Gregory's Web Site - Emily Dickinson

The Homestead, probably the first brick house in Amherst, was built around 1813 for Samuel Fowler Dickinson and Lucretia Gunn Dickinson, Emily's grandparents. Samuel Dickinson, a lawyer, was one of the principal founders of Amherst College. In 1830, his eldest son Edward, also a lawyer, and Edward's wife, Emily Norcross Dickinson, together with their young son Austin, moved into the western half of the Homestead. Later that year, on December 10, Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born. In 1833, a second daughter, Lavinia, was born.

In 1833 Samuel Dickinson sold the Homestead to David Mack, owner of a general store in Amherst, and resettled in Ohio, where he died in 1838. The Edward Dickinsons continued to live at the Homestead with the Mack family for seven more years, until 1840, when Edward purchased a clapboard house (no longer standing) on Pleasant Street. In 1855, following the death of David Mack, Edward Dickinson re-purchased his father's Homestead and moved his family there. The Dickinsons built a brick a extension on the back of the house, embellished the roof with a stylish cupola, erected a veranda on the western side of the house, and built a conservatory (no longer extant) for Emily's exotic plants.

With the exception of Austin Dickinson, who lived next door in a new house (the Evergreens) with his wife Susan Gilbert Dickinson, the Dickinsons lived at the family Homestead until their respective deaths. The two Dickinson daughters, who never married, outlived their parents. After Emily's death in 1886, Lavinia lived on at the Homestead until she died in 1899. At that time, the Homestead was inherited by Austin's daughter, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, and leased to tenants until 1916, when it was sold to the Parke family. In 1963, in response to the growing popularity of Emily Dickinson, the house was designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1965, the Parke family sold the house to the Trustees of Amherst College.