Asa Clay Messenger, M.D.
Dr. Asa Clay Messenger, health officer for the city of Xenia, a member of the school board of that city, formerly and for years resident physician at the Ohio State Soldiers and Sailors Orphans Home at Xenia and since that period of service and for the past fifteen years engaged in the general practice of his profession at Xenia, is a native son of Ohio and has lived in this state all his life, a resident of Xenia since the spring of 1892. He was born at Jackson, county seat of Jackson county, November 20, 1861, only son and last-born of the four children born to Capt. Henry Clay and Sophia Eliza (Isham) Messenger.
Capt. Henry Clay Messenger's father was a native of New Hampshire and his mother, of Vermont. They were married in the East and then came to Ohio, locating at Granville, in Licking county, where they established their home, but later removed to Utica, Licking county, where they spent the remainder of their lives. The Captain there grew to manhood and early became qualified as a civil engineer, in which capacity he was working for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad when, at Jackson, he met and married Sophia Eliza Isam, who was born in that city, daughter of Dr. Asa W. Isham, a pioneer physician of that place, one of the acts for which he still is gratefully remembered there having been the gift of the tract of ground upon which the first Presbyterian church in Jackson was erected. Captain Messenger was stationed at Jackson when the Civil War broke out. He at once proceeded to raise a company, which was organized as Company C, Fifty-third Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry; was chosen captain of the same and was commanding the company when stricken with mortal illness in camp, his death occurring at Moscow, Tennessee, in April, 1863. His body was brought back to Ohio and was interred in the cemetery at Jackson, where many years later the body of his widow was laid beside it. She remained faithful to the memory of her soldier husband and her last days were spent in the home of her son, Doctor Messenger, at Xenia, she having accompanied him to that city when he located there in 1892, her death occurring there in February, 1916. She was a member of the Presbyterian church. To Captain Messenger and his wife were born four children, the Doctor having had three sisters, namely: Nellie M., who married the Rev. C. E. Tedford, a Presbyterian minister, and died at Huntsville, Ohio, in 1907; Mary M., wife of the Rev. J. K. Gibson, present chaplain of the National Soldiers Home at Dayton, and Fannie M., wife of the Rev. Reese W. Edwards, of Jacksonville, Florida, pastor at large for the Presbyterian church in the state of Florida.
Following his graduation from the high school at Jackson, Doctor Messenger took a post-graduate course in the high school and then entered the Medical College of Ohio at Cincinnati, from which institution he was graduated with the class of 1884. Upon receiving his diploma Doctor Messenger opened an office at Coalton, in his native county, and five years later, in his old home county of Jackson, was married. He remained in practice at Coalton from January 1, 1885. until his appointment seven years later by Governor McKinley to the post of resident physician at the Ohio State Soldiers and Sailors Orphans Home at Xenia, entering upon the duties of that position in the spring of 1892. Doctor Messenger continued his service at the Home for eleven years, or unitl 1903, when he opened an office and became engaged in general practice at Xenia, where he ever since has been thus engaged. In that same year the Doctor took a special course in the study of diseases of children at the Post Graduate Medical School at New York. The Doctor is a member of the Greene County Medical Society, of the Ohio State Medical Society, of the American Medical Association and of the Ohio Second District Medical Society, which latter he has served as secretary and as president. For the past twelve years or more Doctor Messenger has been the local health officer at Xenia, was one of the organizers of the Miami Valley Health Officers Association, and has served on the officiary of that organization. For the past twelve years the Doctor also has been serving as a member of the Xenia city school board. He is a Republican. The Doctor is a Royal Arch Mason, affiliated with the blue lodge, the chapter and the council, Royal and Select Masters, at Xenia, and is also affiliated with the local lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and with the local camp of the Sons of Veterans. Not long after entering upon his regular practice at Xenia, Doctor Messenger bought the house at the northeast corner of Second and Detroit streets and still resides there, with offices in the building. For the past year or more the Doctor has had associated with him in practice his son, Dr. Harold C. Messenger, a graduate of the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, who became associated with his father in practice at Xenia after a year as interne in the Miami Valley Hospital at Dayton, and is now the secretary of the Greene County Medical Society.
On October 8, 1889, in his old home county of Jackson, Dr. A. C. Messenger was united in marriage to Amanda L. Long, who also was born in that county, daughter of Elias and Emily (Carrick) Long, who are still living on their farm in Jackson county, the former the oldest native-born resident of the city of Jackson. Elias Long is a son of Elias Long and wife, who settled in Jackson county in 1804 and the former of whom became a pioneer merchant at Jackson. The junior Elias Long has for many years been a retired farmer in the neighborhood of Jackson. Mrs. Messenger was graduated from the Jackson (Ohio) high school in 1886 and attended Ohio Wesleyan University, at Delaware, Ohio. Mrs. Messenger is an active member of the Junior Woman's Club, also of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution of which latter organization she was regent for four years.
Doctor and Mrs. Messenger have three children, Harold C, Lois and Emily, all of whom are at home. Dr. Harold C. Messenger was born on January 10, 1891, and after his graduation from the Xenia high school took a literary course at Antioch College, Yellow Springs, and at Dennison University at Granville and then entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in 1914. For a year thereafter he was stationed as an interne in the Miami Valley Hospital at Dayton and then entered general practice, in association with his father, at Xenia. In 1917 Doctor H. C. Messenger married Nelle Fairbanks, of Springfield, Ohio. Lois Messenger was born on December 9, 1895, and was graduated from the Xenia high school in 1914. Emily Messenger, born on March 15, 1898, was graduated from the Xenia high school, in 1915. The following fall she began her collegiate work at Denison University and later entered the National School of Domestic Art and Science at Washington, D. C, from which she was graduated in 1917. The Messengers are members of the First Presbyterian church and the elder Doctor has been a member of the session of that church for the past twenty-five years.
From Portrait and Biographical Album of Clark and Greene Counties, Chapman Bros., Chicago, published 1890