When Benjamin Edward Merrick was born on the 5th of June 1846, his father, also named Benjamin, was 21 and his mother, Sarah (nee Jordan) was 24. He was baptized at St. Coleman’s Cathedral (Protestant), Cloyne, Cork County, Ireland where his grandfather Edward Jordan Esq. was Virger. Edward Jordan Esq. also signed church records with the title of Tidesman and Brie of Bacon (Beacon?).
Benjamin’s paternal grandparents Benjamin and Margaret (nee Redmond) were married at St. Finbarr’s South Church (Catholic) in Cork City. This Benjamin served on Jersey Island with the British 58th Regiment of Foot in the years surrounding 1806. He was not at Waterloo as previously reported. They had 7 children, Robert K., William Bedford, Ellen Merrick Levis, Anne Merrick Martin, Benjamin, Joseph, and Jeremiah. All migrated to Canada except William Bedford who emigrated to Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia and Benjamin, who died while still in Cloyne. Margaret was known to have lived in Youghal, 15 miles (24 km) distant from Cloyne, for a time after her husband’s death in 1834. It is not confirmed if this Merrick family is related to the Merrick’s who ran a department store in Youghal from 1580-2013.
When Benjamin Edward Merrick was 6 years old his father, who possibly served in the British military like his father before him, died. Four years later, finding that their once affluent family had become in need of support, Benjamin, his mother and 2 sisters, Matilda and Elizabeth, migrated to Huron County, Ontario, Canada where Benjamin’s uncles and aunts had previously settled. They rode steerage on the ship, and they brought with them a wind-up clock and 2 wooden chests, one black and one salmon-colored. Benjamin’s widowered uncle Robert K. Merrick and his 12 children made room for them in their rural Canadian log cabin.
Benjamin worked hauling wood as a teenager, and then he learned to paint fine filigree embellishments on farm equipment at McTaggart’s factory in Clinton, Huron County, Ontario, Canada. He then started painting homes, and this became his life’s work. The family migrated to the United States, first to Bad Axe and then to Bay City, Michigan where his sisters settled with their new found husbands. Benjamin and his mother moved on to the Chicago area, Cook County, Illinois, ever following the rumors of higher paying jobs.
There Benjamin married Eleanor Westgarth who was from England. They had 6 children: Elsie M., Roy Cleasby, Harry E., Genevieve Eleanor, Stanley Westgarth, and Kenneth Copithorne. Benjamin passed on stories of his life in Ireland, and thanks to a noncompliant tutor who, against the parent’s wishes, taught him to speak Gaelic, he could speak Gaelic with other Irish immigrants. Benjamin was very devout studying his protestant faith regularly, although later in life he was said to conclude that Catholicism may be the correct path. As an older man he joined the “On Borrowed Time” club in Oak Park, Illinois. At a memorial service given by this club for deceased members in January, 1932, Benjamin’s grandson, Robert Benjamin Merrick, laid a rose on Benjamin’s empty flag draped chair.
