DAGUERREOTYPE OF EMILY DICKINSON ABOUT 1847
Courtesy of Amherst College Archives
280 Main Street
Amherst, MA 01002
Phone: 413-542-8161
www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org
“I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! They’d advertise—you know!
“How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one’s name—the lifelong June—
To an admiring Bog!”
— EMILY DICKINSON
This area was settled by the British in the 1730s. Amherst was incorporated in 1776 and was named for Baron Jeffrey Amherst, a British commander during the French and Indian War. In 1821 Amherst College was established, and one of its founders was Samuel Fowler Dickinson (1775–1838), grandfather to Emily Dickinson (1830–1886).
The Emily Dickinson Museum comprises two houses. The first is the Homestead. Built for Samuel Fowler Dickinson in 1813, granddaughter Emily was born here in 1830. She lived in this house nearly all her life. A recluse, Emily preferred to stay at the Homestead. As she grew older, she cherished her solitude more and more, to the point where she refused to see visitors or even, later in life, to leave her room. After her death, Emily’s younger sister Lavinia discovered, hidden in a locked chest in Emily’s bedroom, a collection of nearly 1,800 poems she had written.
The Homestead was bought by Emily’s father, Edward, in 1830. The last Dickinson to live here was Lavinia, who bequeathed the house to her niece Martha Dickinson Bianchi. It was rented to tenants, then sold to another family, who in turn sold it to the Trustees of Amherst College in 1965. It then became a museum.
The Homestead was built in the then popular Federal style. As the colors of the bricks varied, the house was painted a uniform red. By the 1830s tastes had changed, and the house was transformed into a Greek Revival dwelling: The roof was raised, a gabled roof replaced a hip roof, and the house was painted white. In 1855 this home was enlarged with the addition of a new kitchen and laundry wing, a conservatory, a veranda, and an Italianate cupola atop the roof.
The second house at the museum, The Evergreens, which Edward built in 1856 for his son (and Emily’s brother) Austin, is next door. It was a wedding gift. Austin’s daughter, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, lived here until she died in 1943, preserving the interior as she had inherited it, complete with original furniture, family heirlooms, artwork, wallcoverings, books, fabrics, and other objects. It then also became a museum. The Homestead and The Evergreens united to become the Emily Dickinson Museum in 2003.
Austin Dickinson was a friend and associate of the great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (see page 64). Much of the landscaping here is the work of Olmsted: native and exotic trees and shrubbery, and areas of lawn and open space.