Amherst Historical Society and Museum

History Begins at Home

The Amherst Historical Society

The Simeon Strong House

The mission of the Amherst Historical Society is to connect people to the town of Amherst, its history, and its culture.

The Society was founded in 1899 by Mabel Loomis Todd, and in 1916 it moved into the historic Simeon Strong house. Over the years, the Society has collected a wide variety of resources for learning about the town of Amherst. We have artifacts dating back to the earliest days of the town, and papers and photographs from more recent years. On our website you may find links to walking tours of Amherst, a list of books about Amherst, and even a collection of historic postcards.

We host a biweekly lecture series, ‘History Bites,’ as well as evening performances and historic tours. Our eighteenth-century garden is maintained by the Garden Club of Amherst, and in 2019 we hosted a Thursday evening farmers’ and artisans’ market on our front lawn.

The Amherst History Museum opened in 1916 and is governed by the Amherst Historical Society, which was founded in 1899. Housed in the 1750-era Simeon Strong House, the Amherst History Museum takes visitors on a journey from the town’s colonial past, through its industrial age and into the computer-driven present.

The Museum is filled with decorative arts, paintings, household implements, agricultural tools and other pieces of history from the nearly three hundred years since Amherst was settled. The collections range from the ordinary to the unique, and capture a sense of every day life often missing from history books. In addition to rotating exhibits and special programming, the Museum provides educational tours for school children and students throughout the year.

We regret that the Museum will be closed at least until August 1, 2021. Call 413.256.0678 for more information, or email info@amhersthistory.org.

Funding from Mass Humanities has been provided in support of the Amherst History Museum through the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020. Funding from Mass Humanities has been provided through the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Mass Humanities and Mass Cultural council logos

The Dairy Industry and Amherst’s Past

Amherst CreameryJune is National Dairy Month!

Amherst’s logo, ‘The Book and Plow’, may not do justice to the town’s history of dairy farming. According to Carpenter and Morehouse’s History of the Town of Amherst (p 285), “The dairy industry in Amherst attained prominence at an early date. In the early 1840s it was the fourth town in the state in the amount of butter produced… The Amherst Cooperative Creamery association was organized June 1, 1882,” and in 1887 it moved into its new building, which still stands in a modified form at 150 Fearing Street.

Harvesting History

 

The Amherst History Museum has a large collection of glass milk bottles from Amherst dairies, and a fuller account of contemporary dairy farms in our town may be found in the book, Harvesting History, (2010) by Sheila Rainford and Ruth Owen Jones.

About the Museum

Visit the Amherst History Museum, located at the Simeon Strong House, 67 Amity St., Amherst MA. We held our first exhibition in 1899, received our charter in 1903, and are celebrating over 100 years of the Society’s ownership of the c.1759 Simeon Strong House.

The Amherst History Museum is closed for the 2020 season due to the coronavirus. You can find directions here.

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Support Us


The Amherst History Museum accepts donations of any size at any time of the year. We hold our Annual Appeal in late November and renew all memberships in the Spring.

A gift to the Amherst History Museum, whether in memory of a loved one or in honor of a special accomplishment, is always a unique way to help the Amherst Community and recognize an extraordinary individual.

BECOME A MEMBER

Amherst A to Z

Want to know where Amherst’s Cold War bunker is located? Or where the “curragh” district of Amherst was? Or learn about a local factory that made “collapsing skirts!”

These are all entries under the letter “C” in the book Amherst A to Z, written by Elizabeth Sharpe. The book is illustrated with pictures of artifacts from the Amherst History Museum, historic images from the Jones Library’s Special Collections, as well as photographs of our town and the folks who live here.

BUY THE BOOK