Margaret Manton Merrill

In the fall of her eighteenth birthday, Merrill began her career as teacher, which vocation she continued for two years. Her taste for literary work led her to the journalistic field when she was 20 years old.^[3]

Going to Denveron in November 1879, Merrill became a partner of the Colorado Temperance Gazette, which was then the only temperance paper in the state. The venture was not successful, on account of the actions of a partner, and also because the anti-temperance spirit was too strong in Colorado for the prosperity of a paper wholly devoted to that cause. The 1880 Federal Census lists Merrill's occupation as a school teacher in Denver, Arapahoe County, Colorado. Later, during the temperance campaigns in Kansas and Iowa, she became a lecturer and organizer. She was successful in her education of children.^[3] In 1885, the Iowa State Census listed her living with Milton Davis in Tipton, Cedar Rapids County, Iowa.

In 1887, Merrill moved to New York City to do regular newspaper work. When the Woman's Press Club of New York City was organized, she was one of the charter members, and was elected the club's first secretary. She was a journalist of Sorosis, and a very active member of that organization. She then later worked for the New York Herald and was the only woman employed in that capacity by that journal. In addition, she did syndicate and miscellaneous work, being especially successful as a writer of children's stories.^[3]

During her vacations, Merrill was an extensive traveler. At the time of the famine in South Dakota, in 1889, she went through nineteen destitute counties in midwinter, visiting the homes of the people, and bringing back to her paper correct accounts of the condition of affairs there. The result was large contributions being sent from the East. During 1890, she visited Yellowstone Park and wrote accounts for papers in the West and in England, which attracted attention. While in California, she wrote a poem, entitled "The Faro Dealer's Story," which gained for her considerable local fame. Still later, she contemplated a work based on ancient Babylon.^[3]

After moving back to the United States, Merrill spent 35 years in Minnesota, Colorado, and California. She died June 19-20,^[4] 1893 in Manhattan, New York, and was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx, New York.^[1]

• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Cosmopolitan Publishing Company (1891). Cosmopolitan. Vol. 11 (Public domain ed.). New York: Cosmopolitan Publishing Company.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: McCarty, L.P. (1896). The Statistician and Economist. Vol. 1st – 23d, Issues 1876-1906 (Public domain ed.). L.P. McCarty.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice (1893). A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life (Public domain ed.). Moulton. p. 501.

• Works related to Woman of the Century/Mary E. Ireland at Wikisource
• Works by or about Margaret Manton Merrill at the Internet Archive