Title	Mr.
Last Name	Herring
First Name	Menzies
Middle Name	F.
Maiden Name
Nick Name	Bill
Place of Birth	Dexter, ME
Date of Birth
Place of Death	Braintree Highlands, MA
Date of Death	1951-02-27
Publication	The Eastern Gazette 3-1-1951, p.1 & 4
Obituary	HERRING, EX-PUBLISHER OF GAZETTE DIES AT 93 Funeral services for Menzies F. (Bill) Herring, former publisher of The Eastern Gazette, were held this morning in Braintree, Mass. Burial will be in Dexter. Still an active worker at the age of 93, he was stricken at his home in Braintree Highlands Monday night after remaining at his job in the composing room of The Boston Traveler all that day despite efforts to persuade him to go home. He died on Tuesday. The oldest working compositor in the United States, he had been an employee of The Traveler for 48 years. He was born in Dexter in 1857, the only son of Julia A. Parshley Herring and John Ralph Herring. After receiving his early schooling in Dexter, he studied civil engineering at Maine State College in Orono. His first newspaper experience began with The Gazette as a "printer's devil". By the age of 21 he was editor, the youngest in the state. He purchased a share in the paper in 1876 and in 1879 he bought the entire interests of R. 0. Robbins. In 10 years he doubled the paper's size and greatly increased its circulation before in 1888 he moved to the composing room of the old Boston Journal, where he worked until coming to The Traveler in 1902. It was shortly after his marriage to the late Mary Lunette Baker of Old Town that he went to Boston. They made their home in Cambridge and in Medford. He was against retiring and declared on his 88th birthday in 1945: "I've always noticed when old guys like myself, who've always been busy, quit, they don't last very long unless they have some hobby." Between his 80th and his 88th year he survived six major operations and three bouts with pneumonia. An amateur botanist, he also found time to compile a family genealogy started by his father which traced back to the days of William the Conqueror and contained some 17,000 names. He was a member of the Delta Lodge, A. F. and A. M. of Braintree, and the Grand Lodge of Knights of Pythias of Massachusetts.