Merton Edwin Long was born in Jonesport, ME, and worked in shipyards at Portland, Machias, and Millbridge. First he worked on the big three- and four-masted schooners built for the lumber trade, then built fishing boats in the Portland and Machias yards.

He moved to Cape Cod, MA and lived in the house he built in Bourne in 1909.

On the Cape he pretty well divided his time between boat-building and house carpentry.  He enjoyed making boat models and repairing old clocks, especially those with wooden works.

In 1956 he built a new fence of locust around the Falmouth Green. It was to resemble as closely as possible the original fence, probably built around 1749 and replaced in 1882 with an iron fence. He agreed to build a 950-foot fence of black locust, with 95 posts and 125 rails,  Locust was a scarce item and Mr. Long drove all over Cape Cod looking for the trees. He would drive by homes and see locust trees in the yard, then would stop and ask the owners to sell the trees standing. Most came from Sandwich and East Sandwich and he even drove to Vermont, looking for larger trees needed for the posts.

Mr. Long worked in boatyards in Wareham, Bourne and Falmouth.  He also built boats up to 40' on his own from the models that he whittled, and he worked for years as a carpenter for the Cape Cod corps of Engineers at the Canal.

Mr. Long took pride in his handling of tools and was skilled in the use of the broad axe and adze.  Monuments to this skill are the many fine tapered flagpoles he built.