Daniel Lombardo - Amherst and Hadley: Through the Seasons

Amherst clustered around the college where serious men, with sober faces, talked in solemn voices to younger men. The college gave a peculiar tone and flavor to the life of the village. The long, cold winter, with perpetual snow, was a season of labor and rigorous living, tempered by hospitality and genuine, if restrained enjoyment. There was much social life of a simple and delightful sort... (MacGregor Jenkins, Emily Dickinson, Friend and Neighbor . Boston: Little, Brown, 1939, p. 6.)

CELEBRATING THE HOLIDAY. At Christmastime each shop around the Amherst Common stocked holiday presents and decorated windows. In 1878, Mirick Spears shop on Main Street advertised, Do You Want to Buy Christmas Presents? Then go to M.N. Spears and Look at Them. This store is packed with fresh goods for the Holiday trade. Children can find here Games, Pictures, Story Books, Dolls, Sleds, Rocking Horses, Trumpets, Drums, Wagons, Carts, Skates, Bracket Saws, and hundreds of toys of every conceivable kind and description.

GIFTS FOR EVERY TASTE. Jeweler James Rawson advertised a perfect museum of holiday goods, including Crandalls Happy Family, a menagerie of animals on wheels, Noahs Arks of all sizes, dolls by the dozen, and leather wallets for 35. Edward Thomass Dry Goods Store imported Japanese collar and cuff boxes and many other Asian gifts, available only since Commodore Matthew Perry opened Japan to trade in the 1850s.

AFTER THE FIRST GREAT SNOWSTORM OF 1898. The Amherst Record reported that Saturday the sleighs were out in force and Sunday the local liverymen did a business that gladdened their hearts... For the past two or three days zero weather had prevailed, making all the conditions for a real old-fashioned winter.

A CLIFTON JOHNSON PHOTOGRAPH OF HIS DAUGHTER MARGARET. Atmospherically it was the most beautiful Christmas on record. The hens came to the door with Santa Claus, the pussies washed themselves in the open air without chilling their tongues, and Santa Claussweet old gentlemanwas even gallanter than usual. Visitors from the chimney were a new dismay, but all of them brought their hands so full and behaved so sweetly only a churl could have turned them away. And the ones at the barn were so happy! Maggie gave the hens a check for potatoes, each of the cats had a gilt-edged bone, and the horse had a new blanket from Boston. (Emily Dickinson, from MacGregor Jenkins, Emily Dickinson, Friend and Neighbor , p. 63.)

MASON DICKINSONS GRANGE STORE, NORTH PLEASANT STREET, AMHERST. Saint Nicholas is surrounded by fresh fruits, canned goods, nuts, dried fruit, and candy for the holidays.

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS AT THE GRANGE STORE. Greenery and a Christmas tree fight for space among stacks of graham crackers (named for nearby Northamptons Sylvester Graham), candles, gift baskets, and Stanzalone coffee.

THE AMHERST JAIL BEHIND THE BLACKSMITH SHOP AND FIREHOUSE ON NORTH PLEASANT STREET. Christmastime, as Charles Dickens had written, had its dark side. So many cases were heard before the Hampshire County Grand Jury that extra benches had to be set up for prisoners. In 1878, cases included the following: Mrs. Thayer indicted for a second case of adultery (the mother of seven children and is yet only thirty years old), Charles Beaman for adultery, Erlon Benjamin for burglary and polygamy, John Stein for stealing Horace Lambs horse, John Shay for assault on an officer, six men from Williamsburg for creating a riot, and Margaret Noonan for concealing the death of a child. All pleaded not guilty.

CHOOSING A TREE. Hadley writer and photographer Clifton Johnson documented the annual trek to the woods to cut down a Christmas tree. Here, his children Margaret, Arthur, and Roger are accompanied by their grandfather, Chester Johnson.

THE IDEAL SPECIMEN. To Shutesbury hill for Christmas greens. Silent wintry woods, full of snow. The last pink sky of an early sunset with the exquisite tracery of bare trees against it. (David Grayson, The Countrymans Year , December 23.)

HAULING THE CHRISTMAS TREE BACK TO THE JOHNSON FARMHOUSE IN THE HOCKANUM SECTION OF HADLEY. Lights coming on in evening windows, cattle bawling, dark figures in snow-filled roads, going home. The spell of New England winter days. (David Grayson, The Countrymans Year , December 23.)

AN OLD AMHERST FARM IN WINTER, EAST PLEASANT STREET.

And now good night. Good night to this old house
Whose breathing fires are banked for their nights rest.
Good night to lighted windows in the west.
Good night to neighbors and to neighbors cows

Whose morning milk will be beside my door.
Good night to one star shining in. Good night
To earth, poor earth with its uncertain light,