born Oct. 19, 1885, Green Cove Springs, Fla., U.S.
died Oct. 6, 1956, Southampton, N.Y.
U.S. investment banker.
He held a series of jobs before joining a Wall Street firm in 1911. In 1914 he cofounded the investment-banking firm Merrill, Lynch & Co., which soon became the broker for some of the largest chain-store securities , including S.S. Kresge Co. and J.C. Penney Co. He helped create Safeway Stores in 1926 and founded Family Circle magazine six years later. Foreseeing the crash of 1929, he advised many of his clients to lighten their stock holdings. In the 1930s the firm focused on underwriting and investment banking, but in 1940 it returned to brokerage. The company (now Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith), which had 115 offices in the U.S. at the time of Merrill's death, is today among the largest retail brokerage houses in the U.S. He was the father of poet James Merrill .