<p>I was reading Arundhati Roy’s “Listening To Grasshoppers”, and i came across this:</p>
<p>Lord Amherst, the man whose idea it was to distribute blankets infected with smallpox virus to Indians, has a university town in Massachusetts, and a prestigious liberal arts college named after him.</p>
<p>I mean Amherst College is rather unfortunate to have been named after such an individual. But its mascot is named Lord Jeffrey Amherst even after all these years…That i simply cannot understand…</p>
<p>It was actually named after the town of Amherst, not Jeffrey Amherst. However the town was named in honor of Jeffrey Amherst (as were several other towns named “Amherst”) even though it appears he was never actually physically there.</p>
<p>The mascot historically was Sabrina (a minor river goddess, if I recall). This was changed sometime in more recent history, but not sure when.</p>
<p>I wish they’d go back to Sabrina as their mascot, personally, but …</p>
<p>I just went a-Googling to try to learn more, and although there are some links to wonderful stories about the Sabrina statue (a bronze statue gifted to the school that has a fabulously weird history), I cannot find a reference to Sabrina actually having ever been an official college mascot… so not sure about that.</p>
<p>There have been student-led efforts to change the mascot from Lord Jeffrey, but so far to no avail. :(</p>