Professor L. Taylor Merrill, author, historian, cartoonist, journalist and wit was born in Beloit on March 1, 1896. He was the son of Louis Blodgett and Josephine A. Merrill and a grandson of  Soreno T. Merrill. Professor Taylor received his Master’s degree in 1920 from the University of Wisconsin and his Doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1934.

Before joining the faculty of Beloit College in 1938, Taylor had a distinguished newspaper career. As a boy he founded and edited “The Beloit Tribune,” which was widely circulated beyond his own neighborhood. He was a reporter for the old Beloit Free Press and the Daily News, serving from time to time as telegraph editor, city editor and editorial writer. He was also an editor with the Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel, serving as a columnist for the Journal. He also worked for the Chicago Tribune and supplied the editorial page with witty and clever paragraph fillers. Taylor Merrill was the son of a pioneer Beloit family.

His grandfather, Soreno T. Merrill, was one of the first teachers at Beloit College and the founder of the Beloit Savings Bank. He was Chairman of the History Department of Beloit College, a member of the editorial board of the United States News and World Report in Washington D.C. He wrote books on national politics, but his heart was in a hamlet like Shopiere and his hometown of Beloit. Taylor revived baseball on the campus after a lapse of 31 years and was a great booster of athletic teams. Dr. Merrill wrote widely on historical subjects and among his publications was the life of General Butler and various political campaigns.

He was ordained a Congregational Minister in December of 1948 and became pastor of the Congregational Church of Shopiere. Among the early prominent members of this church was Wisconsin’s Civil War Governor, Louis P. Harvey. Taylor had many educational and historical affiliations. Among them were the First Congregational Church of Beloit, the American Historical Society, The Mississippi Valley Historical Society, The Wisconsin Historical Society and the Beloit Historical Society which he served as president in 1941. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, honorary National Scholastic Society, Sigma Delta Chi, National Professional Journalism Fraternity and other organi-zations. Taylor was married to Harriette Wilson of Milwaukee on June 24, 1922. She was prominent in the community and in the First Congregational Church. Professor Taylor died on September 2, 1960, after being taken ill at a Cubs baseball game in Chicago.