Young Merrill, with a party of gold-seekers, started overland with ox teams for California.

The evidence

• “Our subject attended the Milwaukee public schools and after leaving school worked in his father's ship yard. At the time of the California "gold fever" young Merrill, on March 5, 1849, with a party of gold-seekers started overland with ox teams for California. Gaining the summit of the Sierras on September 27, he soon reached his destination, where he lived five years, three of which were spent in mining and two years of the time constructing water ditches, which he sold to miners for hydraulic mining purposes.”

  1908-brown-rock-county/34b-biographical-2.md, Vol. 2, PDF p. 384 / book p. 878

  Brown, William Fiske, editor. Rock County, Wisconsin: A New History of Its Cities, Villages, Towns, Citizens and Varied Interests, from the Earliest Times, Up to Date. Chicago: C. F. Cooper & Co., 1908. 2 vols. archive.org/details/rockcountywiscon01brow, archive.org/details/rockcountywiscon02brow.

  Grade A: Found on a page of one of our sources