User:Ronyanbu/Lewis J. Merritt

Lewis J. Merritt was born at Hanover, Chautauqua County, New York and moved West with his parents to Ashtabula County, Ohio and Duluth, Minnesota. It has been reported that Lewis shipped as a sailor on the Great Lakes at age 15. He married Eunice Annette Wood in Oneota, St. Louis County, Minnesota on Dec. 26, 1869. "A Biographical History With Portraits of Prominent Men of the Great West" reported at Page 220 that Lewis Merritt and Eunice Wood were the first white couple to be issued a marriage license and married in St. Louis County, Minnesota.

Lewis went to Fort Lincoln, North Dakota in 1873 to work as a cook during the construction of Custer Barracks. Lewis later lived in Atchison County, Missouri from 1874 until returning in 1887 to Minnesota, where he worked with his brothers Leonidas, Alfred and Cassius Merritt prospecting for iron ore. After John D. Rockefeller Sr. gained control of the Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines, Lewis moved in 1897 to Pasadena, California, where he became a wealthy real estate developer.

Lewis completed his three-story mansion in Pasadena in 1905 and named it the "Manor Del Mar". The home was designed by William F. Thompson in the Arts and Crafts style with a Tudor influence. The residence is approximately 9,643 square feet, including a finished attic and basement. The lot size is approximately 30,200 square feet. Lewis' residence was located south of the mansion of his son, Hulett C. Merritt, and West of Ambassador College, which eventually purchased Lewis' mansion in the 1950s for use as a student residence. After purchase by the College, the street address of Lewis Merritt's former mansion became 359 W. Del Mar Blvd. in Pasadena. The landscape design of the historic gardens of Manor Del Mar, Hulett Merritt's "Villa Ollivier" and the adjoining Stillman B. Jamieson House (Terrace Villa) were redesigned in 1967 for Ambassador College. The redesign integrated the historic gardens into a unified campus plan. Further information on these historic gardens is contained in the book "Urban Landscape Design" by Garrett Eckbo, published 1968, McGraw Hill.

Mrs. Margaret Merritt Miller (daughter of Arthur Allnatt Merritt) has a remembrance of Lewis J. Merritt coming to visit the farm of her grandparents, Morris and Jennie Merritt, near Grundy Center, Iowa in the 1920s. Lewis subsequently mailed them a postcard with a photo of the gardens of Hulett's mansion in Pasadena. Morris Merritt was the son of Jeremiah W. Merritt, the immediate younger brother of Lewis J. Merritt's' father, Lewis H. Merritt.

The Tulare "Advance Register" Newspaper reported the death of Lewis J. Merritt and stated in his obituary on March 22, 1929 that he was survived by his son Hulett C. Merritt, owner of Tagus Ranch, another son Lewis N. Merritt, and two daughters, Mrs. W.H. White of Santa Ana and Mrs. Evelyn M. Hanan of Reno, Nevada. The obituary also stated that Lewis would be buried in Los Angeles next to the grave of his wife. In addition to Hulett Sr, the other pallbearers at Lewis' funeral were: Hulett C. Merritt Jr.; Huntington Merritt; Ernest A. Merritt; Merritt A White; and James Thoburn White.

An article in the Oakland Tribune Newspaper of March 27, 1931 headlined "Merritt Will Suit Settled" and stated: "The estate of Lewis J. Merritt, former millionaire business associate of John D. Rockefeller, valued at $750,000 shall be divided equally among his four children under the will. The will had been contested by Hulett C. Merritt Sr., Pasadena, who demanded more than one fourth of the estate. The other members of the family, Mrs. Horace White, Tustin, Lewis N. Merritt, Pasadena, and Mrs. Evelyn Hanan, Berkeley, contended it should be equally divided." Lewis' obituary in the Los Angeles Times stated that he died at 350 West Del Mar Street, Pasadena.

Lewis and his wife were members of the Methodist Church in Pasadena. The dates of their birth and death as well as the spelling of the names of their children and descendants have come from several sources, including various Minnesota newspaper archives, extracts from the 1942 and 1952 editions of "Who's Who on the Pacific Coast", early history books of Los Angeles County as well as Social Security and California Death records and historical notes prepared in the 1950s by Melvin L. Merritt.