My Genealogy Hound

ROBERT S. MERWIN, carriage manufacturer, of the firm of Merwin & Lanphere, was born in Niagara county, New York, August 1, 1838, where he was reared and received his education. His father, Samuel R., was a tiller of the soil, and born on the Catskill Mountains, in the town of Durham, in the year 1802, and died in 1854. Robert Merwin was married in February, 1869, to Elizabeth Hayne, who was born in December, 1838, in the same county in New York. They have two children, Everett H. and Lucy May. Both Mr. and Mrs. Merwin are members of the Congregational Church of Carthage, Missouri, and are among its most active and efficient workers. Mr. Merwin had been a member of the Close Communion Baptists, but upon deep and long reflection demurred at such exclusive fellowship. In 1866 he immigrated West, settling in Woodson county, Kansas, where he dealt in fine-wool sheep. In 1868 he became a citizen of Jasper county, Missouri, purchasing a farm in Preston township, and later in Sheridan township. Mr. Merwin has always been a great admirer, and very successful raiser, of fine-wool sheep, in which he still takes great pride, and none the less in blooded stock and fine beef cattle. He sold his farm in the fall of 1882 and removed to Carthage, where he is now engaged in the manufacture of fine carriages and general jobbing work in this line, and is located on West Third Street. In the early history of the county Mr. Merwin was actively and laboriously engaged in the administration of public affairs. He was a judge of the county court for two years and a half, with judges Purcell and Koontz, and for a long time justice of the peace. It has seldom been our fortune to meet a man of such sterling worth and invincible integrity, always for justice to all men, “tho’ the heavens fall,” and “with malice toward none.” To Judge Merwin is due much of the thrift and enterprise, and many of the public institutions and improvements of Jasper county, and he is one “whose works will follow him.”