Helen Bigelow Merriman

Helen Bigelow Merriman (1844–1933) was a painter and art collector, and one of the founders of the Worcester Art Museum, to which she also donated a number of paintings by European and American artists. She wrote a number of books about art and spirituality.

Helen Bigelow was the only child of Erastus Brigham Bigelow, an inventor of weaving machinery and founder of the Bigelow Carpet Company. She grew up on a large estate and working farm in North Conway, New Hampshire. Later in life, she used Stonehurst Manor, the family house on this property, as a summer residence; it is now a hotel.

In 1874, she married the Rev. Daniel Merriman, and they had a son, Roger Bigelow Merriman, who became a historian.

Merriman and her husband settled in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1878, where he served as minister at the Central Congregational Church. She was active in the newly formed Worcester Art Society, giving lectures and contributing works for exhibition from her personal collection of European and American art. She was also involved with the Worcester Art Students Club, which exhibited some of her own paintings.

Merriman and her husband were among the founders of the Worcester Art Museum, giving a large donation and serving as trustees and members of the board. Merriman also served on several committees related to the museum's educational mission and helped bring the Boston Impressionist painter Philip Leslie Hale out to the museum to oversee its studio art courses. She led the museum's early efforts to build its collection and lent or donated a number of works including pieces by Pierre Subleyras, Paulus Moreelse, Edmund Tarbell, and Arthur B. Davies. Merriman was a champion of women artists, and it was through her that the museum acquired or exhibited works by Sarah Wyman Whitman and Cecilia Beaux.

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