Home - The Mershon Family Association

Mission of our Association:

The Mershon Association is an organization open to all of the descendants, and their spouses, of Henry Mershon. The purpose of the Association is honor the memory of our common ancestor Henry Mershon II, to locate his descendants, to encourage bonding of these descendants by holding annual reunions, and to gather Mershon family history with the goal of someday publishing this history. Membership in the Mershon Association is free; there are no membership dues. Expenses of the Association are covered by contributions from individual members. Donations are encouraged to cover costs of the newsletters, website maintenance and hosting fees, digital archiving of our extensive collection of Mershon letters, photos, documents, etc.

If you would like to become a member of our association, click here.

Background of our Association

The purpose of the Mershon Association is to honor the memory of the French Huguenot Henry Mershon (1672 – 1738) who, fleeing religious persecution in France, arrived in Newtown, Long Island, New York, in 1685. He later settled in Maidenhead, now Lawrenceville, New Jersey in about 1700.

The Mershon surname is unique because Henry changed (or someone changed it for him) the spelling of his surname in America from Marchand (means merchant in French) to Mershon (the phonetic sound in English). Therefore, everyone with the Mershon name in their ancestry can trace that part of their family line to Henry.

The Mershon Association (Association of the Descendants of Henry Mershon, Inc.) was organized in 1923 in Trenton, NJ by five Mershon descendants. The original purpose of the association was to perpetuate the memory of Henry Mershon by restoring his gravesite in the Lawrenceville, NJ, Upper Cemetery and to collect genealogy information for eventual publication.

Henry’s grave site was restored in 1925 by replacing the original deteriorated headstone with a large 4.5 ton boulder holding a bronze plaque that replicates the original headstone in size and lettering. Seven genealogy books covering the first six generations of the Mershon family in America took were published between 1946 and 1957.

In recent years, the Association has sponsored two DVDs showing historic family sites in New Jersey and the Andrew Mershon Tavern Album with photographs of the former colonial tavern home of Andrew and Fransinah Mershon. We maintain a genealogy database containing over 35,000 individual records of Mershon descendants and spouses going back to 1685. Many of the family records and artefacts are stored in the New Jersey Room of the Lawrence HQ Branch of the Mercer County Library.

Except for the WW II years and 2020’s virtual meeting due to COVID-19, the Mershon Association has met annually since 1923, usually in Lawrenceville, NJ.

DONATIONS

Treasurer Joan Swearer reported that there are NO DUES to belong to the Mershon Association, but we do survive on Donations. You donation (no matter the size) will help us print & mail a newsletter, launch a new web site, scan & update Mershon files to house at the Lawrenceville Library, etc.
Send your donation to:
Joan Swearer
60 Maple Ave
Rahway, NJ [email protected]