George W. Merrill (June 26, 1837 – January 10, 1914) was an American politician of the 19th century. He was born in

Turner, Maine Turner is a town in Androscoggin County, Maine, United States. The population was 5,817 at the 2020 census. The town includes the villages of Turner, Turner Center and North Turner. The town is part of the Lewiston- Auburn, Maine Metropolita ...

. He graduated from

Bowdoin College Bowdoin College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. When Bowdoin was chartered in 1794, Maine was still a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The college offers 34 majors and 36 minors, as well as several joint eng ...

in 1859 before studying law. He was admitted to the

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

in Indiana in 1861. During the American Civil War, he joined the

16th Indiana Infantry Regiment The 16th Regiment Indiana Infantry was an infantry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War. In August 1863, the regiment was converted to mounted infantry for the remainder of the war. Service The 16th Indiana Infantry was organ ...

. Merrill was District Attorney of Nye County, Nevada from 1864 to 1868. From 1874 to 1880, he served as District Attorney of Eureka County, Nevada, before being elected to the Nevada Legislature in 1880. On April 2, 1885, nominated by President Grover Cleveland, Merrill was appointed U.S. Minister Resident (similar to modern-day

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...

) to the

Kingdom of Hawaii The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaiʻi ( Hawaiian: ''Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina''), was a sovereign state located in the Hawaiian Islands. The country was formed in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island ...

. He presented his credentials on June 12, 1885, and was recalled on September 23, 1889. He replaced

Rollin M. Daggett Rollin Mallory Daggett (February 22, 1831 – November 12, 1901) was a 19th-century American politician, minister, and diplomat. Daggett served a single term as a United States representative from Nevada from 1879 to 1881. Biography Daggett w ...

, and was replaced by

John L. Stevens John Leavitt Stevens (August 1, 1820 – February 8, 1895) was the United States Minister to the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 when he was accused of conspiring to overthrow Queen Liliuokalani in association with the Committee of Safety, led by ...

. He later worked in San Francisco, California as a lawyer. He died there of an illness of seven weeks on January 10, 1914, aged 76.

References

External links

The Political Graveyard: Merrill
1837 births 1914 deaths Ambassadors of the United States to Hawaii Nevada lawyers District attorneys in Nevada 19th-century American politicians 19th-century American lawyers {{Nevada-politician-stub