Judge Otis Phillips Lord

Born: July 11, 1812, Ipswich, MA.

Died: March 13, 1884, Salem, MA.

Burial Location: Greenwood Avenue, Lot 1430, Grave 2.

As a young boy, Otis Phillips Lord attended Dummer Academy (now Governors Academy), he went on to graduate from Amherst College in the class of 1832, and then graduated from Harvard Law School in 1835. He was admitted to the bar in the same year. He became a frequent guest of Edward Dickinson, the father of poet Emily Dickinson. Both men were active in alumni activities of Amherst College and became good friends.

Otis Lord married Elizabeth Farley in 1843; the couple lived in Salem, and had no children. Their home was 14 North Street; the house is no longer standing. The site was the location of the original North Church Meeting House. Much of the timber from the original building was contained in Lord’s house.

Otis Lord served in the Massachusetts General Court, in the House of Representatives for five terms, as Speaker of the House in 1854, and for one term in the State Senate. He was defeated for re-election in 1872. In 1875, he was appointed to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and served there until he retired due to ill health in December of 1882. He was a noted orator, and a man of strong opinions which may have put an end to his political career.

Rumors persist about a relationship between Emily Dickinson and Otis Phillips Lord. They certainly knew each other. Otis Lord and his wife Elizabeth visited the Dickinson home in Amherst. After his wife’s death, Otis Lord was still a frequent guest and his visits continued after the death of Edward Dickinson. Scraps of letters in Emily Dickinson’s handwriting, written to “master” and “My lovely Salem” add fuel to the fire. However, there are no known letters from Otis Phillips Lord to Emily Dickinson and no proof that her letters reached him or indeed were addressed to him. He died two years before her death.

It is said that he only made one mistake on a law decision while he was a judge. This was on a law that had just been amended by the state legislature. When he found out about the change, he said "well, the good Lord only knows what the Massachusetts Legislature hasn’t done in the last six months. “

He was not well for two years before his death. Lord resigned from his judicial post in 1882. Otis Phillips Lord died at his home on North Street.

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Photo: Find a Grave.

Sources Consulted:

• ‍Books:‍
  • Julie Dobrow: After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America’s Greatest Poet. W. W. Norton and Company, NY: 2018.
  • Susan Snively: The Heart Has Many Doors: A Novel of Emily Dickinson, White River Press, Amherst, MA: 2015.
  • John Evangelist Walsh: Emily Dickinson in Love: The Case for Otis Lord. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ: 2012.
  • Brenda Wineapple: White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson Alfred A. Knopf Publishers, NY: 2008.‍
• Internet:
  • Emily Dickinson Museum.
  • Mass.gov
  • Noblenet.org
  • Salem News.
  • Wikipedia.