In yesterday’s post, I included a passage from Marta McDowell’s book, “Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Iconic Poet.” The passage itself included a quote from an 1853 letter from Emily Dickinson to her brother Austin. Here’s a bit of what McDowell – and Dickinson – said:
“Austin, like their father, was a great planter of trees. As a teenager, he planted a grove of white pines near their house. Dickinson reported their progress to her brother, then away at school. ‘We all went down this morning, and the trees look beautifully,’ she wrote. ‘Every one is growing, and when the west wind blows, the pines lift their light leaves and make sweet music.’”
After reading that, I searched for the full letter from Dickinson to her brother. This quest was more challenging than I anticipated; however, at the conclusion, I uncovered quite a crime spree from Amherst in the early1850s.
First, though – before I stumbled upon the wave of criminality – I encountered various and peculiar (if not bizarre) AI responses. When I searched Dickinson’s words to her brother – about the west wind and the pine trees – I got this:
“The quote is not from a letter Emily Dickinson wrote to her brother Austin; rather, it is a line from one of her poems, “A narrow fellow in the grass.”
“Austin, like their father, was a great planter of trees. As a teenager, he planted a grove of white pines near their house. Dickinson reported their progress to her brother, then away at school. ‘We all went down this morning, and the trees look beautifully,’ she wrote. ‘Every one is growing, and when the west wind blows, the pines lift their light leaves and make sweet music.’”
After reading that, I searched for the full letter from Dickinson to her brother. This quest was more challenging than I anticipated; however, at the conclusion, I uncovered quite a crime spree from Amherst in the early1850s.
First, though – before I stumbled upon the wave of criminality – I encountered various and peculiar (if not bizarre) AI responses. When I searched Dickinson’s words to her brother – about the west wind and the pine trees – I got this:
“The quote is not from a letter Emily Dickinson wrote to her brother Austin; rather, it is a line from one of her poems, “A narrow fellow in the grass.”
 | Say what? How could AI have gotten it so wrong? That poem – about a snake – does not include any of the words “west,” “wind,” “pine” or “trees.” Additionally, the response directed me to a letter from Dickinson from May 1853: “(the letter) speaks of a new life and the joy of the train whistle playing in the distance.” I have no idea how or why AI made a connection from the original quote to a train whistle. Here’s the quote about the whistle: “While I write, the whistle is playing, and the cars just coming in. It gives us all new life, every time it plays. How you will love to hear it, when you come home again!” The complete letter is HERE. Another response from the AI overview stated that the quote I was searching for was “a misremembered version of a line she (Emily) wrote in a letter to him (Austin) in 1851.” That sent me on a fruitless hunt through all of ED’s letters to her brother from 1851 (23 in all). Finally, though – and I don’t recall exactly how I refined my search – I did find the letter, and whoa – what a letter! The quote I was looking for was, indeed, in the communication, but so were some riveting reports of a swell of lawlessness in 1853 Amherst! |
Please pause now to press the button below (or linked HERE) now for an important and necessary sound effect:
"Here’s the scoop, straight from the poet’s pen:
”Has father written you that Edwin Pierce, our neighbor, was arrested last week, for beating a servant girl, tried, and fined two dollars and costs? Vinnie and I heard the whipping, and could have testified, if the Court had called upon us. Also Dea Cowan's son George was detected while breaking into the Bonnet Shop, the other night, and is to be tried next Wednesday. Mr Frank Conkey is absent, and the criminal desiring his services, the parties consent to wait.”
BTW: The complete letter from Dickinson which includes these felonious allegations is HERE.
I explored these crimes online but couldn’t find any details except that the victim’s name in the beating was Bridgett Clifford (found HERE). I uncovered nothing about the Bonnet Shop burglary, but I did find this interesting but unrelated bit:
"Theft of the Williams College Library: A well-documented but likely apocryphal story from the Williams-Amherst rivalry involves the theft of a library. However, this incident concerns a college library, not a bonnet shop, and may not have occurred in 1853."
”Has father written you that Edwin Pierce, our neighbor, was arrested last week, for beating a servant girl, tried, and fined two dollars and costs? Vinnie and I heard the whipping, and could have testified, if the Court had called upon us. Also Dea Cowan's son George was detected while breaking into the Bonnet Shop, the other night, and is to be tried next Wednesday. Mr Frank Conkey is absent, and the criminal desiring his services, the parties consent to wait.”
BTW: The complete letter from Dickinson which includes these felonious allegations is HERE.
I explored these crimes online but couldn’t find any details except that the victim’s name in the beating was Bridgett Clifford (found HERE). I uncovered nothing about the Bonnet Shop burglary, but I did find this interesting but unrelated bit:
"Theft of the Williams College Library: A well-documented but likely apocryphal story from the Williams-Amherst rivalry involves the theft of a library. However, this incident concerns a college library, not a bonnet shop, and may not have occurred in 1853."
Please pause once again to press the Law and Order sound effect button linked above once more.
How could I not look into this? Here’s some of what I found:
"The Williams-Amherst rivalry is a long-standing competition between the two colleges that began in 1821 when the president of Williams College, Zephaniah Swift Moore, left with students to found Amherst College. The "Williams College library theft" is a persistent legend surrounding this event, though evidence suggests it is a myth; while Moore did leave Williams, historical accounts state that a significant library theft did not occur.”
Of course, the first thing that jumped out at me was that spectacular name, "Zephaniah." And get this -- he was preceded as president of Williams College by a dude named Ebenezer, Ebenezer Fitch! This post-colonial-slash-pre-Gilded-Age period had some great names, no?
How could I not look into this? Here’s some of what I found:
"The Williams-Amherst rivalry is a long-standing competition between the two colleges that began in 1821 when the president of Williams College, Zephaniah Swift Moore, left with students to found Amherst College. The "Williams College library theft" is a persistent legend surrounding this event, though evidence suggests it is a myth; while Moore did leave Williams, historical accounts state that a significant library theft did not occur.”
Of course, the first thing that jumped out at me was that spectacular name, "Zephaniah." And get this -- he was preceded as president of Williams College by a dude named Ebenezer, Ebenezer Fitch! This post-colonial-slash-pre-Gilded-Age period had some great names, no?
 | Pictured at the left: Zephaniah Swift Moore. (Alas, I could find no image of Mr. Ebenezer Fitch) By the way, you will be happy to know that the report of Moore’s bibliolarceny was declared false in 1995 by Williams College President Harry C. Payne, and Zephaniah's name was cleared of any wrong doing! More info on Zephaniah is HERE. Additional on the Williams-Amherst rivalry is HERE, and an article on the alleged book theft is HERE. |
| One last thing, and --hee hee -- am I being too rascally here? Take a look at Zephaniah's tombstone (pictured at the right). It says, "First President of Amherst College and his wife." I wonder what Phebe would think of that? LOL -- I'm just being silly. |  |
RSS Feed
