Daily AncestorMerch.
Merch. is short for merchant, one of the abbreviations the 1900 census allowed in the occupation column.
Merch. stands for merchant. The 1900 enumerator instructions list it among the twenty approved short forms for the occupation column.
The same instructions asked enumerators to describe the kind of work done, so a good entry names the line of trade, such as Merch., dry goods or Merch., hardware. A merchant often appears again in city directories and newspaper advertisements.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1900 census
Merch., Dry goods
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Daily Ancestor. "Merch.." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/abbreviations/merch. Last checked 2026-10-10.