Rev. William Henry Merritt (1779-1850), a Baptist preacher in Chapel Hill, NC, operated a flour mill on Morgan’s Creek from the early 1800s until his death, at which time the mill went to his daughter Lucy (1815-1893) and her husband, Rev. George Washington Purefoy (1809-1880), a farmer and influential, sometimes controversial, Baptist preacher. Eventually the mill washed downstream when Morgan’s Creek flooded in 1923 (Vickers 50-51).