After living in Ann Arbor for almost a year the Merrill’s moved to Indiana where their first son, Moses Daniel, was born. Both the baby and Eliza were very ill and care could only be gotten in the East. When she was better and found a foster home for the baby, Eliza moved back west to be with Moses.
After their acceptance as missionary candidates they were given orders to go to the Great Lakes region, but Eliza contracted a serious case of cholera in the winter and they were unable to go. Their new orders sent them West of the Mississippi. They traveled down the Ohio into Shawnee Mission (now located in Kansas), where they were quarantined due to cholera, which Shawnee Mission had not been exposed to. Downhearted, the Merrill’s lived in a broken down shack and awaited their next orders. Soon Moses was invited to join Issac McCoy’s party as they headed up the Missouri River about 200 miles to the Oto village. They were to witness the signing of the Government Treaty of 1833, which had many particulars, one of which was a government teacher assigned to the Oto. When Moses returned to Shawnee Mission it was October. He packed up his family and only the necessary provisions and went to the Oto village. On November 18, the arrived at Bellevue, where they were met by Government Agent Major Daugherty, who set them up with crude lodgings, which doubled as a church and school quarters. Their first service was that following Sunday.
