Born on Wigwam Hill: The Life of Samuel Fisk Merrick
- David Bourcier
- 10 hours ago
- 5 min read
The story of Dr. Samuel Fisk Merrick is inseparable from the long course of Wilbraham’s history itself, a family line reaching back to the earliest days of Massachusetts settlement and a life that spanned the colonial era, the American Revolution, and the young republic that followed.
Samuel Fisk Merrick was born on September 13, 1751, in Wilbraham, Hampden County, Massachusetts, the fourth child of Reverend Noah Merrick and Abigail Fiske. His father was forty years old at the time, his mother thirty-three. Samuel grew up in the parsonage beside the town’s first meetinghouse, a home that stood on Wigwam Hill, overlooking the Connecticut River valley. From that elevated place, he was surrounded by faith, learning, and a deep sense of community obligation.
The Merrick family’s American story began more than a century earlier, in 1636, when Thomas Mirick immigrated from Wales aboard the ship James. Traveling with three brothers and a sister, he first settled in Roxbury before relocating to Agawam Plantation, soon to become Springfield. Thomas Mirick was among Springfield’s earliest settlers and a trusted figure in the fledgling community. He served as a sergeant in the town militia and carried out numerous public duties, including surveying land, inspecting fences, and serving on the land committee, essential work in a frontier settlement.
Through successive generations, the Merricks remained closely tied to public service and the land. Thomas’s son James Mirick, and later his grandson Noah Merrick, carried the family east of the Connecticut River into the hills that would become Wilbraham. In 1741, Noah Merrick became the first minister of the Outward Commons on Springfield Mountain, assuming his post on the same day the church was formally organized. His ministry marked a defining moment in the religious and civic life of the new settlement.
Noah Merrick’s house was built on Wigwam Hill, where Samuel Fisk Merrick was born. Local tradition recalls the roses tended by his mother, Abigail, and the family’s habit of watching sunsets from the mountain. Wigwam Hill itself still carried echoes of its earlier inhabitants. Nearby lived an Indigenous woman remembered as We-sha-u-gan, who resided alone in a wigwam beside a small brook southeast of the Merrick home. Her long presence on the hill gave it its name, and she was occasionally invited to dine with the minister’s family.
One frequently retold anecdote describes We-sha-u-gan inviting the Merricks to dine in return, offering a roasted skunk as the meal. While politely declining without offense, the Merricks navigated the cultural divide with courtesy, a small but telling illustration of everyday coexistence on the New England frontier.
Samuel Fisk Merrick was educated in this setting and later trained as a physician, entering medical practice at a time when doctors were few and their responsibilities broad. By the outbreak of the American Revolution, he was practicing medicine in Wilbraham, tending to families scattered across farms and hill roads.
When war came, Merrick answered the call. He served as a surgeon in the Massachusetts militia, attached to Colonel Elisha Porter’s regiment. In 1776 and again during the northern campaigns of 1777, he marched with the Wilbraham men to reinforce American forces. His surviving journal entries provide rare insight into the experience of a local physician-soldier during the Revolution, written in the aftermath of events such as the Battle of Bennington, a turning point that weakened General Burgoyne’s campaign and helped lead to the decisive victory at Saratoga.
After the war, Merrick resumed his medical practice and remained deeply involved in Wilbraham’s civic life. He was repeatedly described in town histories as “quite a prominent man.” His skills were called upon not only in times of illness but also during moments of crisis. In 1805, following the murder of Marcus Lyon, Dr. Merrick examined the body and documented the wounds for a jury convened at Sykes Tavern, underscoring the vital role physicians played in early legal proceedings.
His public service extended beyond medicine. In 1796, Merrick was among the Wilbraham men granted an act of incorporation by the Massachusetts General Court to form the Aqueduct Company of Wilbraham, established to convey water by pipe into parts of the town. The effort reflected early infrastructure planning and cooperation among Wilbraham’s leading citizens, many of whom lived along West Road.
During the unrest of Shays’ Rebellion in the mid-1780s, Wilbraham again found itself near the center of events. Local tradition holds that Dr. Merrick was among those quietly conferring with town leaders and militia officers as plans were laid to warn General William Shepard of insurgent intentions toward the federal armory in Springfield. Whether as host, strategist, or confidant, Merrick stood among those who helped ensure the armory’s defense.
On February 13, 1780, Samuel Fisk Merrick married Sarah Meekins of Wilbraham. Together, they were the parents of eleven children, four sons and seven daughters, raising a large family during a period marked by both opportunity and loss. Among their children was Abigail “Nabby” Merrick, whose tragic death in 1799 became one of Wilbraham’s most sorrowful events. At about sixteen years of age, she was one of six young people who drowned when a sailboat capsized on Nine Mile Pond. The search for her body lasted sixteen days, and the desperate attempt to lower the pond’s water level by digging a drainage ditch left a deep imprint on the town. The image of the black-draped boat carried through neighboring communities became part of Wilbraham’s collective memory.
In his later years, Dr. Merrick remained a familiar figure in town. Though increasingly hard of hearing, he continued to attend church. One oft-repeated anecdote recalls him sitting on the steps leading to the pulpit and muttering, “Don’t believe it, don’t believe it,” when a sermon struck him as unsound, a vivid glimpse of a strong-minded elder shaped by decades of experience.
In 1831, well into his eighties, Dr. Merrick delivered an address at the centennial celebration of Wilbraham’s settlement. Few present could speak with such authority, having lived through the town’s transformation from colonial outpost to settled New England community within an independent nation.
Dr. Samuel Fisk Merrick died on July 22, 1836, at the age of eighty-four, and was buried in Adams Cemetery, among generations of Wilbraham residents whose lives shaped the town’s foundation.
His life bridged worlds, Native and colonial, provincial and revolutionary, rural and civic. Physician, soldier, examiner of crimes, builder of infrastructure, and keeper of memory, Samuel Fisk Merrick stands as one of Wilbraham’s enduring historical figures, remembered not for a single act but for a lifetime of steady service to his community.
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