Lysander H. Allen, a wire goods manufacturer, built his house, at 599 Main Street in Amherst, in 1886. In later years it was the home of his son, Harry Allen, who taught at Amherst College. The house, which is a notable example of the stick style of architecture, was the winner of the 1991 Amherst Historical Commission‘s Preservation Award. It is now a bed & breakfast known as the Allen House Inn.
Helen Hunt Jackson, the author of many books and poems, was born Helen Maria Fiske in Amherst in 1830 in a Greek Revival house, built the same year at 249 South Pleasant Street. Her father, Nathan Fiske, was a minister and a professor of Language and Philosophy at Amherst College. A contemporary and classmate of Emily Dickinson, Helen Hunt Jackson was educated at the Ipswich Female Seminary and at the Abbott Brothers’ School in New York City. She was married twice, lost two sons and lived later in life in Colorado. An activist who denounced the treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government, she detailed the history of broken treaties and called for reform in her book, A Century of Dishonor (1881). Inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she also addressed the issue of the federal government’s mistreatment of Native Americans in her novel, Ramona (1884). Her birthplace was later acquired by Amherst College and is now a private residence.