A little more
of Amherst.

Amherst · US

Amherst History Center of the Amherst Historical Society

The Amherst History Center is the hands-on, downtown home of the Amherst Historical Society, a nonprofit that has been collecting and interpreting life in this western Massachusetts town since 1899. Housed at 45 Boltwood Walk, the small gallery-style center brings the Society's collections out into the open on a regular weekly schedule, with rotating exhibitions drawn from nearly three centuries of local history. What makes it worth a stop is how personal and unexpected the objects are: among the highlights is the only surviving dress known to have been worn by Emily Dickinson, alongside an 1880s high-wheel bicycle, hand-embroidered gowns, baby lace and a conch shell once blown to summon colonists to meeting. It is history you can see up close, the ordinary and the famous side by side.