Merrill Military History
BENJAMIN MERRILL-Captain North Carolina Militia- Revolutionary War battles prior to official war declaration. Hung by the British.
William Merrill III-(Benjamin’s brother and father of Benjamin below) – Captain North Carolina Militia. Believed killed in the battle of Guilford Courthouse 1781.
BENJAMIN MERRILL-(William’s son and Captain’s nephew) private in Bratton’s Regiment South Carolina. Also fought in a North Carolina regiment. Revolutionary War.
JOSEPH LEWIS FINLEY- Major 8th Pennsylvania, Revolutionary War. Served 7 years and was in many major battles. He lost his left eye in the war. (He was the grandfather of Sarah Finley, Charles Merrill’s wife)
JOSEPH BOZARTH-(ca 1735-1790) was in Kentucky County, Virginia by 1780. He was Shown, July 1780, as Lieutenant of the Jefferson County Militia, the Company of Capt. William McClure, in a campaign against the Shawnee Indians under the command of Col. George Rogers Clark. Son-in-law Andrew Reed and Joseph’s youngest brother, Isaac, were privates in his unit. Joseph died in 1790 in what was then known as “Nelson County, Virginia, District of Kentucky.”
The Shawnee supported the British during the revolutionary war and George Rogers Clark was the revolutionary war leader of the Western Frontier fighting the various Indian allies of the British. Col. Clark is the older brother of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
His family line is Mary Jane Merrell/Sarah Finley/Mary Ann Bozarth/John Bozarth/Lt. Joseph Bozarth