BIO: George Messinger, Cumberland County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Bookwalter

Copyright 2011.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/
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History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania.
Containing History of the Counties, Their Townships, Towns, Villages, 
Schools, Churches, Industries, Etc.; Portraits of Early Settlers and 
Prominent Men; Biographies; History of Pennsylvania; Statistical and 
Miscellaneous Matter, Etc., Etc.  Illustrated.  Chicago: Warner, Beers 
& Co., 1886.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/beers/beers.htm
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                                PART II.

             HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

                              CHAPTER LVI.

                        SILVER SPRING TOWNSHIP.

542  BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES:

  GEORGE MESSINGER, farmer, P. O. Hogestown.  The grandfather of this 
gentleman, John W. H. Messinger, a tailor by trade, immigrated to this 
country about 1765, when a young man of twenty, to make a home in the 
wilderness, settling in York County, Penn., where he bought a farm.  He 
married Miss Catharine, daughter of John Goswiler, of Cumberland 
County, Penn., and to them were born ten children:  Mary, Henry, John, 
Jacob, William, Catharine, Susannah and Bostorra (twins) Daniel and 
Margaret.  In 1804 John W. H. Messinger moved to this county, and 
settled in Silver Spring Township, on the farm now occupied by John C. 
Ropp; after ten years he moved to Perry County, Penn., and bought a 
farm, where he lived until his death; he died at the age of seventy-
five years.  He was a member of the Lutheran Church.  Jacob Messinger, 
his son (father of our subject), was born in Cumberland County in 1804, 
and when but a lad went with his father to Perry County, Penn.  He 
married Miss Susannah, daughter of Abraham Jacobs, of Perry County, and 
two children were born to them:  Mary and George.  Jacob Messinger was 
reared a farmer, but later kept a tavern at Shermansdale, where he 
died, aged thirty-three years, a member of the Lutheran Church.  George 
Messinger, his son (subject of this sketch), was born in Perry County, 
Penn., June 21, 1825.  As his father died when he was but a small boy 
he early endured the hardships of having to live among strangers.  At 
the age of eighteen he learned carpentering.  In March, 1847, he 
married Miss Elizabeth, daughter of George and Elizabeth (Fenical) 
Albright, of Perry County.  This union has been blessed with the 
following named children:  Mary, William, Henry, Henrietta, James D., 
Anna C. and Jeremiah A.  Mr. and Mrs. Messinger had a sad loss in the 
death of three of their children:  Mary, the wife of John A. Kimkle, 
and the mother of five children at her decease; Henrietta, who died at 
the early age of ten years; and Amos C., who was stricken down just as 
he was entering manhood.  These great trials have been met with 
patience and Christian resignation.  In 1868 Mr. Messinger moved to 
this county, where he has since lived.  He is a member of the Lutheran 
Church, and his wife of the German Reformed.  In politics he is a 
Democrat.  He is an industrious, careful farmer and an honest man.  The 
Messingers still retain many of the characteristics of the hardy stock 
from which they sprang.