John B. Merrill was the son of Emily and Pardon Merrill, born on Chestnut Hill Farm, just outside of Hinsdale, New Hampshire. Chestnut Hill was a small farm, on which lay a few patches of corn, potatoes, and an apple orchard. About a half mile away, Pardon Merrill owned a machine shop, where John worked throughout his childhood, achieving some level of competence in mechanics.(3) He came to Beloit in 1856 as part of the tide of new England pioneers that was migrating westward. When John Merrill arrived in Beloit, the village was booming.
New foundries were being established all along the Rock River Valley to supply the growing demand for farming machinery. Beloit was becoming a small industrial city, with the ethnic color of an Irish and Norwegian neighborhood, and an elite section where the more established emigrants from New England lived. (4) The growing population provided John Merrill with a sizable labor force of sixty men in l858.(5)
Orson E. Merrill, who had come to Beloit in 1855, evidently bought part of his brother's interest some time during 1858. By December of that year, the separate firm within the reaper factory was known as the J. B. and 0. E. Merrill Machine Shop.(6)
In addition to manufacturing farming equipment the Merrill Machine Shop served the community as a general repair shop. Some of the firm's typical products were rotary plows, mill gearings, Anderson Water Wheels, and sugar cane mills. Surprisingly, sugar cane mills were one of the Machine Shop's most popular products. In 1857, progressive Wisconsin farmers had begun to grow Chinese imphee and African sorghum sugar plants.
Page 3