Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

Benjamin Merrill ( – June 19, 1771) was an American military officer, gunsmith and planter who served in the

militia A militia ( ) is a military or paramilitary force that comprises civilian members, as opposed to a professional standing army of regular, full-time military personnel. Militias may be raised in times of need to support regular troops or se ...

Rowan County, North Carolina Rowan County ( ),Talk Like a Tarheel
, from the North Carolina Col ...

. He sided with the

Regulator Movement in North Carolina The Regulator Movement in North Carolina, also known as the Regulator Insurrection, War of Regulation, and War of the Regulation, was an uprising in Province of North Carolina, Provincial North Carolina from 1766 to 1771 in which citizens took up ...

, and was captured following the

Battle of Alamance The Battle of Alamance, which took place on May 16, 1771, was the final confrontation of the Regulator Movement, a rebellion in colonial North Carolina over various issues with the Colonial Government. The Regulators primarily wanted reforms ...

on May 16, 1771. Shortly thereafter, he was executed as a rebel by Governor

William Tryon Lieutenant-General William Tryon (8 June 172927 January 1788) was a British Army officer and colonial administrator who served as governor of North Carolina from 1764 to 1771 and the governor of New York from 1771 to 1777. He also served durin ...

Early life

Merrill was born in

Hopewell, New Jersey Hopewell is a borough in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Centrally located within the Raritan Valley region, this historical settlement (and its neighboring township of the same name) is an exurban commuter suburb of New York ...

. He became a

gunsmith A gunsmith is a person who repairs, modifies, designs, or builds guns. The occupation differs from an armorer, who usually replaces only worn parts in standard firearms. Gunsmiths do modifications and changes to a firearm that may require a very ...

and plantation owner. His lands included a river with a strong current "...sufficient to power the machinery used in boring out the

barrels A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids ...

." His residence was located four miles south of Lexington,

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

, in what was then Orange County. It was reported that Merrill was a deacon of the nearby Jersey church, a

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

congregation founded around 1755 by settlers from

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

.''Rowan County''
North Carolina Counties; accessed Aug 2018 He was married to Jemima Smith, daughter of Andrew Smith of Hopewell, and was known to have had eight to ten children.

Regulator movement

The Regulation movement (or "War of the Regulation") was at first a low intensity action carried on by colonists from around 1766 to 1771 against local and state officials and offices in the Carolinas. The colonials had become upset over issues of what some considered unfair taxation, local government corruption, and local government control. At first, the colonial governments did little to intercede; but by early 1771, North Carolina Governor Tryon had had enough, now viewing the perpetrators as full fledged rebels.''Prelude to the American Revolution? The War of Regulation: A Revolutionary Reaction for Reform''
Sarah Sadlier; Charles Wright Academy, Tacoma, Washington; (2012);

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

format file, accessed March 8, 2019. Governor Tryon sent General Hugh Waddell through Rowan and

Mecklenburg Mecklenburg (; ) is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The largest cities of the region are Rostock, Schwerin, Neubrandenburg, Wismar and Güstrow. ...

to raise troops. Waddell enlisted almost one hundred in Mecklenburg and about the same number in Rowan. At this time, Captain Merrill had also rallied a company of three hundred men, most of whom were Baptists, from the Jersey Settlement (in what is now Davidson County). From here Captain Merrill marched to meet other Regulator forces, who were convinced an overwhelming show of force would intimidate the government forces into withdrawal, rather than to actually fight. The Regulator militia was gathering a large force at a camp site along the Alamance Creek.

Alamance

On May 9, when marching to join Tryon, Waddell was intercepted at the Yadkin by the much larger force of Regulators under Merrill. Realizing his force was outnumbered, Waddell fell back to the

Salisbury District Salisbury was a Districts of England, local government district in Wiltshire, England from 1974 to 2009. Its main urban area was the city of Salisbury. The district was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 and the Englis ...

. He was unable to join the governor until after the battle. Meanwhile Tryon had proceeded westward from Hillsborough with just under eleven hundred men. He met the forces of the insurgents at Alamance Creek and defeated them, thereby bringing open opposition of the Regulators to an end. Captain Merrill arrived after the battle had been decided; his force was scattered and he was taken prisoner. The Battle of Alamance was the only full-scale—and the decisive battle—of the war.Brown, Richard Maxwell; ''The South Carolina Regulators: The Story of the First American Vigilante Movement''; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Belknap Press of Harvard University; (1963)

Battle aftermath

From May 30 to June 20, 1771, the

court of oyer and terminer In English law, oyer and terminer (; a partial translation of the Anglo-French , which literally means 'to hear and to determine') was one of the commissions by which a judge of assize sat. Apart from its Law French name, the commission was also ...

was held at Hillsborough for the trial of the Regulators captured at Alamance. Twelve were convicted of high treason, and six of them were sentenced to be

hanged, drawn, and quartered To be hanged, drawn and quartered was a method of torturous capital punishment used principally to execute men convicted of high treason in medieval and early modern Britain and Ireland. The convicted traitor was fastened by the feet to a h ...

for their part in the uprising, including three officers of the colonial militia who had joined ranks with the Regulator's: Merrill, Captain Robert Messer, and Captain Robert Matear.

Final petition to Lord Hillsborough and death

In a letter from Governor Tryon to Lord Hillsborough, Tryon asked for consideration to be given to the widow Merrill and her children: "Benjamin Merrill a Captain of the militia, at the hour of his execution, left it in charge of the officers to solicit me to petition His Majesty to grant his plantation and estate to his wife and eight children. He died under a thorough conviction of his crime and the justice of his sentence, and addressed himself to the spectators to take warning by his suffering. His Majesty's indulgence to this request would, I am persuaded, be dutifully and affectionatley received by his unhappy widow and children." —Wme. Tryon''Captain Benjamin Merrell & The Regulators of Colonial North Carolina''
ia "History of the Liberty Baptist Association, by Elder Henry Sheets, Edwards & Broughton of Raleigh, N.C, (1907)" TAMU; accessed Aug 2018 The request was granted, although later played down by the Patriots of the

Revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

.NOTE:The reply to the plea read: "To JEMIMAH MERRILL AND HER CHILDREN. I, Wm. Tryon, Governor and Captain-General for the Province of North Carolina; To Jemima Merrill and her Children: You are commanded to hold and possess the land and tenements, goods and chattels of the late Benjamin Meriill, hung for high treason till his Majesty's pleasure shall be known and all his tax collectors and receiver shall take due notice thereof. Done at Hillsboro---June, 1771. "Wm. Tryon" Merrill and his five companions were hanged on June 19, 1771, near Hillsborough,

Memorial

There is a memorial plaque placed along Old Halifax Rd., in Hillsborough, North Carolina marking the place of the execution.

Notes

External links

''Benjamin Merrill Memorial Site''
Find-a-Grave.com; accessed March 8, 2019; located on Old Halifax Rd., Hillsborough, North Carolina. {{DEFAULTSORT:Merrill, Benjamin 1730s births 1771 deaths Regulator Movement 18th-century American planters American slave owners People executed by the Province of North Carolina by hanging