Category: Amherst

West Experiment Station, UMASS (1887)

by Dan//Amherst, Collegiate, Queen Anne

Across from the East Experiment Station on the campus of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst is the West Experiment Station, built a few years earlier in 1886-1887. The building was designed by architect Emory Ellsworth and resembles a Queen Anne style house. The West Experiment Station, originally located on the northern fringe of campus, was built to serve and continues as the home of the Massachusetts Agricultural College (now UMASS)’s chemical research division.

UPDATE: This building was recently moved and rebuilt as part of a major construction project.

Amherst Town Hall (1889)

by Dan//Amherst, Public Buildings, Romanesque Revival

On March 11, 1888, the Palmer Block, in downtown Amherst, burned down in the middle of a blizzard. Because town meetings had been held in the building, the town acquired the land and built a new Town Hall in 1889-1890. The building was designed by H.S. McKay of Boston in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. As described by Frederick H. Hitchcock in his Handbook of Amherst (1891):

The town hall is a picturesque building of brick, red sandstone, and granite. It was erected by the town in 1889 at a cost of $58,000, H. S. McKay of Boston being the designer. In addition to a handsome hall, seating eight hundred and fifty persons, there are rooms for the town officers, the district court, the town library, and several business men.

Old Strong House (1744)

by Dan//Amherst, Colonial, Houses

The gambrel-roofed dwelling known as the Old Strong House, at 67 Amity Street in Amherst, was built in 1744 by Nehemiah Strong. As related by Alice M. Walker in Historic Homes of Amherst (1905):

Samuel Strong, the ancestor of the Strongs in Amherst […], married Esther Clapp, and soon after her death took for his second wife, Mrs. Ruth Sheldon Wright. He had twelve children, most of whom settled on farms in Hadley and South Hadley. His third son Nehemiah, married about 1728 Hannah Edwards, the daughter of Jonathan French of Northampton, and widow of Nathaniel Edwards, who was killed by Indians. Unwilling for some reason to settle permanently in Northampton, Nehemiah Strong took council with his brothers, living across the river, as to the most desirable location for a home, and settled upon Hadley third precinct, where land was cheap and plentiful. He purchased a tract at the junction of the west highway and the road leading to Hadley, with the intent of building a mansion of the latest style and most approved design.

Nehemiah’s son, Simeon, a lawyer, inherited the house. Quoting again from Walker:

Young Simeon erected for himself an office on the west side of his dwelling, and it is possible made some changes in the back part of the mansion, as tradition hints that once the roof sloped to the ground.

During the Revolution:

Most prominent among the loyalists was Simeon Strong, and the old Strong house became the headquarters of the Tory faction. […] The learned advocate, honest in his convictions, in spite of his Tory principles, kept the respect of his fellow townsmen, maintained his standing at the bar and accumulated wealth. The small addition to the rear of the family mansion held his law library and pamphlets, and served him as an office. Here he interviewed his clients and pursued those studies in theology and metaphysics which were his delight to the close of his life. In 1787 Simeon Strong was appointed a member of a committee to build a new meeting house on the hill. Having served the town acceptably in the General Court, he was elected to the Senate, and in 1800 was appointed Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.

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Leonard M. Hills House (1864)

by Dan//Amherst, Houses, Italianate

Born in Ellington, Connecticut in 1803, Leonard Mariner Hills moved to Amherst in 1827. He ran a tavern and a dry goods store and eventually became very successful manufacturing palm leaf hats. He also became the first president of the First National Bank of Amherst in 1864. In the 1840s to 1860s, Hills built a complex of factories in Amherst. His son, Henry F. Hills, built a house off Main Street in 1863. Leonard decided to hire the same architect, William Fenno Pratt, to design his own Italian Villa home, built in 1863-1864 on the adjoining lot (35 Triangle Street). It is said that he ordered the house, which was called the Hedges, to be one foot larger than his son’s in every dimension. The Hills family owned the house until 1923, when a bequest of Mrs. Alice M. Hills left it to the Amherst Woman’s Club. It is now known as the Hills Memorial Club House.

Eugene Field House (1839)

by Dan//Amherst, Greek Revival, Houses

Home at various times to such authors as Ray Stannard Baker and Mary Heaton Vorse, the house at 219 Amity Street in Amherst is most associated with Eugene Field, a journalist and writer, best known for his children’s poetry and humorous essays. Field was born in St. Louis (where his birthplace house is now a museum), but after the death of his mother in 1856 he was raised by a cousin, Mary Field French, in the house on Amity Street in Amherst. The house was built in 1839 for by Robert Cutler for French’s father, Thomas Jones.

Emily Dickinson Homestead (1813)

by Dan//Amherst, Federal, Houses

The Emily Dickinson Homestead in Amherst was built in 1813 for Samuel Fowler Dickinson, a lawyer and a principal founder of Amherst College, and his wife Lucretia Gunn Dickinson. Pledging his personal property in support of educational endeavors eventually left Samuel Fowler Dickinson bankrupt. In 1833 he sold the house and later moved to Ohio. David Mack, owner of a general store, purchased the house, but Dickinson’s son, Edward, purchased half the house and lived there until 1840 with his wife, Emily Norcross Dickinson, and their children. After living in another house on Pleasant Street (no longer standing), Edward Dickinson purchased the entire Homestead and moved back in with his family in 1855. He soon made improvements, building a rear addition, a veranda on the west side and a conservatory. He also added the distinctive cupola to the roof. Edward also built a house, the Evergreens, next door for his son, William Austin Dickinson, in 1856. His unmarried daughters, Emily and Lavinia, lived in the house after the deaths of their parents. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), who had been born in the house, had her most productive period as a poet there between 1858 and 1865. After Lavinia’s death in 1899, the house passed to her niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, who leased it to tenants. From 1916 to 1965, the Homestead was owned by the Parke family, who then sold it to Amherst College. Opened for tours, the Homstead later joined with the Evergreens to form the Emily Dickinson Museum in 2003. The Emily Dickinson Homestead was painted in its original late-nineteenth-century colors in 2004.

Captain Lombard House (1767)

by Dan//Amherst, Colonial, Houses

Enfield was one of the Massachusetts towns that was flooded in the 1930s to create the Quabbin Reservoir. Many people and about a dozen houses and reused parts of houses were relocated to Amherst by the Gass family of builders. One of these was the c. 1767 Cape Cod-style Captain Lombard House. In 1817, it was the home of Captain Lombard, who shipped cargo out of Boston. The house was moved by builder Robert Gass to its current address at 152 Triangle Street in Amherst, where he he presented it to his new wife as a wedding gift in 1939. They resided there until 1993, when they settled in Florida.