Who Is That Man With Great-Grandpa?

My family is very fortunate that we have two tintypes of one of my four great-grandfathers. My guess is that one of the pictures was taken about 1870 and the other about 1875. Although Great-grandpa Gilbert Samuel Merrill lived for about forty years after the tintypes were made, I have yet to find any other pictures of him. This is perplexing, but what is more puzzling is the identity of the man with him in the tintype from about 1870? 

If you have any suggestions as to the identity of the man standing next to my great-grandfather, please send me a message at IsMeetsWas@gmail.com.

Gilbert Samuel Merrill was born to an older couple on 24 June 1846 in the town of Cumberland, Maine. His parents, Samuel Merrill and Hannah True Warren, were fifty years and thirty-eight years old when they married in nearby Pownal, Hannah's hometown. Twenty-five months after the wedding, Gilbert was born. Hannah became pregnant again in 1849, and tragically Samuel died of sunstroke before the birth of their daughter, Almyra. A few years later, Hannah remarried, this time to James B. Merrill, a widower and distant cousin of her late husband. James was from the town of Gray, but the couple decided to live in Cumberland. James's only child headed west to the gold fields of California, never returning home. James and Hanna raised Gilbert and Almyra. In childhood, Almyra suffered an injury that left her crippled. Family lore is that Gilbert was sent to North Yarmouth Academy, a private school which is still operational.

Hoping to find a clue to the identity of the man with Great-grandpa, I googled "Cumberland, Maine Black History." I found an article written by Sally A. Merrill, a distant cousin and one of the most memorable woman whom I have met. Her article published in 2017, Cumberland and the Slavery Issue, clearly exposes the conflicting views held by the people surrounding Gilbert when he was a boy. As in our world today, perceived economic self-interest and humanitarian concerns were driving people to vote for diametrically opposite candidates. And then too, some of the people in the pulpit were influenced by power and greed.

© 2020, Cathy H Paris