A Trail of 19th-Century Terror: Local Historian Donna Schroeder on the Wicked Life of Fayette County Native William Merrick

By Donna Schroeder

While updating the records for our pioneer cemeteries, I can’t resist the urge to find out as much as possible about Fayette County’s early settlers. One of the smallest burial plots in the county turned out to have one of the most interesting, and definitely the most gruesome, stories to date.

A couple of miles southeast of Orange, on Coletrane Hill Road, lies a tiny burial ground. It has more names than markers. It’s known as Dawson, McNeil, or Merrick Cemetery, even though it contains only two marked graves. Sarah Dawson died at the age of fifty-seven in 1838. The other grave belongs to John Merrick.

John Merrick came from Delaware sometime after his marriage to his second wife, Margaret Carter, in 1832. They brought with them at least two of John’s children from his first marriage, as well as two from his marriage to Margaret. Margaret also had a daughter from her first marriage who appears to have remained in Delaware.

The Merricks settled in Orange, known then as Fayetteville, and John started a business as a wagon maker. John was a faithful member of the Methodist Church which, at that time, had no house of worship in the village, and the congregation held their services in the wagon shop.

The Merrick family grew to include a total of eight children by the time John died at the age of forty-seven in 1841. Margaret and the children continued to live on the property on Broad Street, across from the Christian Church. To the west of them, on the county line road, lived the family of Robert Crawford, including his widowed daughter, Sarah Bovard, and her children, Margaret
and John.

The older Merrick children married and were scattered across the country. In 1860, only four children remained with Margaret, two daughters and two sons. The older son, William, was twenty years old at that time.

Next door, Margaret Bovard, who was about William’s age, had drawn his attention, but she had no interest in a relationship with him. Instead, she was being courted by a young man named Tom Truesdale who lived in Rush County.

On a balmy May evening in 1863, Tom and some of his friends had gathered outside the Crawford home, and Tom was serenading Margaret on his violin.

Suddenly, a shot rang out, and Tom Truesdale fell to the ground. He had been shot through the heart from behind and died within seconds. According to those present, William Merrick was the murderer. The men rushed to the Merrick house and were met at the door by his sister who begged them not to kill him. He was located cowering in an upstairs bedroom with a borrowed rifle leaning against the wall.

Merrick was arrested and placed on trial in Connersville. He claimed that he had shot a stray dog, and the bullet must have somehow also hit Truesdale. In spite of the testimony of the other men, as well as the fact that he had been jealous of the budding relationship between Margaret and Tom, he was acquitted.

This happened during the Civil War, and there were claims that William was a member of the group of southern sympathizers known as the Knights of the Golden Circle. It was said that the jury was made up mainly of other members of the organization, resulting in his acquittal. True or not, Merrick went free.

After the murder, William seems to have left Fayetteville and lived in various parts of the state, finally settling on the south side of Indianapolis where he established a successful livery stable around 1876.

In Indianapolis, he met a pretty seamstress named Julia Paul. She had also been a school teacher and had saved up a somewhat large sum of money. During their courtship, he managed to borrow all of it. She eventually brought suit against him for repayment, but he charmed her into dropping the lawsuit and coming to live with him, promising to marry her.

During the winter they lived together, Julia became pregnant. Merrick’s promises of marriage continued, but she filed another lawsuit for paternity. This time, he smoothed the trouble by actually marrying her in July of 1878. They were married by a judge while sitting in one of Merrick’s carriages.

Within a month, she had filed for divorce, claiming he was cruel to her and had threatened to kill her. Again, William begged for another chance, and she relented. Their baby was due to be born in September, and she was hoping for a change for the better.

William continued to treat her badly, according to neighbors. There was trouble over a girl who worked for them in their home. Julia and the ladies in the neighborhood believed that William was having an affair with the girl. Julia wanted her sent away, but William refused.

On September 14th, 1878, Merrick was uncharacteristically kind and charming. He invited Julia to go for a carriage ride with him. A neighbor lady who helped her dress for the occasion said that Julia was excited to have been invited to go out for the evening. Julia never returned.

Two weeks later, a boy playing along Eagle Creek discovered the unclothed remains of a woman and a male infant under a pile of logs. Once again, William Merrick was arrested and charged with murder. Newspapers all over Indiana were full of accounts of the murder and trial for weeks, although the Connersville papers didn’t make as much of the story of a Fayette County native as might have been expected.

His trial began in December of 1878. Merrick claimed that Julia had left the carriage when they met up with another woman who was a midwife. He said Julia told him she would contact him soon. He testified he didn’t know the midwife’s name or where she lived, but he was sure the dead woman wasn’t his wife.

In court, the evidence was damning. A saloon keeper said that William had come into his establishment and asked for a glass of beer and a glass of blackberry wine. He took a packet of white powder from his pocket and put it in the wine before taking it outside and giving the wine to a woman in a carriage. After they finished their drinks, he returned the glasses.

A doctor testified that there was evidence of strychnine in the dead woman’s body and that the poison would have brought on muscle contractions, causing her to go into labor. Another man testified that he had seen Merrick in a carriage with a woman who appeared to be asleep or unconscious.

Neighbors testified to the cruel treatment Julia endured, told of hearing William say he would kill her, and described how she said she feared for her life. The woman’s body was badly decomposed when found, but the prosecution brought the skull and a foot, preserved in alcohol, to court. People who knew Julia testified that the hair was the right color and that the gold teeth were hers. One of her stockings was brought in and shown to fit perfectly on the foot.

Merrick appeared to read a document throughout that part of the testimony. Julia’s father was overcome with emotion and left the room. Other issues began to come to light. Testimony was given that Merrick knowingly rented horses and carriages to grave robbers at night. It was said, by a grave robber, that he intended to sell them Julia’s body in hopes she would be dissected at a medical school and never discovered.

Questions were raised about an old man who had died while staying at Merrick’s stable. The man owned a fine horse that Merrick took possession of after the man’s death. The 1863 murder of Tom Truesdale was a topic of discussion. The defense brought in a girl who was obviously a ‘lady of the evening’ to give Merrick an alibi for the night of the murder. She claimed she had been drinking and was the woman seen in the
carriage.

His attorneys produced a letter, allegedly written by Julia. In it, she said she had escaped from him, therefore he wasn’t a murderer, but she hated him and wouldn’t come to defend him in person. The case went to the jury, and it took twenty-five minutes for them to return a guilty verdict. Merrick and another convicted murderer were hanged on January 29, 1879.

After the trial and hanging, the notoriety continued. An Indianapolis newspaper offered an eighty page illustrated booklet about the murder and trial for fifteen cents, postage paid. A letter Merrick wrote to his sister Ann, the wife of Reverend Jacob White, who lived at New Salem, Indiana, was published. In it, he denied all the things of which he was accused.

It was learned that he had left the livery and all other property to the girl who lived at the house. She said she had been sent to Indiana from Kansas to live with the Merricks to attend school. She admitted to the alleged affair. She was Merrick’s niece, the daughter of his sister who had begged the men to spare his life fifteen years before in Fayetteville.

A man bought Merrick’s pocket watch and took it to a jeweler for cleaning. A note was found inside the case. In it, Merrick admitted to killing Truesdale for coming between him and Margaret, as well as an admission to the killing of the old man at the stable. He hinted that he had successfully “got rid of” another woman named Fan. He expressed regret at not being more careful when murdering Julia, but said he was sorry for killing their baby son.

It was noted in the news that the marriage of William and Julia began and ended in a carriage. There was one bit of poetic justice in the end. Merrick was buried at Greenlawn Cemetery, and body snatchers stole his remains that very night.