Rober Nelson Cresap, M.D.

CRESAP, BORLAND, WASHINGTON

Posted By: Volunteer - Rich Lowe
Date: 11/10/2008 at 16:33:47

A Memorial and Biographical Record of Iowa
Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1896

ROGER NELSON CRESAP, M. D. -- The subject of this review is one of the most able and successful of the younger medical practitioners of Van
Buren county, and has attained to distinctive prestige in the village which stands as the place of his nativity, namely Bonaparte, where he was born on the 29th of July, 1857, being the son of John T. B. and Caroline (Washington) Cresap.

The father of the Doctor was a native of the State of Tennessee, when he removed to the Territory of Iowa in 1834, becoming one of the pioneers of his locality. His father, Roger Nelson Cresap, whose full patronymic our subject bears, was a physician of eminence, having been a graduate of the Louisville Medical College, at Louisville, Kentucky, and his was the distinction of having been the first physician to engage in the practice of his profession at Bonaparte. John T. B. Cresap engaged in the mercantile business and conducted a successful enterprise of this nature in Bonaparte for a number of years. His wife was the daughter of George Washington, who was a direct descendant of the illustrious General Washington. The death of the Doctor's mother occurred in Pittsburg, Iowa, in the year 1872, while the father is still living. The great-grandfather of our subject in the paternal line was Colonel Michael Cresap, who was a valiant soldier in the war of the Revolution, and he died in New York city, whither he had gone on a trip from his home in Maryland, with a company of men to join the Revolutionary forces at that point.

Roger N. Cresap, the immediate subject of this sketch, remained in Bonaparte and pursued his studies in the public schools until he had attained the age of sixteen years, when he entered the school of telegraphy at Mount Zion, Iowa, and there completed the prescribed course and was thereafter employed as a telegraph operator for the period of five years, having gone to Kansas City, Missouri, and there entered the employ of the Western Union Telegraph Company.
While thus engaged he found opportunity to enter upon that course of technical preparation for the profession which he had determined to adopt as his vocation in life, and he began the study of medicine under private preceptorage, and after completing his reading further enforced himself for the work of his profession by matriculating as a student in the Kansas City Medical College, where he graduated as a member of the class of 1885. He began practice in Kansas City and there remained for five years, after which he returned to his native place, where he has ever since continued his zealous efforts as a physician and surgeon, and where he has gained a supporting patronage of representative order. He is an active member of the Iowa State Medical Society and the Eastern Iowa District Medical Association, and he keeps thoroughly in touch with the advances made in the noble science which engages his attention and effort. In his political views the Doctor is a stalwart supporter of the Republican party.

July 2, 1888, was consummated the marriage of Doctor Cresap to Miss Elizabeth Borland, of Kansas City, her father, William P. Borland, being a prominent banker of Leaven-worth, Kansas. The Doctor and Mrs. Cresap have one daughter, Katharine H.