BIO:  Dr. Edmund L. Melsheimer, York County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

Copyright 2005.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/york/
_______________________________________________ 

History of York County, Pennsylvania.  John Gibson, Historical Editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.
_______________________________________________ 

Part II, Biographical Sketches, Dover Township, Pg 96

DR. EDMUND L. MELSHEIMER was born in Dover Township, April 28, 1823, is the son 
of Dr. Frederick E. and Sarah (Kimmel) Melsheimer, and is of German descent, his 
paternal grandfather having come to this county in 1778.  He was a Lutheran 
minister, and died in 1816, aged seventy years.  Grandfather Kimmel was a native 
of Washington Township, was a farmer by occupation, a potter by trade, and was 
owner of several tracts of land in Washington Township.  Subject’s father was 
born in Hanover Township in 1781, was a physician and died in 1872, aged ninety-
one, his widow, also a native of York County, died in 1874, aged eighty-three 
years.  Both were members of the Lutheran Church, and were the parents of six 
children, of whom our subject is the fifth.  Our subject was educated in the 
district school of Dover Township, at the York County Academy and the New Oxford 
College, in Adams County, and then for seven winters taught subscription schools 
of his native and other townships.  His medical studies were pursued under his 
father for a number of years, and then a year at Oxford, Penn., under Dr. 
Pfeiffer, a learned German physician, after which he attended the Pennsylvania 
Medical College, at Philadelphia, from which he graduated in the spring of 1850.  
He opened practice in Washington Township and Wellsville, in Warrington Township, 
but eventually settled in Davidsburg, Dover Township, where he has met with 
abundant success.  In 1851 the Doctor married Miss Mary A., daughter of Joseph 
Underwood; this lady died in 1852, the mother of one child.  In 1855 the Doctor 
married Sarah F. A., daughter of George Massmore, and to this union have been 
born five children – Mary E., Laura G., Flora B., Rosa L. and George F. E.  Mr. 
and Mrs. M. are members of the Lutheran Church.