From Michigan Place Names
Saginaw County: a wilderness until 1872 when the Saginaw Valley & St. Louis Railroad came through. Mr. Greene built a sawmill here and the settlement around it was given a post office as Greene on May 21, 1875. with William P. Stacy as its first postmaster; A. C. Melze and another merchant moved their stores to a cross-roads a short distance away and the site became the village of Merrill in 1881. the Greene post office was renamed Merrill on Nov. 2, 1881. Named for N. W. Merrill, a railroadman who had befriended the villagers when the area was swept by a forest fire in 1881. Incorporated as a village in 1889 [Mills; PO Archives]