MESSENGER-SHEETS
124 East Scott Street

c1871 Italianate
Home Tour 2002

The elegant Italianate building at the corner of East Scott and Taylor Streets has served many purposes in its long existence.  It has been a home, an office, a church, and now it is a business.

A local doctor named Sanford S. Messenger built this house about 1870.  Dr. Messenger was born in Huron County, Ohio on September 24, 1838.  He came to Lansing in 1855 and worked as a cabinetmaker for D.W. Buck. He entered medical school at Lansing and practiced medicine in Clinton County before coming to Grand Ledge in 1864.  He established a practice in the village, working with Dr. Cochran according to early newspaper accounts.  His office was in the Goodrich block.  He and his wife Susan had four children: Lillie, Minnie, Mattie and Sanford Jr. (who apparently was also known as Clifford).   The newspaper reported on many of the complex surgeries Dr. Messenger and his partner performed, and on the accomplishments of his wife and children.

 It is not clear exactly when Dr. Messenger built this home for his family; the 1873 map of Grand Ledge shows a building on this site. The 1870 U.S. census shows the Messenger family living in the neighborhood at that time, so it seems likely that Dr. Messenger built the home around 1870.  Edmund Lampson sold the land where the house was built to Dr. Messenger.  Mr. Lampson was the first permanent white settler of Grand Ledge and the first village president. Lampson owned over 150 acres of land in Grand Ledge, and he sold off parcels of land over the years.

Dr. Messenger took a leave of absence from his practice in 1874.  The newspaper on September 11, 1874 requested that all people owing Dr. Messenger money close their accounts as soon as possible.  On November 20, the paper announced: “Dr. Messenger of this place, after many years of unceasing professional labor, has gone East to visit friends and local ties never before seen by him.  His friends and patrons here wish him a pleasant trip and safe return.”  One week later the paper published a lengthy letter received from the doctor, reporting on his trip and his emotional encounter with the people and places of his past, including his visits to the cemeteries where many of those people were now buried. He ended the letter with the news of his imminent return, and reflections on the personal insights he had discovered:  “…A few more days and I shall quit the scenes of my childhood to return again to business temporarily thrown off, and as I return, though sad, in heart a better man.  I trust that there will be much to mollify the bitter ranklings that have characterized the past…” His return was timely, and presumably happy, because his son was born about a month later in December 1874.  “Have you heard the news?  The Messenger has arrived!  It’s a boy and weighs 9 lbs. avoirdupois,” announced the Independent.  The boy seems to have been named Clifford, although it appears his legal name might have been Sanford Jr., and his nickname was “Bud”.

There was an interesting note in the Grand Ledge Independent on April 28, 1876: “Ed Russell is building a new house on Scott Street, and in a few days Dr. Messenger will resume work on his house, located in the same street.  Scott Street is improving.”  Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly what sort of work Dr. Messenger was having done on the house.

The Messengers divorced in 1877, and land records indicate that the doctor was getting his financial house in order during that process.  The deed for the property was transferred from Edmund and Diantha Lampson to Sanford S. Messenger in Sept. 1877—most likely a private land contract had been in place between the Lampsons and the Messengers until then.  The price was $3000, a huge amount of money at that time.  Three months later, in Dec. 1877, Dr. Messenger deeded 1/3 of the property to his wife, Susan, for $1000.  His four children (Lillie, Minnie, Mattie, and Sanford) shared the other 2/3 of the property, valued at $2000. 

Susan Messenger stayed in the house with her family after the divorce.  The 1880 U.S. census records show that Susan was supporting her family as a dressmaker.  Her oldest daughter, Lillie, was 20 years old then; Minnie was 14; Mattie was 10; and Clifford was only 5.  Their father, Sanford Sr., remarried and lived in a large brick home he built in 1885/1886 on Lincoln Street, which was called Railroad Street at that time.  Sanford was 43 in 1880, and he was still a practicing physician/surgeon.  His wife, Harriet, 21, was keeping house.  They had no children.  Dr. Messenger married his third wife, Miss S. M. Comstock, in Ohio in September 1889.  He died shortly after that, on June 1, 1890 at the age of 53.  

In 1884 Susan Messenger married John Nostrant.  She lived on to the ripe old age of 93, when she died after falling and breaking her hip in 1929.  Her obituary said: “…she was always glad to greet her friends and was cheery till the end which was somewhat unexpected.”  The house was a rental property during the later Messenger/Nostrant years.  In 1900 Clifford and Maud Messenger were newlyweds, living in the house after their wedding in January of that year.  The Grand Ledge Independent announced the move (1/26/1900 p.5): “W.H. Joy this week moved from the Nostrant house, corner of Scott and Taylor Streets, to the Foster house, on Lincoln Street.  Mr. and Mrs. Messenger will occupy the house vacated by Mr. Joy.”  Clifford was a dentist, and he and Maud were both 25 at the time. 

In April 1904 each of the Messenger children signed Quit Claim deeds, deeding their interest in the property to their mother. The children were grown by now and three of them married: Minnie married Ely Allen in 1883; Mattie married Rudolph Loomis in 1891; and Clifford married Maud McLaughlin in 1900.   Susan Messenger Nostrant sold the Italianate house to Irving and Rosetta Sheets in April 1904.  The recorded price was $1900. 

Irving Sheets was born in 1849 in Crawford Ohio.  He came with is parents to Delta Township when he was five and grew up on farms in that area.  He married Rosetta Billingham in 1875 at Lansing.  Rosetta was also born in Ohio.  They had two daughters, Maud and Merle, born in 1879 and 1881 respectively.  Maud died as a young woman, and Merle became a teacher.  In 1902 the Sheets family moved into Grand Ledge, buying a home on Pleasant Street before moving to 410 Taylor Street, just around the corner from the Messenger house. They lived in the Taylor Street home and rented out the old Messenger house.  Irving worked with W. R. Clarke in the Clarke Hardware store in Grand Ledge.  He was a stockholder and a director in the company. 

In December 1912 Irving Sheets died at his home on Taylor Street.  He was 63.  About a year later, in March 1913, the Grand Ledge Independent announced that Mrs. Sheets was going to move into her house on Scott Street and rent out the Taylor Street house.  In May 1919 she finally sold the Taylor Street house to J. M. McMullen.   Mrs. Sheets took in renters while she owned the house on Scott Street.  The 1920 Census lists Garrett Burns, his wife Kate, and daughter Gladys renting the house. Interestingly, Mrs. Sheets was not living there at that time.  She was in residence again at the time of the 1930 Census; she was 76 years old at that time.  She valued her home at $4000.  There was obviously an apartment in the building at that time because there was a listing for 124 ½ E. Scott, rented by an elderly widow named Eleanor Nichols.
Several years later, Rosetta Sheets sold her home to the Christian Science Society.  Mrs. Sheets died in October 1936 at the age of 82 at the home of her daughter Mrs. Merle Swift in Ohio.

The deed was signed over to the church in 1932, but the church had possession of the building in 1931.  The Christian Science Society, followers of Mary Baker Eddy, organized locally in 1918. They held their first service in their new building in October 1931.  The group made alterations to the building and modified it to meet their needs.  The first service following the renovations was held in August 1932.  The Grand Ledge Independent that week reported: “The Christian Science followers in this city were happy last Sunday to occupy for the first time their newly remodeled church edifice.  The building is now complete but the congregation expect later to add to and improve the furnishings.  The church now has a commodious vestibule and an auditorium that will care for the congregation at least for a time.  Back of the auditorium is the reading room and librarian’s room.  Access to these are by way of the Taylor street entrance.  A new and adequate heating plant has been installed and beautiful light fixtures.  The building presents a neat and attractive appearance and is an asset to the city.”  The congregation paid off their debt on the building in 1934.  The building had a formal dedication on April 20, 1947.  In 1948 a Sunday school opened in the building.  In 1950 a reading room was made available.  The church became known as the First Church of Christ, Scientist in 1953.  The congregation grew, and in 1959 they bought land on Willow Highway and a new church was built and completed in 1960.

For a brief time in the early 1960s the building was an office.  George Bomersheim had his real estate business here.  We know from photos that there was also a credit bureau here for a time.

In 1964 the United Pentecostal Church moved into the building.  They outgrew their previous building on South Bridge Street where they had first organized in 1963.  Their congregation continued to grow and in 1969 they moved from Scott Street to another building on North Bridge Street.

On November 1, 1969 the Grand Ledge Church of Christ was established in this building.  The Grand Ledge members had worshipped in Lansing with another congregation.  The elders of that church agreed there was a need for a church here in Grand Ledge and approved the founding of the new church.

The building was home to a Greek Orthodox congregation for a time after the Church of Christ moved out.

Ruben and Michele Ramon are now the owners of the building, which they purchased in November 2001.  The upstairs houses their business, Appraisal One, Inc.  The downstairs is leased to Carol Lamb and Roxann Mills, who own the Lambs’ Gate antique business.  The business opened on March 12, 2002 and features antiques and interior decorating items, and they enjoy working with their customers to find the perfect room design for them. 

We are fortunate to have the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps as well as several maps of old Grand Ledge, so that we can see the changes that the building has gone through over the years.  We are also fortunate that through all the changes, the wonderful Italianate style features still shine through.  The features of an Italianate home include the height, the raised roofline, the shallow-hipped roof, the ornamental brackets under the eaves, and the tall narrow windows with the top trim.  The 1881 sketch map of Grand Ledge shows what might have been a cupola or a widow’s walk on the roof.  The original stairway was in the center of the front section of the house, just inside what had been double front doors.  The addition to the front of the house was added when it was remodeled into a church.  The altar and baptismal area were in that part of the building.  Carol and Roxann uncovered old carpet probably from the 1930s when they re-did the floors, and there is just a glimpse of some of the old wallpaper upstairs.  The large archway in the upstairs hallway is especially striking, and was probably where the original stairway came upstairs. The old floor plan would have featured a central hallway, with two bedrooms on either side.  A dropped ceiling has been taken down on the front porch addition, and paneling was removed to expose the original front doorway and window openings again.  Future plans call for the old garage and kitchen areas at the rear of the building to be converted into a display area and a workroom.  A fresh coat of paint has been applied to the outside of the building, and the graceful 18th century Italianate structure again shines as a landmark building in the neighborhood.