Messer, Asa (1769 - 1836)
Role: Third PresidentDates: 1804 - 1826
Portrait Location: Sayles Hall 108
Artist: Lincoln, James Sullivan (1811 - 1888)
Portrait Date: 1856
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 24 1/4
Framed Dimensions: 37
Brown Portrait Number: 61
Brown Historical Property Number: 608
Asa Messer, born in Methuen, Massachusetts, in 1769, entered Rhode Island College as a sophomore after beginning his studies with a Baptist minister in his home state. He graduated in 1790, was named a tutor in the College a year later, a professor of learned languages in 1796, and professor of natural philosophy in 1799. He succeeded Jonathan Maxcy as president pro tempore in 1802 and was granted the full presidency in 1804?at the same meeting the Corporation announced that the college's name would be changed to Brown University. Messer is remembered for his paternal fondness of students, whom he encouraged to teach locally to support themselves. Yet his tenure was marked by much student unruliness, to which the ever-innovative Messer responded by sending the troublemakers to the countryside to work for a time with tutors. Messer himself maintained a farm and an interest in a cotton mill in Wrentham, Massachusetts, and during his time as president he patented two water-wheel-related inventions. He was appointed a justice to the state supreme court in 1818, but turned down the position as incompatible with his work at Brown. Although he was ordained by the Providence First Baptist Church, he never preached there. He did, however, offer prayers at the First Congregational Church, a Unitarian house of worship, which met with great disapproval on the part of the Corporation. These religious tensions were aired in the local newspapers, and Messer eventually resigned in 1826 stating that at he hoped he would ultimately be judged to have served God as well as he had served Brown. Messer ran for governor of the state in 1830 and lost.
Artist James Sullivan Lincoln, originally of Taunton, Massachusetts, apprenticed as an engraver, but turned to full-time painting in 1837. From that moment until his death he reigned as Providence's premier portraitist. In his later years he often painted from photographs, producing portraits that are considered less strong than his earlier works such as Messer's portrait. Lincoln copied Messer's likeness from a miniature oil profile in 1856.