Benjamin franklin Newton
Scant details about Ben Newton's early life suggest that he was born into a farming family in Berlin, Massachusetts, close to Worcester, on September 30, 1821. Due to financial constraints and possibly concerns about his health not being robust enough for farming, Newton likely pursued teaching in the years preceding his arrival in Amherst. He was born nine years before Emily and known as one of Emily's earliest friends; and further recounted as "my dying tutor" in letter 265 by Dickinson, Benjamin Newton was a young attorney employed by Edward Dickinson at the age of eighteen. He died at the young age of 32 in 1853; which had a large influence on Emily and her poetry; "My earliest friend wrote to me before he died", she said, "If I live I will go to Amherst, if I die-- I certainly will."