John Messmore
The parents of John Messmore were natives of Pennsylvania, and came to Ohio in the year 1809, settling in Licking County. Our subject was born in 1808. He is of a family of seven children: Susanna, Mary, Laban, John, Eliza, and Rhoda.
Mr. Messmore was brought up to hard labor, and in his youth learned the business of carding and fulling. At twenty-eight years of age he came to the neighborhood of Waterloo, and established himself in the woolen-mill business ; carried it on for forty years, keeping pace with the many improvements that pertained to the trade in that time. In 1866 he sold his factory to his son, and in 1871 bought the Pancoast Mills on Deer Creek, above Waterloo, where he has since carried on the flouring business.
He was married, Deceniber 13, 1829, to Jerusua, daughter of Isaiah and Lettice Pancoast, born June 4, 1805, and fifty years afterwards, December 13, 1879, celebrated, with a multitude of friends, their golden wedding. Just one year later—December 13, 1880—his esteemed companion died. They were the parents of seven children who grew to maturity: Mariamne, Flavius J., Alvin L., Aurelius B., Otis B., Rienzi W., and Francenia. Of these only three survive. Alvin L. married Evaline Leach, of this county. He served in the war as captain of Company G, 113th O. V. I., and was an officer of more than ordinary soldierly bearing. He is now a resident of St. Louis. Aurelius B. married Sarah Lindsey, and resides in Kansas. Rienzi W. married Mary F. Kelley, and resides in Waterloo.
Uncle John Messmore is a man of steady habits, and unswerving Christian character. For the past forty years he has lived a consistent member of the Old School Predestinarian Baptist Church. The society of which he is a member was established at the house of Isaiah Pancoast in the year 1813.
From R. S. Dills' History of Fayette County