George Byron Merrick

Born in 1841 and dying in 1931, George Byron Merrick was a Wisconsin writer, journalist, genealogist, and Civil War veteran whose early years on the Upper Mississippi shaped his best-known work. According to archival and museum sources, his long interest in steamboating grew from personal experience on the river between the 1850s and early 1860s.

Merrick is most closely associated with Old Times on the Upper Mississippi (1909), a memoir-like history drawn from his years working on riverboats, including time as a steamboat pilot. The book is remembered for its lively picture of everyday river life as well as its careful attention to boats, routes, and river people.

He also wrote family history, including Genealogy of the Merrick--Mirick--Myrick Family of Massachusetts (1902). Taken together, his work shows the same impulse throughout: to collect names, stories, and details before they disappeared.