In 1857, Amherst College accepted a gift from Joel Hayden – a bronze neo-classical sculpture named after Sabrina, Goddess of the Britons.
Hayden owned several business and mills in Haydenville, Massachusetts, a borough of Williamsburg, Massachusetts, including a brass factory, gas works, cotton factory, and foundry. He was also a part-owner of the Williamsburg Reservoir Company, which built the shoddy Williamsburg Reservoir, completed in 1866. On May 16, 1874, several months after Hayden's death, the dam failed catastrophically, causing a flood that killed 139 people and destroyed all four of Hayden's factories.[1]
References
^Elizabeth M. Sharpe, In the Shadow of the Dam, Free Press, New York, 2004