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Merrifield seems to be a territorial surname, but its derivation cannot be ascertained with certainty.
The American branches are of English extraction, their ancestors having been long seated in the
southern counties. In Devonshire the name was common, and from statements found in books that
treat of the history and old families of that county, it appears that they were at one time held in some
distinction and possessed of considerable landed estates there.
As evidence of the territorial character
of the surname, we mention "Merrifield bridge" over a small stream in Dartmoor, and an old estate
near Plymouth named "Merrifield," besides several enclosed pieces of land known by the same
designation. It has been assumed that the name was derived from St. Mary's field. There is a village in
Yorkshire called "Mirfield." Some have suggested that the family name was derived from the French
word "Mervielle" and that the ancestors may have come over from the south of France in the time of
William the Conqueror. There is a German family named "Merfeld." One of the three knights who
murdered Thomas a Becket in church, at the instigation of King Henry II, had a name of similar
orthography.
In England the surname was spelled variously, as Merifield, Merrefield, Merryfield,
Merriville, and Merivale. One branch of the family was settled as goldsmiths at Exeter, Devonshire,
and some of them became eminent in literature and in professional life.
Of the Exeter family was
JOHN HERMAN MERIVALE, scholar and translator, born in 1779, who became an able lawyer
and author of legal works. His son, the REV. CHARLES MERIVALE, born in 1809, acquired great distinction as an author by his work entitled "Fall of the Roman
Republic," and his "History of the Romans under the Empire." His brother, HERMAN MERIVALE,
born in 1805, was appointed professor of political economy at Oxford in 1837, and permanent under
secretary of state for India in 1859.
The Merrefields of Ringwood, Hampshire Co., were Quakers, as are some of their descendants in
America. An old man of the name, being a Quaker, and supposed to have been the last of the family,
died in the parish of Fordingsbridge during the latter years of the last century and was buried in the
parish of Ringwood. JOSEPH MERREFIELD, of Baltimore, merchant and author, made a visit to the
home of his ancestors in 1851, and found the house in which his father was born, Mar. 7, 1770, and
an old lady, who remembered him at the time he went to America, said there were none of the name
then living there.
One family held a valuable estate near Oakhampton, and spent it on lawyers and lavish hospitality,
and one of the famiiy remarked that they should have been "peaceable and miserly" until his time.
Becoming reduced in circumstances they took to the soil and followed agricultural pursuits at
Tavistock, in Devonshire, but some of them by great exertion acquired education and rose to
considerable distinction in professional life and authorship.
Distinguishing characteristics of the family in England are "great personal strength and resolution, warm
hearts, and hasty tempers"; traits of character that must long have been constitutional as they are
conspicuously developed in the American branches.
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