" but his father held on to the French "Maret" and that was why he was still Jack Maret, he had it seemed taken great interest in tracing name of Merritt, and had some correspondence then with him he had had with a French Lawyer, in Paris France who had given him much of the history of the name there.

     In my yung manhood at Lewisburg, I had first worked in a printing office, and became a proficient typesetter of that day, so after I was admitted to the bar, I was persuaded by a friend who was a good printed to go in with him and we bought a entire printing outfit of an old weekly paper that had quit at Shelbyville, Tennessee, and we moved it to Lewisburg with a roller press where instead of the Washington Hand press that I had used, this press would take on forms for two pages of seven cloumn paper, and with a hand crank the forms would be rolled under the ink rollers and then with lever after the paper was thrown down on forms inked and press pulled down on it to make the print it would be raised and brought back and paper removed, and ready for printing another two pages. So with this out-fit we founded and got out the first issued of The Marshall County, Sentinel, in Spetember 1894, and I wrote the salutatory editiorial. After 1 year or so I became the sole owner and continued the publication along with practicing law until August, 1899 when I sold out the paper to W.M. Carter and E.J. Meacham, who never missed an issue but changed the name to "The Lewisburg Tribune". Mecham sold out to Carter in about a year and Carter died a few years ago but the Tribune is still being published by Mrs. Carter and her brother Hale Hawkins, and through all the years I have had it coming to me, being issued on Fridays I always get it Monday mornings. I received last week's issue this morning.

      I was ambitious to devote all my time to my profession, and at that time the law business in Lewisburg was so thin, none of the members of the bar could depend upon it entirely, an so after a prospecting trip I removed to and located in Joplin as stated above. I have made many visits back to Lewisburg and to Nashville in the years gone by, the last visit was in the last days of December, 1939 when I stopped and spent about a week in Lewisburg on my way to visit my son Frank H. Merritt then assistant branch manager of the Ford Motor Co. for state of Alabama and all of Georgia except a line of counties on Atlantic coast. This boy who will be 48 years of age next June, 15th has a lovely home in suburbs of Atlanta, and he being my only child has raised only one a daughter whom he gave two college degrees and then put her through school of Journalism, and she took a job with Atlanta Journal and there met a young man Guy Hayes photo journalist also a graduate of the school of journalism so they got married in February 1942 and in Feby. 1944 Dorothy bore a baby girl making Frank a grandfather, and me a great grandfather. I have many pictures of her but have not seen her yet, but she looks healthy now more than two years old and of course Frank writes me she is the sweetest baby that ever lived. Frank served in World War I in the Aviation and so when World War No. 2 came on Ford closed down, and he applied to the military at Washington to be taken in the Aviation, and they finally called him to Washington but instead of placing him in the military they placed him in the OPA at Washington and had him traveling all over the country in New England, and out here in middle west and also out in California lecturing or supervising the tire and gasoline rationing. So you may have heard of him as he had his headquarters with his wife with him in washington, D.C. for about fifteen months as he resigned and quit about October, 1, 1944.

      In my young days I went fanatical on the free coinage of silver and other People Party principles, and so I was in the national Convention that met in St. Louis and nominated Bryan and Watson for president adn vice president. I was a delegate along with Cordell Hull another young Populist then we being about the same age then about 25 years old. Of course he and I and all other old populists became democrats by the time the campaign of 1900 came on and we have been ever since.

     When I left Lewisburg there were only about 900 inhabitants and it hasd no public facilities except it has started a municipal light plant, but it has now grown to be about 4500 with all public facilities completely modern and one of the best towns in Tennessee.

     Among my young manhood friends when I was admitted to the bar was the late Lillard Thompson, of Lebanon who was then attorney general for the circuit including Marshall County. He was one of the greal lawyers of that day.

     Well Merritt I fear that I have bored you with this long letter, but I hope you can excuse me for I am proud of the record you have made and whether we are from same ancestry or not you have made me still proud of the name, "Merritt"

 
       With all good wishes I am 
                                 Yours very truly,
                                             

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