Hamilton Gazetteer / Entities / Benjamin Dean Meritt

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person

Overview

Benjamin Dean Meritt (1899-1989) was a classical scholar and epigraphist, widely regarded as one of the foremost authorities on ancient Greek inscriptions of the twentieth century. A native of Vernon, NY, he was valedictorian of Hamilton College’s class of 1920 and a Phi Beta Kappa member. He went on to earn an A.M. from Princeton and pursue advanced study at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (1920-22). He held professorships at Princeton and later the Institute for Advanced Study, and received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Hamilton in 1937.

Relevance to Research

The course catalogs for 1918-19, 1919-20, and 1920-21 document Meritt’s student career: he is listed in the student directory with his hometown Vernon, NY; the 1919-20 catalog records him winning the Chauncey S. Truax Greek Scholarship and taking first place in the Tompkins Mathematical Prizes; the 1920-21 catalog records his graduation as valedictorian, Phi Beta Kappa membership, Locke Fellowship, Tower Prize in Spanish, and departmental honors in Greek, Mathematics, and Public Speaking. The hamilton-life-1920-06-12 reports on the senior debate where Meritt spoke first and outlines the results, and separately announces him as valedictorian with multiple prizes. The hamilton-life-1937-05-19 profiles him as “a Hamilton man of the class of ‘20” who was valedictorian, studied at Athens, earned his A.M. from Princeton, and was by then a Princeton professor. The hamilton-life-1937-06-12 and yhm-arc-pub-cat-1937-38 record that he received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Hamilton at the 1937 Commencement. The yhm-arc-pub-cat-1923-24 shows a “Benjamin Dean Meritt” receiving a Master of Arts degree — confirming his continuing tie to Hamilton — and a “Herbert Dean Meritt” winning the Hawtry Prize in Greek (Herbert appears to be a relative).

Notes

The 1923-24 catalog’s “Herbert Dean Meritt” winning the Hawtry Prize in Greek is a different person (likely a younger sibling of Benjamin Dean Meritt, carrying on the family tradition in classical studies). The corpus references to Benjamin Dean Meritt are consistent and unambiguous.