"Resolved, that it is expedient to remove Williams College to some more central part of the State whenever sufficient funds can be obtained to defray the necessary expenses incurred and the losses sustained by removal, and to secure the prosperity of the college, and when a fair prospect shall be presented of obtaining for the institution the united support and patronage of the friends of literature and religion in the western part of the Commonwealth, and when the General Court shall give their assent to the measure."
The following November, the board of trustees petitioned the Legislature for permission to move the college to Northampton, but the Legislature rejected the petition in February 1820.
Zephaniah Swift Moore, president of Williams at the time, had strongly advocated for the move. Having exhausted every means of achieving his objective, Moore left Williams, accompanied by 15 students, and relocated in the town of Amherst. Legend has it that Moore took books from the Williams College Library with him, but there has been no evidence to substantiate the myth.
At the same time that Williams was deciding its fate in Williamstown, Amherst Academy, a secondary school which Emily Dickinson had attended, began raising funds and making plans to build a new college on its grounds. Its name was to be Amherst College. Originally a trustee of Amherst Academy, and later of the College, Noah Webster, the well-known author of many textbooks and the first American dictionary, played an instrumental role in helping to establish the College. Upon arriving in Amherst, Moore and his students joined the fledgling college and, in 1821, Moore became the first president of the elite institution that would far outshine its base roots in Williamstown.