The Morrill of the Story

Duane White­head (l) and George Mor­rill, after com­ing back from their jaunt in the Ben­nett cemetery,

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Thanks to Jan­ice Mor­rill, we found Samuel on the fam­i­ly tree. George was able to fill in some miss­ing information.

Plan your trip to His­tor­i­cal House

With trav­el­ling an expen­sive item these days, it pays to pre­plan your adven­tures. That’s what George Mor­rill of Sax­tons Riv­er, Ver­mont, did this month. I received a call from Duane White­head, an antique book­seller in Bel­lows Falls, who had struck up a con­ver­sa­tion with Mr. Mor­rill when he vis­it­ed his book­shop. Duane fol­lowed up with phone calls to the His­tor­i­cal House, and that’s how we get to the Mor­rill of this story.

He explained that George, who is 90 years old, want­ed to see the ceme­tery where William Mor­rill, a Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War sol­dier, was buried. He also want­ed to stop by His­tor­i­cal House and learn what we might know and be able to share with him about the Mor­rills. Want­i­ng to help make the long trip valu­able to him, I began to do some searching. 

Those who know Danville his­to­ry, rec­og­nize the Mor­rill name as one well-con­nect­ed with the town. When my hus­band and I arrived here 30+ years ago, we asso­ci­at­ed it with Nate Mor­rill, a tall, white-haired gen­tle­man, who passed in 1990. Both he and his wife, Jan­ice, were active in town affairs. Jan­ice has been kind enough to share some of her family’s his­to­ry and pho­tos with His­tor­i­cal House, and I imme­di­ate­ly thought she might be a resource. 

The name Mor­rill is con­nect­ed with places, too, espe­cial­ly in North Danville. If one looks at the index in our his­to­ry book, Vil­lage in the Hills, there are 20 entries under that name as well as map entries on both the Wallings and Beers Atlas. The for­mer Mor­rill school­house is locat­ed on the Bruce Bad­ger Memo­r­i­al high­way between Danville and North Danville. It is in the hol­low on the left, just before you cross the bridge. The next two roads to the left are asso­ci­at­ed with the Mor­rills; the first is named Mor­rill Road and the sec­ond is McDow­ell, which will lead you to the Old North Church. Mor­rills had farms in that area. 

The first thing I did was check a won­der­ful web­site I inad­ver­tent­ly dis­cov­ered. For those of you who use the web, the address is: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vtcbarne/danville.htm  This site is amaz­ing. Includ­ed in the infor­ma­tion there is a com­plete ceme­tery list­ing. I found a William Mor­rill there, who is buried in Pope Ceme­tery in North Danville. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the time peri­od for him as a Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War sol­dier did not match up. 

Ques­tion­ing why, I was off to the Town Clerk’s office to check their records. For those read­ers who have not seen the Town Clerk’s his­tor­i­cal records room, it is well worth the trip. What a won­der­ful job our com­mu­ni­ty has done in keep­ing his­tor­i­cal records! Look­ing in the births file, I found no William, but was astound­ed at the num­ber of Mor­rill cards that were filed there. Sharon Daniell, Assis­tant Town Clerk, also showed me a book enti­tled The War of Rebel­lion, which con­tains the names of all Ver­mon­ters who served in that war. A quick glance through that book let me know that one would need to know the com­pa­ny some­one served in to find the list­ing. It would take more time than I had to give.

The next morn­ing, I called Jan­ice to see if she might be will­ing to meet with George. She respond­ed with a yes and said she would bring some of her infor­ma­tion with her. Now, all that was left for me to do was take a look at the Pope ceme­tery. I have been by there but nev­er with the inten­tion of stop­ping to walk through it. Jan­ice direct­ed me to take the sec­ond left after the bridge and told me I would “run right into it.” 

It was a love­ly after­noon to walk that serene place. I saw many Mor­rill stones, but only one with the name of William. He died at 16 years of age. That young man wasn’t the one George was look­ing for, but the qui­et, fall day and the engraved stone made me stop and won­der. What kind of life did this young man have? Why did he die at 16? I won­dered how it affect­ed his fam­i­ly. Ceme­ter­ies no longer seem sad places to me; in fact, they are love­ly and restful.

I called Duane, and he shy­ly admit­ted the name George was search­ing for was Samuel. Now, that was a horse of a dif­fer­ent col­or! I was sure I had seen Samuel list­ed. Back to Vil­lage in the Hills index—no Samuel. Back to the ceme­tery listing—a Samuel is buried in the Pope and it fit the right time peri­od. Back to the War of the Rebel­lion book (on that same web address I mentioned)–no Samuel. Well, at least we had one hit and Jan­ice was going to share her his­to­ry as well. 

George and Duane arrived right on time and Jan­ice short­ly after. The most inter­est­ing and use­ful piece of infor­ma­tion she brought was a geneal­o­gy tree, a blue­print-type doc­u­ment rolled up in a tube. She spread it out on the table, and we hov­ered over the tree head­ed by ABRAHAM MORRILL; it states under the head­ing, “Came to New Eng­land cir. 1632, first to Cam­bridge, thence to Sal­is­bury, Mass. M. daugh­ter of Hon. Robert Clements of Haver­hill, Mass.” She and Nate had retrieved the blue­print from his father’s broth­er, who lived in Cal­i­for­nia. There, in blue and white, was Samuel’s name. Under it is writ­ten: “Danville, VT. b. 1741 at Sal­lis­bury d. 1845. Was Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Sol­dier. m. Rachel Hoyt.” 

He brought with him two books of fic­tion he has writ­ten, inscrib­ing them to the His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety. Also in hand was a copy of a thick lin­eage book he had found in a book­shop in Salt Lake City enti­tled Mor­rill Kin­dred in Amer­i­ca, Vol­ume Two that traces the descen­dants of Abra­ham Mor­rill of Sal­is­bury through his three sons to 1931. 

Jan­ice shared some of the farm pho­tos she brought, and then offered to trav­el to St. Johns­bury to copy the blue­print for both George and His­tor­i­cal House. Duane and George were off to the Pope ceme­tery while I copied the impor­tant infor­ma­tion of his lin­eage from the book. When they returned, the two were full of fresh air and excite­ment of vis­it­ing not only the Pope Ceme­tery but also the Ben­nett. I was shocked, because in bold let­ters under that ceme­tery list­ing on the web­site is writ­ten: “Access to the ceme­tery requires walk­ing uphill across the field. Please do not attempt to walk to this ceme­tery if you are not phys­i­cal­ly fit.”

Nine­ty-year-old George looked per­fect­ly fine. Before they left for south­ern Ver­mont, we sat for a few min­utes and once again looked at the blue­print. We were point­ing out one per­son and anoth­er on the chart, and I was mak­ing notes in the mar­gin to cap­ture where George’s infor­ma­tion filled gaps. Then George sighed and said, “We’re all relat­ed anyway.” 

True, but wasn’t that a lark!

This arti­cle was first pub­lished in the Octo­ber, 2010, issue the North Star Month­ly