(published in The Register, Thursday, February 20, 1975; Page: 5):
Joseph A. Merchant died some time Sunday. Dennis lost one of its most dynamic citizens. In 49 years Mr. Merchant made a huge impact on the town.
In high school Merchant was known as a talking machine by his classmates. He talked so rapidly and constantly few people, including some of his teachers, understood him. He started traveling at age 16. He worked odd jobs, lived in California, Nevada, New Mexico and Mexico. The Army sent him to Mississippi where his chronic asthma almost finished him. Back home he started a rubbish collecting business in Dennis Port, still carried on by his brother James. The business was successful, but Merchant's nervous energy soon carried him into real estate. He began buying land and building houses, first small Cape Cod homes in Dennis Port, and then a motel.
The Santucket Motel, his first project of the kind, made Boston headline. Across the street from the Belmont in West Harwich, it was immediately in zoning trouble with the town and civil trouble with the Belmont, which attached everything Merchant owned. On his own, Merchant outfought both adversaries and built the motel. Then began a gigantic project in Weir Creek, West Dennis.
He married Elizabeth Ashkins, daughter of a physician, product of private schools, social insulation and blessed with a sense of humor. By this time he had teamed up with Charles Cassidy, acquired control of land along the southern shore of Wrinkle Point, Including acres of marsh. The town owned marshland across the creek, and Joe Merchant went before town meeting to ask authority to dredge a channel which would cut into the town property. He won over the voters, and the Merchant and Cassidy dike and canal project, first of its kind on this scale on the Cape, was underway. Some conservationists objected, but in those days there were no laws restricting this Florida invented waterfront development. Joe Merchant argued persuasively that not only would the project improve shellfishing, but provide the town with a deep water extension of Bass River. And it did. The houses built on filled marsh were sold, giving birth to West Dennis Yacht Club and prominence to the issue of marsh filling.
Joe Merchant built more motels, developed a large tract of expensive homes on Follins Pond in Yarmouth where he lived for a number of years. He bought 45 acres in Woodstock, Vt., where he and Beth and daughters Meg and Ann would retreat in wilderness solitude with their pet raccoons.
Joe Merchant was blessed and cursed with a brilliant mind incapable of repose. It led him into countless adventures. He was an early acquaintance of Dr. Timothy Leary, the Harvard professor who became notorious for experiments in mind expansion through drugs. Merchant believed the capabilities of mind were almost completely unrecognized, and he poured energy into extending his own awareness. He built a home on Scargo Hill which had an oversized cupola room commanding a view of the bay and much of the Cape. In this hideaway he read and thought.
Merchant had become relatively wealthy. The humdrum business of operating properties bored him, so he hired people to do it for him. He was not a speed reader, but he read constantly, non-fiction of all kinds and all the heavyweight news and opinion journals. His concentration was so intense a roomful of people could not distract him.
His self-education was changing his views. He saw that endless building would destroy his town physically, and cumbersome government would destroy it psychologically. He decided to act. He ran for selectman with the sole purpose of radically reforming the town. He said he would do it in one term and never run again. Despite some opposition stemming from smoldering distrust spawned during his real estate days, he won easily. In a matter of weeks he organized a government study committee, which he headed. He sat with the Planning Board and a moribund zoning study committee. Although his head was miles in advance of fellow committee members, he astonished them with his patience and ability to listen. His self knowledge led him to lean on others, or perhaps manipulate a situation. Group dynamics fascinated him. When he thought through his own impulsiveness might injure his cause, he would convince Henry Kelley, an articulate school teacher turned selectman, to take the lead. Within a year Merchant had persuaded the town to retire its three full time selectmen and a highly salaried executive secretary with a staff. He led the search for one of the best municipal administrators in the state and secured Ted Nelson for the job. Reform rolled on with astonishing swiftness and voter backing. Where before town fathers had meekly followed the attitudes of town counsel in every conflict, the Merchant-dominated board was much more aggressive and independent. It dared a moratorium on building while a new, comprehensive zoning bylaw was in the works, pushed hard by Merchant. One town counsel was bounced when Merchant discovered and researched a conflict of interest.
Merchant's relationship with lawyers was rarely benign. On the one hand he had inordinate admiration, (not without envy) of the highly educated. But he was contemptuous of vacuous intellectualism. One time, involved in a private suit, his lawyers advised him to settle out of court. Merchant believed he was right and he took over his own case. He bought law books and read almost steadily for a month. He appeared in court, presented a highly developed constitutional argument, and won the case.
Reported by The Register to be filling marsh, Merchant was so furious he attempted to buy up all the news stand copies. Finally he settled with the editor for publication of his side of the story. It was a cogently argued legal treatise on property rights. Copies of it were solicited by law firms and journals across the country. Joe Merchant ended up selling the land at a give-away price to the town. It was the principle that intrigued him.
Frequently Merchant would approach the edges of nervous exhaustion from the sheer intensity of his life style. He was an insomniac and suffered from hay fever. He was obsessed with curiosity about life, including its limits, and including death. He had his allergies treated by acupuncture. His diet was that of a vegetarian monk. Despite extraordinary mental discipline, he had to struggle mightily to be orthodox. Ceremony, even the relatively mild demands on a chairman of selectmen, were agony to him.
In Dennis, Merchant had achieved every goal he had set for himself as selectman. The reform movement had built a momentum of its own. He had attempted to straighten out a quarreling police department, and one solution included was dismissal of five untenured men. Merchant believed it was the right move. He defended it and associated police charges against the town with spectacular success. But when he learned the men might not have workmen's compensation, he voted to reinstate them.
Joe Merchant didn't want to be 50 years old. He had considered going to law school, but feared his physique, and thus his energy, might desert him in such a long undertaking. He didn't want to leave his family, especially his daughters, still in high school. But he knew he could not tolerate, and believed he had a right not to tolerate the anguish of his own intensity.
Also he was hopelessly curious, not in any morbid way, but in an utterly open way. He had a weapon prepared for the purpose about a year ago. For many years he talked of it matter of factly not as a possibility, but an inevitability. It was about the only thing he didn't know about himself, the only place he hadn't been. Sunday, in a part of the house off limits even to his own family, there was a muffled sound. A brilliant, complicated, adventuresome person slept for the first time.
Joseph A. Merchant died some time Sunday. Dennis lost one of its most dynamic citizens. In 49 years Mr. Merchant made a huge impact on the town.
In high school Merchant was known as a talking machine by his classmates. He talked so rapidly and constantly few people, including some of his teachers, understood him. He started traveling at age 16. He worked odd jobs, lived in California, Nevada, New Mexico and Mexico. The Army sent him to Mississippi where his chronic asthma almost finished him. Back home he started a rubbish collecting business in Dennis Port, still carried on by his brother James. The business was successful, but Merchant's nervous energy soon carried him into real estate. He began buying land and building houses, first small Cape Cod homes in Dennis Port, and then a motel.
The Santucket Motel, his first project of the kind, made Boston headline. Across the street from the Belmont in West Harwich, it was immediately in zoning trouble with the town and civil trouble with the Belmont, which attached everything Merchant owned. On his own, Merchant outfought both adversaries and built the motel. Then began a gigantic project in Weir Creek, West Dennis.
He married Elizabeth Ashkins, daughter of a physician, product of private schools, social insulation and blessed with a sense of humor. By this time he had teamed up with Charles Cassidy, acquired control of land along the southern shore of Wrinkle Point, Including acres of marsh. The town owned marshland across the creek, and Joe Merchant went before town meeting to ask authority to dredge a channel which would cut into the town property. He won over the voters, and the Merchant and Cassidy dike and canal project, first of its kind on this scale on the Cape, was underway. Some conservationists objected, but in those days there were no laws restricting this Florida invented waterfront development. Joe Merchant argued persuasively that not only would the project improve shellfishing, but provide the town with a deep water extension of Bass River. And it did. The houses built on filled marsh were sold, giving birth to West Dennis Yacht Club and prominence to the issue of marsh filling.
Joe Merchant built more motels, developed a large tract of expensive homes on Follins Pond in Yarmouth where he lived for a number of years. He bought 45 acres in Woodstock, Vt., where he and Beth and daughters Meg and Ann would retreat in wilderness solitude with their pet raccoons.
Joe Merchant was blessed and cursed with a brilliant mind incapable of repose. It led him into countless adventures. He was an early acquaintance of Dr. Timothy Leary, the Harvard professor who became notorious for experiments in mind expansion through drugs. Merchant believed the capabilities of mind were almost completely unrecognized, and he poured energy into extending his own awareness. He built a home on Scargo Hill which had an oversized cupola room commanding a view of the bay and much of the Cape. In this hideaway he read and thought.
Merchant had become relatively wealthy. The humdrum business of operating properties bored him, so he hired people to do it for him. He was not a speed reader, but he read constantly, non-fiction of all kinds and all the heavyweight news and opinion journals. His concentration was so intense a roomful of people could not distract him.
His self-education was changing his views. He saw that endless building would destroy his town physically, and cumbersome government would destroy it psychologically. He decided to act. He ran for selectman with the sole purpose of radically reforming the town. He said he would do it in one term and never run again. Despite some opposition stemming from smoldering distrust spawned during his real estate days, he won easily. In a matter of weeks he organized a government study committee, which he headed. He sat with the Planning Board and a moribund zoning study committee. Although his head was miles in advance of fellow committee members, he astonished them with his patience and ability to listen. His self knowledge led him to lean on others, or perhaps manipulate a situation. Group dynamics fascinated him. When he thought through his own impulsiveness might injure his cause, he would convince Henry Kelley, an articulate school teacher turned selectman, to take the lead. Within a year Merchant had persuaded the town to retire its three full time selectmen and a highly salaried executive secretary with a staff. He led the search for one of the best municipal administrators in the state and secured Ted Nelson for the job. Reform rolled on with astonishing swiftness and voter backing. Where before town fathers had meekly followed the attitudes of town counsel in every conflict, the Merchant-dominated board was much more aggressive and independent. It dared a moratorium on building while a new, comprehensive zoning bylaw was in the works, pushed hard by Merchant. One town counsel was bounced when Merchant discovered and researched a conflict of interest.
Merchant's relationship with lawyers was rarely benign. On the one hand he had inordinate admiration, (not without envy) of the highly educated. But he was contemptuous of vacuous intellectualism. One time, involved in a private suit, his lawyers advised him to settle out of court. Merchant believed he was right and he took over his own case. He bought law books and read almost steadily for a month. He appeared in court, presented a highly developed constitutional argument, and won the case.
Reported by The Register to be filling marsh, Merchant was so furious he attempted to buy up all the news stand copies. Finally he settled with the editor for publication of his side of the story. It was a cogently argued legal treatise on property rights. Copies of it were solicited by law firms and journals across the country. Joe Merchant ended up selling the land at a give-away price to the town. It was the principle that intrigued him.
Frequently Merchant would approach the edges of nervous exhaustion from the sheer intensity of his life style. He was an insomniac and suffered from hay fever. He was obsessed with curiosity about life, including its limits, and including death. He had his allergies treated by acupuncture. His diet was that of a vegetarian monk. Despite extraordinary mental discipline, he had to struggle mightily to be orthodox. Ceremony, even the relatively mild demands on a chairman of selectmen, were agony to him.
In Dennis, Merchant had achieved every goal he had set for himself as selectman. The reform movement had built a momentum of its own. He had attempted to straighten out a quarreling police department, and one solution included was dismissal of five untenured men. Merchant believed it was the right move. He defended it and associated police charges against the town with spectacular success. But when he learned the men might not have workmen's compensation, he voted to reinstate them.
Joe Merchant didn't want to be 50 years old. He had considered going to law school, but feared his physique, and thus his energy, might desert him in such a long undertaking. He didn't want to leave his family, especially his daughters, still in high school. But he knew he could not tolerate, and believed he had a right not to tolerate the anguish of his own intensity.
Also he was hopelessly curious, not in any morbid way, but in an utterly open way. He had a weapon prepared for the purpose about a year ago. For many years he talked of it matter of factly not as a possibility, but an inevitability. It was about the only thing he didn't know about himself, the only place he hadn't been. Sunday, in a part of the house off limits even to his own family, there was a muffled sound. A brilliant, complicated, adventuresome person slept for the first time.
(published in The Register, Thursday, February 20, 1975; Page: 5):
Joseph A. Merchant died some time Sunday. Dennis lost one of its most dynamic citizens. In 49 years Mr. Merchant made a huge impact on the town.
In high school Merchant was known as a talking machine by his classmates. He talked so rapidly and constantly few people, including some of his teachers, understood him. He started traveling at age 16. He worked odd jobs, lived in California, Nevada, New Mexico and Mexico. The Army sent him to Mississippi where his chronic asthma almost finished him. Back home he started a rubbish collecting business in Dennis Port, still carried on by his brother James. The business was successful, but Merchant's nervous energy soon carried him into real estate. He began buying land and building houses, first small Cape Cod homes in Dennis Port, and then a motel.
The Santucket Motel, his first project of the kind, made Boston headline. Across the street from the Belmont in West Harwich, it was immediately in zoning trouble with the town and civil trouble with the Belmont, which attached everything Merchant owned. On his own, Merchant outfought both adversaries and built the motel. Then began a gigantic project in Weir Creek, West Dennis.
He married Elizabeth Ashkins, daughter of a physician, product of private schools, social insulation and blessed with a sense of humor. By this time he had teamed up with Charles Cassidy, acquired control of land along the southern shore of Wrinkle Point, Including acres of marsh. The town owned marshland across the creek, and Joe Merchant went before town meeting to ask authority to dredge a channel which would cut into the town property. He won over the voters, and the Merchant and Cassidy dike and canal project, first of its kind on this scale on the Cape, was underway. Some conservationists objected, but in those days there were no laws restricting this Florida invented waterfront development. Joe Merchant argued persuasively that not only would the project improve shellfishing, but provide the town with a deep water extension of Bass River. And it did. The houses built on filled marsh were sold, giving birth to West Dennis Yacht Club and prominence to the issue of marsh filling.
Joe Merchant built more motels, developed a large tract of expensive homes on Follins Pond in Yarmouth where he lived for a number of years. He bought 45 acres in Woodstock, Vt., where he and Beth and daughters Meg and Ann would retreat in wilderness solitude with their pet raccoons.
Joe Merchant was blessed and cursed with a brilliant mind incapable of repose. It led him into countless adventures. He was an early acquaintance of Dr. Timothy Leary, the Harvard professor who became notorious for experiments in mind expansion through drugs. Merchant believed the capabilities of mind were almost completely unrecognized, and he poured energy into extending his own awareness. He built a home on Scargo Hill which had an oversized cupola room commanding a view of the bay and much of the Cape. In this hideaway he read and thought.
Merchant had become relatively wealthy. The humdrum business of operating properties bored him, so he hired people to do it for him. He was not a speed reader, but he read constantly, non-fiction of all kinds and all the heavyweight news and opinion journals. His concentration was so intense a roomful of people could not distract him.
His self-education was changing his views. He saw that endless building would destroy his town physically, and cumbersome government would destroy it psychologically. He decided to act. He ran for selectman with the sole purpose of radically reforming the town. He said he would do it in one term and never run again. Despite some opposition stemming from smoldering distrust spawned during his real estate days, he won easily. In a matter of weeks he organized a government study committee, which he headed. He sat with the Planning Board and a moribund zoning study committee. Although his head was miles in advance of fellow committee members, he astonished them with his patience and ability to listen. His self knowledge led him to lean on others, or perhaps manipulate a situation. Group dynamics fascinated him. When he thought through his own impulsiveness might injure his cause, he would convince Henry Kelley, an articulate school teacher turned selectman, to take the lead. Within a year Merchant had persuaded the town to retire its three full time selectmen and a highly salaried executive secretary with a staff. He led the search for one of the best municipal administrators in the state and secured Ted Nelson for the job. Reform rolled on with astonishing swiftness and voter backing. Where before town fathers had meekly followed the attitudes of town counsel in every conflict, the Merchant-dominated board was much more aggressive and independent. It dared a moratorium on building while a new, comprehensive zoning bylaw was in the works, pushed hard by Merchant. One town counsel was bounced when Merchant discovered and researched a conflict of interest.
Merchant's relationship with lawyers was rarely benign. On the one hand he had inordinate admiration, (not without envy) of the highly educated. But he was contemptuous of vacuous intellectualism. One time, involved in a private suit, his lawyers advised him to settle out of court. Merchant believed he was right and he took over his own case. He bought law books and read almost steadily for a month. He appeared in court, presented a highly developed constitutional argument, and won the case.
Reported by The Register to be filling marsh, Merchant was so furious he attempted to buy up all the news stand copies. Finally he settled with the editor for publication of his side of the story. It was a cogently argued legal treatise on property rights. Copies of it were solicited by law firms and journals across the country. Joe Merchant ended up selling the land at a give-away price to the town. It was the principle that intrigued him.
Frequently Merchant would approach the edges of nervous exhaustion from the sheer intensity of his life style. He was an insomniac and suffered from hay fever. He was obsessed with curiosity about life, including its limits, and including death. He had his allergies treated by acupuncture. His diet was that of a vegetarian monk. Despite extraordinary mental discipline, he had to struggle mightily to be orthodox. Ceremony, even the relatively mild demands on a chairman of selectmen, were agony to him.
In Dennis, Merchant had achieved every goal he had set for himself as selectman. The reform movement had built a momentum of its own. He had attempted to straighten out a quarreling police department, and one solution included was dismissal of five untenured men. Merchant believed it was the right move. He defended it and associated police charges against the town with spectacular success. But when he learned the men might not have workmen's compensation, he voted to reinstate them.
Joe Merchant didn't want to be 50 years old. He had considered going to law school, but feared his physique, and thus his energy, might desert him in such a long undertaking. He didn't want to leave his family, especially his daughters, still in high school. But he knew he could not tolerate, and believed he had a right not to tolerate the anguish of his own intensity.
Also he was hopelessly curious, not in any morbid way, but in an utterly open way. He had a weapon prepared for the purpose about a year ago. For many years he talked of it matter of factly not as a possibility, but an inevitability. It was about the only thing he didn't know about himself, the only place he hadn't been. Sunday, in a part of the house off limits even to his own family, there was a muffled sound. A brilliant, complicated, adventuresome person slept for the first time.
Joseph A. Merchant died some time Sunday. Dennis lost one of its most dynamic citizens. In 49 years Mr. Merchant made a huge impact on the town.
In high school Merchant was known as a talking machine by his classmates. He talked so rapidly and constantly few people, including some of his teachers, understood him. He started traveling at age 16. He worked odd jobs, lived in California, Nevada, New Mexico and Mexico. The Army sent him to Mississippi where his chronic asthma almost finished him. Back home he started a rubbish collecting business in Dennis Port, still carried on by his brother James. The business was successful, but Merchant's nervous energy soon carried him into real estate. He began buying land and building houses, first small Cape Cod homes in Dennis Port, and then a motel.
The Santucket Motel, his first project of the kind, made Boston headline. Across the street from the Belmont in West Harwich, it was immediately in zoning trouble with the town and civil trouble with the Belmont, which attached everything Merchant owned. On his own, Merchant outfought both adversaries and built the motel. Then began a gigantic project in Weir Creek, West Dennis.
He married Elizabeth Ashkins, daughter of a physician, product of private schools, social insulation and blessed with a sense of humor. By this time he had teamed up with Charles Cassidy, acquired control of land along the southern shore of Wrinkle Point, Including acres of marsh. The town owned marshland across the creek, and Joe Merchant went before town meeting to ask authority to dredge a channel which would cut into the town property. He won over the voters, and the Merchant and Cassidy dike and canal project, first of its kind on this scale on the Cape, was underway. Some conservationists objected, but in those days there were no laws restricting this Florida invented waterfront development. Joe Merchant argued persuasively that not only would the project improve shellfishing, but provide the town with a deep water extension of Bass River. And it did. The houses built on filled marsh were sold, giving birth to West Dennis Yacht Club and prominence to the issue of marsh filling.
Joe Merchant built more motels, developed a large tract of expensive homes on Follins Pond in Yarmouth where he lived for a number of years. He bought 45 acres in Woodstock, Vt., where he and Beth and daughters Meg and Ann would retreat in wilderness solitude with their pet raccoons.
Joe Merchant was blessed and cursed with a brilliant mind incapable of repose. It led him into countless adventures. He was an early acquaintance of Dr. Timothy Leary, the Harvard professor who became notorious for experiments in mind expansion through drugs. Merchant believed the capabilities of mind were almost completely unrecognized, and he poured energy into extending his own awareness. He built a home on Scargo Hill which had an oversized cupola room commanding a view of the bay and much of the Cape. In this hideaway he read and thought.
Merchant had become relatively wealthy. The humdrum business of operating properties bored him, so he hired people to do it for him. He was not a speed reader, but he read constantly, non-fiction of all kinds and all the heavyweight news and opinion journals. His concentration was so intense a roomful of people could not distract him.
His self-education was changing his views. He saw that endless building would destroy his town physically, and cumbersome government would destroy it psychologically. He decided to act. He ran for selectman with the sole purpose of radically reforming the town. He said he would do it in one term and never run again. Despite some opposition stemming from smoldering distrust spawned during his real estate days, he won easily. In a matter of weeks he organized a government study committee, which he headed. He sat with the Planning Board and a moribund zoning study committee. Although his head was miles in advance of fellow committee members, he astonished them with his patience and ability to listen. His self knowledge led him to lean on others, or perhaps manipulate a situation. Group dynamics fascinated him. When he thought through his own impulsiveness might injure his cause, he would convince Henry Kelley, an articulate school teacher turned selectman, to take the lead. Within a year Merchant had persuaded the town to retire its three full time selectmen and a highly salaried executive secretary with a staff. He led the search for one of the best municipal administrators in the state and secured Ted Nelson for the job. Reform rolled on with astonishing swiftness and voter backing. Where before town fathers had meekly followed the attitudes of town counsel in every conflict, the Merchant-dominated board was much more aggressive and independent. It dared a moratorium on building while a new, comprehensive zoning bylaw was in the works, pushed hard by Merchant. One town counsel was bounced when Merchant discovered and researched a conflict of interest.
Merchant's relationship with lawyers was rarely benign. On the one hand he had inordinate admiration, (not without envy) of the highly educated. But he was contemptuous of vacuous intellectualism. One time, involved in a private suit, his lawyers advised him to settle out of court. Merchant believed he was right and he took over his own case. He bought law books and read almost steadily for a month. He appeared in court, presented a highly developed constitutional argument, and won the case.
Reported by The Register to be filling marsh, Merchant was so furious he attempted to buy up all the news stand copies. Finally he settled with the editor for publication of his side of the story. It was a cogently argued legal treatise on property rights. Copies of it were solicited by law firms and journals across the country. Joe Merchant ended up selling the land at a give-away price to the town. It was the principle that intrigued him.
Frequently Merchant would approach the edges of nervous exhaustion from the sheer intensity of his life style. He was an insomniac and suffered from hay fever. He was obsessed with curiosity about life, including its limits, and including death. He had his allergies treated by acupuncture. His diet was that of a vegetarian monk. Despite extraordinary mental discipline, he had to struggle mightily to be orthodox. Ceremony, even the relatively mild demands on a chairman of selectmen, were agony to him.
In Dennis, Merchant had achieved every goal he had set for himself as selectman. The reform movement had built a momentum of its own. He had attempted to straighten out a quarreling police department, and one solution included was dismissal of five untenured men. Merchant believed it was the right move. He defended it and associated police charges against the town with spectacular success. But when he learned the men might not have workmen's compensation, he voted to reinstate them.
Joe Merchant didn't want to be 50 years old. He had considered going to law school, but feared his physique, and thus his energy, might desert him in such a long undertaking. He didn't want to leave his family, especially his daughters, still in high school. But he knew he could not tolerate, and believed he had a right not to tolerate the anguish of his own intensity.
Also he was hopelessly curious, not in any morbid way, but in an utterly open way. He had a weapon prepared for the purpose about a year ago. For many years he talked of it matter of factly not as a possibility, but an inevitability. It was about the only thing he didn't know about himself, the only place he hadn't been. Sunday, in a part of the house off limits even to his own family, there was a muffled sound. A brilliant, complicated, adventuresome person slept for the first time.
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