William Stuart Messer

Messer was born on August 19, 1882, in Washington, D.C., to William Messer and Charlotte Morris Taylor.^[4] He received his A.B. from Columbia University in 1905 and Ph.D. in 1917.^[1] In 1922, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Padua and an honorary A.M. from Dartmouth College in 1923.^[1] Messer received a Rome Prize in 1922.^[5]

Messer was the head of the classical department of the Barnard School for Boys.^[1] He was an instructor at Columbia from 1911 to 1919, and joined the Dartmouth College faculty in 1919 and was Daniel Webster Professor in 1938 until his retirement in 1951.^[1]

Messer died on December 21, 1960, in Beverly, Massachusetts.^[2]