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Amherst Writers Walk
11 Locations ~ Curated by UMass Public History ProgramCivil War
8 Locations ~ Curated by UMass Amherst Public HistoryFeatured Stories
Ray Stannard Baker's House - 118 Sunset Avenue
"Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so."- Ray Stannard Baker Life Ray Stannard Baker was born on April 17, 1870, in Lansing Michigan. Baker grew up in the…
Recent Stories
Town Hall
In 1893, the E.M. Stanton Post 147 of the Grand Army of the Republic donated six Civil War tablets to Amherst. These tablets commemorate the dead and list every person from the town of Amherst who served in the war for a total of over three hundred…
Bee Hive
Bart’s Ice Cream’s current location was, in 1860, the “Bee Hive” tenement house. Tenement housing is the 19th-century term for a dedicated rental property. Constructed from a wing of the defunct Mount Pleasant Classical Institute, the Bee Hive housed…
West Cemetery
Wealthier citizens of Amherst had the option to pay for a substitute to fight in their place. Without this possibility, the death list might have looked quite different. Following one of the wartime drafts, the Hampshire-Franklin Express reported…
Emily Dickinson House
Emily Dickinson, often known as the “Belle of Amherst” is famous as an important poet. She composed her many poems while living here, near the center of Amherst, and was especially productive during the years of the Civil War. Editors estimate that…
Amherst College
In the 1860s, much as today, life in Amherst was shaped by its institutions of higher education. The students and faculty of Amherst College were well known around the town, and played important roles in Amherst’s involvement in the Civil War. Early…
Baptist Church
The building before you, now owned by Amherst College and converted for secular purposes, was the town’s Baptist church at the time of the Civil War.
In the period leading up to the war Western Massachusetts was one of the most vibrantly…
Amherst Historic
A project by University of Massachusetts, Department of HistoryThis site is developed by students in the Public History program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. For more information about our program, please click here. The Amherst Writers' Walk was created in partnership with the Amherst Historical Commission. The Amherst Civil War Walk was created in partnership with the Special Collections Department at the Jones Library in Amherst, MA. Read more About Us