HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
The oldest house in Amherst, where nine Tories were once held under guard
243 Stockbridge Road, Amherst, MA 01003
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
The building operates as the University Club & Restaurant; meals are priced separately. There is no admission fee to view the exterior or to dine.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved campus walkways and parking
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1728 · Oldest House in Amherst · Revolutionary War Loyalist Imprisonment · First Land Purchase for Massachusetts Agricultural College
Samuel Boltwood Jr. built the house in 1728 on land he had purchased in what would become Amherst, making it the first house raised in the town and, as documented by the Library of Congress and UMass Special Collections, the oldest house still standing in Amherst.
The property descended to Boltwood's daughter Abigail and her husband John Field. Field had become the largest landowner in Amherst by the time the town was incorporated in 1759 and was elected a selectman four times before the Revolution. In 1777, with the war underway, Field was imprisoned as a Tory on his own farm. According to UMass records, the room now known as the Tory Room, which retains its original wooden ceiling beams, was used to confine nine Loyalists during this period. Field retained his property after the war and was again elected selectman.
Over the following century the house served in turn as a blacksmith shop, a tavern, and a farmhouse, passing through Amherst families including the Cowls, Hastings, and Strong households. In 1864 the trustees of the new Massachusetts Agricultural College bought the house as part of their first land purchase for the campus that would grow into the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Today the building houses the University Club & Restaurant.
Sources
Among the ghost stories UMass students pass down, Stockbridge House appears regularly, and is sometimes called the most haunted spot on campus. The lore draws on the building's documented Revolutionary-era history: John Field, imprisoned as a Loyalist on his own farm in 1777, his wife Abigail, and the nine Tories said to have been confined in the room now called the Tory Room.
The Daily Collegian, the UMass student newspaper, has folded the house into its periodic roundups of campus ghost stories, where it is described as a place where the colonial past feels close. Accounts collected by students tend toward the atmospheric rather than the dramatic, focused on the age of the rooms and the weight of the building's history rather than specific apparitions.
Because the house now operates as the University Club & Restaurant, the most reliable way to experience it is simply to walk through the dining rooms, including the Tory Room with its original beams overhead, and consider that the space served as a makeshift prison nearly 250 years ago.
Notable Entities
The 1728 house operates today as the University Club & Restaurant on the UMass Amherst campus. The Tory Room, with its original wooden ceiling beams, is part of the dining space. Stop in for a meal or view the exterior, the oldest standing structure in Amherst.
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