Early Years
Born February 1, 1894 at Iuka, Mississippi, "Dick" Merrill was born into a family that prided itself as being descended from the famous frontier pioneer, Daniel Boone. Although his full name was Henry Tyndall, the name "Dick" was a childhood moniker that stuck with him for life. Brought up as a devout Catholic, he was a teetotaler in an age when the "hard-drinking" "fun-loving" aerial adventurer was seen as the norm. Considered very easy-going yet serious, his one foible, however, was that he was an inveterate gambler throughout his life.
Merrill had from an early age been intrigued by the exploits of the first flyers and when he enlisted in World War I, he began learning to fly while stationed in France but returned home to work on the Illinois Central Railroad as a fireman.
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