MERRICK, James Lyman, missionary, born in Monson, Massachusetts, 11 October, 1803 ; died in South Amherst, Massachusetts, 18 June, 1866. He was graduated at Amherst in 1830, studied in Princeton theological seminary, and was graduated at Columbia theological seminary, South Carolina, in 1833. He was ordained as a Presbyterian evangelist at Charleston in 1834 and appointed missionary to Persia, where he labored in Tabreez, Shiraz, and Oroomiah until 1845. He then returned to this country, and from 1849 till 1864 had charge of a Congregational church in South Amherst. From 1852 till 1857 he was instructor in oriental literature in Amherst college. During the civil war he gave a bounty to every soldier that enlisted in his own parish, and he bequeathed his entire property to the four institutions in which he received his education to endow four Persian scholarships. He was the author of "Pilgrim's Harp," poems (Boston, 1847) ; "The Life and Religion of Mohammed," translated from the Persian Hyatul-Kuloob (1850); Keith's "Evidences of Prophecy," translated into Persian (Edinburgh, 1846) ; "Genealogy of the Merrick Family "(1850) ; and "A Treatise on the Orthography of the English Language, with a New Alphabet of Forty Letters," which was not published. He also left manuscript translations into Persian.