A. J. Merrill
newspaper publisher · active 1870-
Newspaperman who moved from the Newtown Record (Newtown being the earlier name of Pocomoke City) to Berlin in the spring of 1870 and founded the Berlin Times, the paper that gave Worcester County's coastal end its own press. Within months the Times was quoted across the Delmarva peninsula and characterized as "openly Democratic"; by 1871 it was the standard source other papers used for Worcester County news.
In the record (1)
1870
A. J. Merrill, late of the Newtown Record, starts the Berlin Times — the coast's own newspaper, five years before the coast had a town.
Reported in the Cecil Whig's Worcester column of June 4, 1870: "A. J. Merrill, formerly of the Newtown Record, has started a new paper at Berlin, called the Berlin Times." (Newtown is the older name for Pocomoke City.) The paper took hold fast enough to be quoted across the peninsula within months — the Smyrna Herald reprinted it in October, and the Wilmington Delaware Tribune's Maryland column noted in the same month that "the Berlin Times is openly Democratic." By 1871 the Cecil Whig was sourcing its Worcester County items straight from it. For the pre-founding beach this matters mechanically: from 1870 onward there is a press within eight miles of the barrier island, and the surviving record of everything that happens out there gets thicker.
Source · checked 2026-08-06