HARRIET JOSEPHINE (WARREN) MESSINGER SCRIPPS Wife of James E. Scripps

(1838-1933)

Wife of James Edmund Scripps, born in Vermont. Her mother was a Warren from a 17th century family famous in Boston. The Messengers were involved in building and trades as roofing contractors in Boston. Harriet married James E. Scripps in 1862. They had six children. Sadly, two of their children, their oldest son James Francis and third daughter Harriet May died very young. In their honor and to their memory, their parents built the Scripps Mortuary Chapel in Woodmere Cemetery, located on the city’s west side on the banks of the Rouge River.

To build this chapel, James and Harriet chose Harriet’s cousin Herbert Langford Warren. It was his first personal architectural commission following the demise and dissolution of the H.H Richardson firm in Boston, his former employer. This chapel was Warren’s only career Midwestern commission. The design of this stone chapel recalls the shape and style of the wooden Epiphany Reformed Episcopal Church where James and Harriet worshipped prior to its loss to a fire. The chapel was restored by their great grandson Warren Scripps Wilkinson on or about 2010.

NOTE: But for the “favorable” decision in the Scripps inheritance litigation to hold that the management committee agreement did not supersede and thereby pass control of the News to E.W. and the Scripps cousins outside of James Scripps’s estate documents, there never would have been the funds for the development of Cranbrook.

Harriet married James in 1862.

Following her husband’s death in 1906, Harriet continued to live in their large Detroit mansion on Trumbull at Grand River Avenue.