James Griswold Merrill

James Griswold Merrill (c. 1840–1920) was an American Congregational minister and university administrator. He was the second president of Fisk University, a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1901 to 1908.

Early life James Griswold Merrill was born in Montague, Massachusetts. He graduated from Phillips Academy Andover and Amherst College. He subsequently attended the Princeton Theological Seminary from 1863 to 1864, and graduated from the Andover Theological Seminary in 1866. An article in The Nashville Globe noted that he spent most of his time fundraising away from Nashville. It also explained, "Dr. Merrill's interest in the education of the Negro springs not from a love of the Negro as a Negro, but from the love of the Negro as one of God's children; and this is simple Christianity."

Personal life and death Merrill married Louisa W. Boutwell. He died on December 22, 1920, in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. He was buried in Andover, Massachusetts.

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