Merrill was convinced that the average American who wanted to invest should be able to buy shares in the stock market, which was previously a playground for the wealthy.

He instructed his employees to hold seminars at which husbands and wives could leave their children with child care providers while the parents learned how they, too, could invest.

[8] Designed in part by Stanford White with original landscaping by Frederick Law Olmsted, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980[9] after being divided into 29 luxury condominiums (with its ballroom and first-floor reception areas left intact).

[10] In the 1920s, Merrill also owned a Greenwich Village townhouse at 18 West 11th Street which was exploded by dynamite on March 6, 1970 by careless Weather Underground terrorists.

In the early 1950s, Merrill's three children renounced any further inheritance from their father's estate in exchange for $100 "as full quittance";[12] as a result, 95% of Charles Merrill's $25 million estate (he had already donated "The Orchard" to Amherst, which had in turn sold it) would benefit hospitals, churches, and educational causes.

Merrill's grandson, Peter Magowan, was President and CEO of Safeway Inc. and also the former managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants.

Merrill played no role in Judge John M. Woolsey's decision admitting Ulysses into the United States, as many have assumed.