Amherst Writers Walk

Welcome to the Amherst Writers Walk. This tour explores the residences of several famous authors who have called Amherst home at one point or another during their career. Although Emily Dickinson may be Amherst's most famous author, this tour also looks at others who have often been overshadowed by Dickinson's legacy.

Ray Stannard Baker 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 Great Lakes State and in 1889 attended the…

Robert Frost House - 43 Sunset Avenue

"I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference."- The Road Not Taken (1916)"In three words I can sum up everything I've…

Eugene Field and Mary Heaton Vorse House - 219 Amity Street

"Ideas came with explosive immediacy, like an instant birth. Human thought is like a monstrous pendulum; it keeps swinging from one extreme to the other."- Eugene FieldLife-Eugene FieldEugene Field was born in St. Louis, Missouri on September 2 or 3,…

Norton Juster House- 259 Lincoln Avenue

“A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables.” - Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth Life Juster was born on June 2, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York. He attended…

Site of Noah Webster House - 46 Main Street

"Every possible reezon that could ever be offered for altering the spelling of wurds, still exists in full force; and if a gradual reform should not be made in our language, it wil proov that we are less under the influence of reezon than our…

Emily Dickinson House - 280 Main Street

“How happy is the little StoneThat rambles in the Road aloneAnd doesn’t care about CareersAnd Exigencies never fears -Whose Coat of elemental BrownA passing Universe put on,And independent as the sun,Associates or glows alone,Fulfilling absolute…

Mabel Loomis Todd House - 90 Spring Street

“All uncleanness seems washed clean in its lonely stretches; the life-giving sun and ardent air must still bring singular joy, the eager morning breeze, the opalescent distance, the plaintive evening sky all will continue to tell an exquisite if…

Howard and Lilian Garis House - 97 Spring Street

"And half the fun of nearly everything, you know, is thinking about it beforehand, or afterward" - Howard Garis, Uncle Wiggily's Story Book, 1921    Life Howard Roger Garis was born on April 25, 1873 in Binghamton, New York. Howard's family moved to…

Helen Hunt Jackson House - 249 South Pleasant Street

"Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame; Each to his passion; what's in a name?"
-Helen Hunt Jackson

   Life 
Helen Hunt Jackson was born Helen Maria Fiske on October 14, 1830 here in Amherst. She spent her childhood in town and was a girlhood friend…

Robert Francis House - 170 Market Hill Road

"Having lived here the years that are my best,I call it home. I am content to stay. I have no bird's desire to fly away. I envy neither north, east, south, nor west."Robert Francis   LifeRobert Churchill Francis was an American poet and essayist,…
Curated in cooperation with the Amherst Historical Commission to accompany the signs erected at each house with brief information and maps, also available at the Amherst Visitors Center.