Los Angeles County
Biographies
JOHN ALEXANDER MERRILL
MERRILL, JOHN ALEXANDER, President, United States Oil Gas Producer Company, Los Angeles, California, was born in Beloit, Wisconsin, May 4, 1849, the son of David Merrill and Agnes (Fonda) Merrill. He married Maria Durham at Beloit, June 19, 1876, and to them were born three sons and three daughters, John, Benjamin, Bessie, Lillian, Bruce, Grayson and Marguerite Merrill.
Mr. Merrill has had an unusually varied career, as farmer, soldier, clergyman and financier. Like many successful men, he was reared on a farm, his father’s place being four miles north of Beloit, Wis., on the banks of the beautiful Rock River. He went to school in winter and worked on the farm in summer. Up at 5 a.m., winter and summer, he began each day by milking four cows by lantern light, in winter, and closed the day, milking the same cows by light of the same lantern.
When thirteen years of age he went to Beloit and entered the grammar school. At fifteen years of age, he enlisted in the 40th Wisconsin Volunteers for service in the Civil War and went to Memphis, Tenn., where he saw much service guarding supply trains and posts. During his term of service, his record shows he was not once excused from duty.
Returning to Beloit at the close of the War, Mr. Merrill entered high school and afterward Beloit College, from which he was graduated in 1872 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Five years later his college conferred the degree of M. A. upon him. Upon graduating from Beloit, he went to San Francisco, Cal., and there began to study for the ministry. In 1875 he was ordained in the Presbyterian Church and for the next twelve years held pastorates in various parts of the Southwest, including El Paso, Texas; Prescott, Arizona, and Riverside, Cal., and also served his church for a time in Berlin, Germany.
Resigning from the ministry in 1887, on account of impaired health, Mr. Merrill engaged in orange culture in Southern California for some time, then became interested in various real estate enterprises in that section. He also spent three years in New York City in the brokerage business, returning at the end of that time to Los Angeles, where he re-embarked in the land development business. Since that time he has been one of the active factors in the upbuilding of Southern California and has been the organizer and President of numerous important companies, among them the following:
The Sunset Commercial Co., which purchased 100,000 acres of water rights in the Imperial Valley and opened all the territory east of the Salton River.
The Manhattan Beach Co., which purchased two miles of ocean front and built up Manhattan Beach, one of the Southern California seashore resorts.
The Riverside Heights Co., which purchased 700 acres of land on Mt. Washington.
The Glendale Realty Co., which purchased practically all of the property at Glendale, Cal., between Glendale and Central avenues and Fourth and Sixth streets, also the Battle Creek Sanitarium property at Glendale.
The California Home-Seekers Co., which purchased 11,000 acres at Corcoran, Cal., in the San Joaquin Valley. This land was sold to H. J. Whitley and associates, who have developed a modern city.
The Central Land Co., which purchased two thousand acres twenty-five miles south of Corcoran.
The Tipton Townsite and Improvement Co., which purchased and sold 2200 lots at Tipton, eleven miles south of Tulare Cal.
The El Paso Commercial Co., which purchased 1200 lots at El Paso, Tex., in a bare hill section which has since been developed into Sunset Heights, the handsome residential district.
In addition to these, Mr. Merrill organized the U. S. Oil Gas Producer Co. and the Natl. Oil Gas Producer Co., serving as President of the former and Director and Secretary of the latter. These he considers his most important enterprises.
For many years Mr. Merrill has been interested in public and church affairs in Los Angeles, having raised large sums of money for Occidental College and others. He was one of the founders and Directors of the League of Justice, and is an active Director of the Union Rescue Mission, is a Director of the Southern Cal. Peace Society, and has been Pres. of the Federation Club and Dana Bartlett Bethlehem Inst. He also has been a member of the L. A. Cham. of Com. and Municipal League for many years.
Mr. Merrill’s father was an Elder of the Presbyterian Church for forty years.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 579,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2011 Joyce
Rugeroni.
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BIOGRAPIES