Saturday, September 29, 2007

Who is Cordeam(u) Merrill?

Today, I was indexing a page from the 1900 census of Carroll, Coos County, New Hampshire. As I was going down the page, I wondered whose household I was indexing because I was over half-way down the page and all of these persons were servants (except for two who appear to be children of servants). Turns out that it is a Cordeam (or Cordeamu) Merrill who is a hotel keeper. I wonder what hotel was so large to employ that many persons around the turn of the century. What is even more interesting is that the next household belonged to the hotel's watchkeeper, and he had several hotel servants residing with him. The Mount Washington Hotel was not built until 1902 so this was not the hotel. Was it Mount Pleasant House? (Better view here.) Would anyone know about which hotel this was or about the Merrill family?

2 comments:

Janice said...

Lori,

I believe you are referring to Cordeanio Harley Merrill, and I believe the hotel he was managing at the time was the Crawford House Hotel. Actually during that time frame there were larger hotels, such as the Fabyan in the same area.

Janice

Lori Thornton said...

Thanks, Janice. This census just caught my interest. After I started looking, I realized that area was in the White Mountains and that there were many grand hotels around. I just located the photo of that one and saw how large it was. I'm also glad to know his real first name!