Robert George Merrick, assistant general freight agent of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company, at Topeka, was born in Manteno, Kankakee county, Illinois, March 13, 1870. His father, Lyman Beecher Merrick, is a native of New York state, but has spent the most of his life in Ohio and Illinois, where he was engaged as a farmer and merchant. He is now a retired resident of White Cloud, Kan., and has reached the advanced age of eighty-one. The mother of Robert George Merrick was Sarah Jane Harsch, born in Ohio, and died in Topeka, Kan., in 1906, at the age of sixty-four.

When Robert George Merrick was a little child, his parents removed from the village of Manteno to a farm near Clifton, Iroquois county, where they remained until 1879. In that year the family removed to Kansas, and located first near Wakeeney, Trego county, but in 1881 they removed to Topeka, which city has been the home of Robert G. to the present time. He was educated in the public schools and later completed a course in a Topeka business college. While a mere lad he began working in a printing office during his school vacations, but before he was twenty-one years of age he practically began his independent business career by entering the employ of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company, in the office of the general freight agent at Topeka, and has been in the continuous employ of that company since that time. Starting as an office boy in the latter part of the '80s, he held various minor positions in the office up to May 1, 1904, when he was made chief clerk. Later he was promoted to the office of division freight agent, and on Jan. 1, 1908, he was promoted to the position he now holds, which is that of assistant general freight agent.

Mr. Merrick was married in 1898, to Miss Trissa Ellen Greenwood, of Topeka, but a native of Illinois. They have one son, Robert Greenwood, born Aug. 12, 1903. In politics Mr. Merrick is a Republican. He and his wife are members of the First Congregational Church of Topeka, and he is a Mason and a member of the Elks and Commercial Club.