Biographical Note

Winthrop Saltonstall Dakin, born in Boston on October 21, 1906 to Arthur Hazard Dakin and Emma Sahler Dakin, lived in Amherst most of his life. He was a graduate of Princeton University and of Harvard Law School, and practiced law in Northampton from 1937 until his retirement in 1974. He was among the founding trustees of Hampshire College, town meeting moderator for 18 years, a trustee of Clarke School for the Deaf, and with his wife, Janet, instrumental in the establishment of the Kestrel Trust, to provide conservation land for Amherst. He died in December 1982.

Janet Wilder Dakin, born in Berkeley, California on June 3, 1910, was the daughter of Isabella Niven Wilder and Amos Parker Wilder, and the youngest sister of author and playwright Thornton Wilder. At the time of her birth her father, a newspaper reporter, was consul general to China, and her first five years were spent in China, Florence, Italy and Berkeley. From the age of five, except for two years in Oxford and London when she was 11 and 12, she lived with her family in Mt. Carmel and New Haven, Connecticut. She earned a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College in 1933 and an M.A. in 1935; in 1939 she received a PhD. in zoology from the University of Chicago. After teaching biology at Mount Holyoke College for two years, she married W. S. Dakin and moved to Amherst, where she continued a life-long interest in animals and became an active participant in a number of projects connected with conservation. She had an extensive involvement with Morgan horses, served several years as a 4-H leader in the horse program, was instrumental in founding the Equine Center at the University of Massachusetts, and was a founder of Friends of Amherst's Stray Animals. She was instrumental in the establishment of the Massachusetts portion of the Blue Ribbon Memorial Highway, a memorial to WWII servicemen and women and in the formation of the Holyoke Range State Park, was active in the Amherst Conservation Commission and the Kestrel Trust and was the recipient of a number of conservation awards. She died in October 1994.

The Dakins arranged for their home and 27 adjacent acres to be give to the University of Massachusetts upon their deaths. Their home is now the Arthur F. Kinney Center for Renaissance Studies.