My Genealogy Hound

THOMAS DOREMUS MESSLER was born at Somerville, Somerset county, N. J., May 9, 1833. His father, Rev. Abraham Messier, D. D., was the beloved pastor of the first Dutch Reformed Church of that place from 1832 until 1879, and was recognized throughout the state as one of the most successful and influential clergymen in that wealthy and popular denomination. He manifested a warm interest in the local history of New Jersey, and contributed to the archives of the State Historical society much valuable material on the early history of the Hollanders in New Jersey, and of the Dutch Reformed Church, and kindred topics. Mr. Messler’s mother was Elma Doremus, daughter of Cornelius T. and Eleanor (Mandeville) Doremus, and a representative of one of the oldest and most highly respectable families of New York and New Jersey. Prof. R. Ogden Doremus is one of the principal representatives in New York.

The genealogy of the Messler family can be traced to an early period in the history of our country. The name was originally spelled De Metselaer, and so it appears in the early records at Albany, N. Y. The original ancestor in this country was Teunis Teunissen Metselaer, who emigrated from Holland and landed in New York in 1641, and afterward settled on the manor lands of the Patroon Van Rensselaer, known as Rensselaerwyck, near Albany, N. Y., and the site of old Fort Orange. Since that remote period of time the family can be accurately traced for eight generations down to the present time. About the year 1700, Johannes Metselaer, the great-great-grandfather of our subject, removed from New York to New Jersey, and from him descended the present family of that state.

Mr. Thomas D. Messler has recently become, by virtue of his ancient lineage, a member of the Holland society of New York one of the conditions precedent to membership in that body being that the applicant shall be able to trace his ancestry, in the direct male line, back to a Hollander, or a son of a Hollander, who was a resident of New York, or one of the other American colonies prior to 1675. The Doremus family were also of Holland extraction, the ancestor in this country having emigrated from Holland to New York about the middle of the seventeenth century, and settled in Passaic county, N. J. Mr. Messler’s maternal grandmother, Eleanor Mandeville, was of French descent. Giles Jansen de Mandeville, her ancestor, who introduced the name into this country, was a Huguenot who fled from Normandy to Holland as a refugee in 1640, in the days of Roman Catholic persecution, whence he immigrated to New York in 1659, in the same ship with the famous Gov. Stuyvesant, who afterward became much interested in his welfare. De Mandeville also settled in Passaic county, N. J., where many of his descendants still reside. Mr. Messner s paternal grandmother was Maria Stryker, a descendant of Jan Van Strycker, who was born in Holland and immigrated to New York in 1652, remaining there a little more than a year, and settling in 1654 at what is now known as Flatbush, L. I. He was a man of prominence and influence in secular and religious matters, and died in 1697, full of the honors which the early American colonies could bestow. Pieter Strycker, born in 1705, his great-grandson, and great-grandfather of Maria Stryker, removed to Somerset county, N. J., in 1730. He was the ancestor of the New Jersey families of that name. The Strycker family is of remote antiquity in Holland, and has become very numerous and of extended influence in New York and New Jersey.

The early education of Mr. Messler was received at the Somerville (N. J.) Academy, and at comparatively an early age (1852) he entered into the employ of the old New York & Erie Railroad company, in New York city. In 1856 he came to Pittsburgh, at the request of Moran Brothers, prominent bankers of New York, and became the secretary and auditor of the P., Ft. W. & C. R. R. Co., which had been organized in that year by the consolidation of the O. &. P., O. & I. and Ft. W. & C. R. R. Cos. In 1862 Mr. Messier became comptroller of the company, and in 1866 assistant to the president. The road was afterward leased to the Pennsylvania company, which was organized in 1871 in the interest of the Pennsylvania Railroad company. He was also at this time made comptroller of the P. & C. R. R. Co., which is controlled by the Pennsylvania company. In May, 1876, he was elected third vice-president of these two corporations; also in that year president of the St. L., V. & T. H. R. R. Co., and from time to time afterward, president of the C. & M. V. Ry. Co., N. W. O. Ry. Co., E. St. L. & C. Ry. Co., C. &. R. R. R. Co., Ohio Connecting Railroad company, W. &W. R. R. Co., Newport & Cincinnati Bridge company, and chairman of the executive committee of the G. R. & I. R. R. Co., all these companies being auxiliary corporations of the Pennsylvania company. He has passed rapidly through all these various grades of advancement because of his aptitude in the direction of railroad science and special genius for the successful solution of such financial questions as naturally arise in so vast and extensive a railway system as the Pennsylvania; and he is recognized as one of the most valuable officials in the employ of the company. He is a gentleman of fine literary and artistic tastes, and also takes an active part in social, financial and educational matters; is a director of the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ National Bank, of Pittsburgh, and of other corporations of that city in which he is interested, and is one of the trustees of Shadyside Academy, an institution which is having a most successful career, designed to prepare pupils for admission to any of the first-class colleges of the country. He has acquired wealth, and occupies a fine residence at Shadyside, in the east end of the city, where, with his estimable wife, nee Maria Remsen Varick, a descendant of the old Knickerbocker family of that name in New York, he entertains his friends in a hospitable and elegant manner. His son, Mr. Remsen Varick Messler, is one of the rising younger members of the Allegheny county bar. His only other child — Eugene Lawrence Messler — is a student at the Shadyside Academy, and will enter Yale College in another year.