Sarah M. Dawson Merrill

She was teaching in Boston at the age of 17 years. She taught next at Lyons Female College, Clinton, Iowa before returning to Boston as first assistant in the Burroughs Street Boys' Grammar School, leaving that to go to the Perkins School for the Blind at South Boston. She was also at the Royal Normal Academy and College for the Blind in London, England, for more than two years, and from that institution, she went to Glasgow, Scotland, to reorganize the work for the blind in that city. Following these experiences, she was for seven years, in charge of the scientific department in Bradford academy.^[2]

In 1883, she married Mr. Henry M. Merrill, of Danvers, Massachusetts, and from that date, she lived in Danvers. From 1887, she opened in a home that Mr. Merrill had built on Elm street a boarding and day school for young ladies, under the name of the Willard Home School. In 1893, after being widowed, Merrill removed the school to larger buildings, which she remodelled, enlarged, and renamed Willard Hall.^[2]

Sarah M. Dawson Merrill died in Danvers, Massachusetts on August 17, 1899.^[2][1]