USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Winchester > History of Winchester, Massachusetts > Part 21
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The site selected was the lot at the foot of Vine Street where it enters Church Street. It was on this lot that the little wooden house stood which was the first public building erected by the infant town of Winchester. It had housed for many years the single fire engine that was the entire fire department of the town, and in the room on the second floor the early boards of selectmen had their office. Still later it was used as a shop by the superintendent of the Water Works. The new building which rose on this lot was completed and ready for business in November 1931. It was designed by Mr. Edward R. Wait, an architect who was himself a citizen of Winchester, and it is a dignified and almost monu- mental edifice in the modern style, in which much use has been made of the newer building materials for structural and decora- tive purposes, and of the latest devices in actinic glass for diffusing the light equally through the large banking room.
The bank has from the first been owned and conducted by Winchester people; some ninety-eight per cent of its loans are on Winchester property, and it is a sound and well-managed local institution. In 1935 its assets amounted to over $3,000,000. It has had three presidents: Mr. Pattee served until 1900; Mr. Howard
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D. Nash until 1927, and Mr. John Challis since that year. Its treasurers have been Thomas B. Cotter, Thomas S. Spurr, George E. Pratt, Raymond Merrill, Herbert E. Stone, W. G. Packard, Walter S. Wadsworth and Ernest R. Eustis -- the latter since 1921.
The first commercial bank to be established in Winchester was the Middlesex National. The articles of association for this institution were signed April 28, 1897 by Lewis Parkhurst, Samuel J. Elder, Frank A. Cutting, James W. Russell, Charles E. Barrett and L. H. W. Vaupel. Mr. Parkhurst was elected president and Mr. Barrett cashier. The bank opened rooms in the building on Main Street which had formerly been the house of Deacon Benjamin F. Thompson - or rather in the story beneath that house, which had been raised to permit the use of the site for business purposes.
The bank was highly successful both under Mr. Parkhurst's presidency and that of Mr. Cutting who succeeded him. The stock was almost entirely owned by Winchester people. Its original capi- tal was $50,000. In 1913 the directors of the bank decided to sur- render this charter and reorganize as the Winchester Trust Com- pany in order to be able to do both a trust and a commercial business. At the same time they purchased land on Church Street opposite the head of Common Street, and built their own bank building there - the handsome brick structure with a high pillared portico in the classic style which still stands, a real ornament to the town. Mr. Edward R. Wait was the architect. Mr. Cutting was the first president of the Trust Company and Mr. Barrett its first treasurer. Mr. Cutting was in time succeeded, first by Frank L. Ripley, then by Ralph E. Joslin and then by William L. Parsons, who is now (1936) president. Mr. Barrett remained treasurer until failing health obliged him to resign in 1931, when G. Dwight Cabot was chosen to succeed him.
The Trust Company has been prosperous since its foundation, a notably sound and strong financial institution. In 1934 it reported commercial deposits of $974,541.79, savings deposits of $992,378.51 and a surplus and undivided profits of $267,402.21. Its capital stock amounts to $100,000.
In 1918 a number of Winchester gentlemen, believing that there was opportunity for a second commercial bank, took out a charter for the Winchester National Bank. Handsome banking
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rooms were opened in February 1918 in the Lane Block at No. 7 Church Street. Edward S. Foster was president of the new bank and Edward A. Grosvenor cashier. The original directors were A. B. Allen, William H. Bowe, Felix J. Carr, W. F. Flanders, Edward S. Foster, William A. Kneeland, Jonas A. Laraway, F. J. O'Hara, Harris W. Richmond, H. L. Riddle, H. C. Rohrman, Edmund C. Sanderson, Dr. R. W. Sheehy, and E. Arthur Tutein - to whom James Hinds was presently added. The bank proved successful; in 1921 it doubled the size of its banking rooms by taking over the adjoining store, and in 1925 it purchased the entire block, of which it is still the owner.
Early in 1922 a reorganization of the bank became necessary, owing to the fact that misappropriation of its funds by the presi- dent, amounting to $97,841, had been discovered.1
The bank was, momentarily, adversely affected by this affair, but its solvency was never in doubt. E. Arthur Tutein, chosen president in Mr. Foster's place, with the assistance of his directors, got the bank securely on its feet again; in 1926 he was succeeded by William A. Kneeland, and it is enough to say of his conduct of affairs that not even the widespread banking troubles of 1933 menaced the solvency of the Winchester National Bank. From 1922 to 1931 Edward W. Nelson was cashier; Clarence J. McDavitt, Jr. followed him, and Leslie J. Scott at present holds that position. The deposits in 1935 amounted to more than $1,000,000.
In 1878 Winchester was agitated by another railway project. The new road, christened the Mystic Valley Railroad, was to run out from Boston, through Somerville, Arlington, the west side of Winchester and Woburn, to North Woburn and Wilmington and perhaps to Chelmsford. It was to be of narrow gauge width, and it was planned still further to diminish the cost of construction by using, wherever possible, the old tow path of the Middlesex Canal as a roadbed.
The Railroad Commissioners, of whom Charles Francis Adams was then the chairman, seem from the first to have been dubious about the necessity and solvency of the project, and at first refused flatly to permit its incorporation,2 but a sum of $85,000 having
1 Winchester Star, June 9, 1922, October 20, 1922.
2 Woburn Journal, February 16, 1878.
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been raised, and all the requirements of the law complied with, the incorporation was assented to on March 9.1 Stephen Dow, a leading citizen of Woburn, was elected president, Samuel W. Twombley of Winchester vice-president, and John R. Carter of Woburn engineer.
On May 6, 1878, construction began at North Woburn, Mr. Twombley turning the first spadeful of earth.2 Woburn business men were interested, as they always were, in any rail construction that might lead to lower freight rates on their leather products, and it was hoped by Winchester real estate owners that the road might lead to the profitable development of land on the West Side. Work continued for more than a year in Woburn, Somerville and Win- chester. A mile of track was laid in Somerville and gravel trains ran over it. But the doubts of the Railroad Commissioners were justified. The project could not attract sufficient capital, and it died a lingering death.
The tracks of the Boston and Maine loop through North Woburn to Wilmington follow much of the route surveyed and graded for the Mystic Valley road. In Winchester the embank- ments for the viaduct that was to carry the rails across Winter Pond can still be seen, considerably washed away, and remains of the roadbed at the base of Horn Pond Mountain were long visible, though the building of the Woburn Parkway obliterated most of them.
During these years Winchester also witnessed the birth of the Myopia Club, one of the earliest and most famous outdoor clubs in the United States. A number of young men of no little social prominence in Boston, most of them Harvard graduates or under- graduates, organized the club for social and athletic purposes. The singular but melodious name is the physician's word, derived from the Greek, for the affliction of near-sightedness; it is said to have been suggested to the club from the fact that most of its members had to wear glasses! This was long before the days of golf, and tennis was only on the verge of introduction into the United States under the cumbrous name (also Greek) of sphairistike. The ath-
1 Woburn Journal, March 16, 1878.
2 Woburn Journal, May 11, 1878.
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letic activities of the club consisted mainly of horseback riding until the brilliant idea of fox hunting presented itself to someone, and the Myopia Club became the Myopia Hunt Club.
Mr. D. N. Skillings's son-in-law, William D. Sanborn, who was himself a son of S. T. Sanborn and a resident of Winchester, was among the early members. Through him Mr. Skillings became interested in the Myopia Club, and offered to build for it a club- house and stables on land belonging to him at the top of the hill overlooking Mystic Lake - the hill that has ever since been called Myopia Hill. His offer was accepted, and the house built on one of the sightliest locations in the town. "A housekeeper and hostlers are kept on the place," reports the Winchester correspondent of the Woburn Journal, "and the house has facilities for keeping members over night and over week ends."1
There are records of steeplechase races held by the club at Mystic Park, Somerville, and in May 1882 the arrival of twenty blooded foxhounds, imported from England, and kenneled at the clubhouse on Myopia Hill is chronicled.2 The hounds, led by their "keepers or grooms" (the Winchester correspondent seems to have been in some doubt about the proper word), became familiar sights on the streets of the town.
It soon became apparent that Winchester was too near the city to offer enough good fox-hunting country, and in the next year (1883) the club gave up its house on Myopia Hill and removed, first to Clyde Park, Brookline, and then to Hamilton, where it still lives on prosperously, the progenitor of a thousand country clubs and famous as one of the leading polo playing clubs in the country. The fox-hunting experiment was rather early abandoned; American farmers are not so docile about having their lands ridden over as their English cousins. But golf, tennis and polo offer agree- able substitutes. Brief as was the club's stay in Winchester it has left memorials behind it, not only in Myopia Hill but in Myopia Road, which was the original driveway to its clubhouse. That building was bought for a residence by Mr. John Davis, but in later years it disappeared, to give place to the house erected there by Mr. Samuel Petts and now occupied by his son, Mr. Sanford F. Petts.
1 Woburn Journal, July 30, 1880.
2 Woburn Journal, May 19, 1882.
CHAPTER XVI
HISTORY OF THE CHURCHES IN WINCHESTER
THE history of the First Congregational Church, the first church to be organized in the town, has already been traced, down to the burning of the original meetinghouse in 1853.1 The loss was a serious one for a church only thirteen years established, but plans were at once drawn for a larger and finer place of worship on the same site. Rev. Reuben T. Robinson, who had become pastor only the year before, and who was universally beloved, took the lead; the parish meeting of April 28, 1853, only eight days after the fire, appointed a building committee consisting of Nathan B. Johnson, B. F. Thompson, Harrison Parker, Oliver R. Clark, S. B. White, Joseph Stone, Joseph Wyman, J. R. Bayley and Elmore Johnson, and by September 8 matters were so far advanced that the corner stone of the new church was laid, on which occasion Rev. Mr. Robinson preached a sermon. On the first of January 1854 the congregation was able to meet in the vestry which occu- pied the basement of the building, and on October II, the church being completed, services of dedication were held. Rev. Mr. Rob- inson again preached the sermon, from the text, "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former, saith the Lord of Hosts, and in this place, I will give peace." The clergymen of Woburn, Reading, South Reading and Malden also took part in the services.
The new church was considerably larger than the one that fire had destroyed. It was of frame construction, in a style derived from the Romanesque churches of Europe. After more than eighty years it still stands, solid and commanding, on its little eminence, surmounted by an extremely graceful spire, at the top of which gleams a golden cross. This cross occasioned no little discussion when it was first set in place; some of the old-fashioned Orthodox thought it savored too much of Catholic, or at least of liturgical 1 See Chapters XI and XIII.
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practice. But the building committee insisted that the cross of Christ could never be out of place on a Christian church, and for- tunately, I think, carried their point.
By way of illustrating the cheapness of building eighty years ago, the entire cost of the new church, including organ, carpets, pews and furniture, was $25,894, probably no more than a fifth of what it would cost today.
Rev. Mr. Robinson remained pastor of the church until 1871, when failing health obliged him to retire, to the unfeigned sorrow of his flock. He resigned on April 24; four months later to a day, he died. The church, by way of expressing its affection, erected at its own expense the handsome monument which stands over his grave in Wildwood Cemetery.
Four years before Mr. Robinson's death the parish bought from Harrison Parker the house on Main Street, where the minister had lived for some years, to be used as a parsonage. It so remained until the Junior High School building was erected upon this land in 1931.
The pastors of the church since 1871 have been Rev. Edwin C. Bissell (1871-1873), who, after leaving Winchester, was a mission- ary in Austria, and later professor of Hebrew at Hartford Theo- logical Seminary; Rev. A. B. Dascomb (1873-1878); Rev. Charles R. Seymour (1879-1888); Rev. D. Augustine Newton (1889-1909); Rev. Frank W. Hodgdon (1911-1914); and Rev. Howard J. Chidley (1915- ). Under their ministries the church has pros- pered; it has at present twelve hundred members and is one of the largest and strongest churches of the Congregational faith in Massachusetts.
The building erected in 1854 still stands, but important changes have been wrought in it. In 1884 it was somewhat remod- eled and beautified by a number of memorial windows; in 1926 its western end was rebuilt, and a chancel, with choir stalls, a new organ and a marble communion table, added at a cost of $60,000. The aspect of the auditorium was completely changed by this improvement, greatly to its advantage. At the same time a parish house, commodious and thoroughly modern in equipment and arrangement, was built at the rear of the church. It contains a beautiful chapel, the Ripley Memorial Chapel, named in memory
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HISTORY OF WINCHESTER
of Mr. Frank L. Ripley, whose widow gave the money for its con- struction, a large assembly hall, ladies parlors, kitchens and ample classrooms for the Sunday school. The architects who drew the plans for both chancel and parish house were Robert Coit and Allen and Collins of Boston.1
An organization within the Congregational Church which deserves mention for its antiquity is the Ladies Western Mission- ary Society. This society is of equal age with the church itself, for it was founded in the same year - 1840. It approaches its cen- tenary, still a vigorous and useful institution, interested mainly in the work of domestic missions.
The date of the first preaching service held by Baptists in Winchester is not of record; but at least as early as 1850 members of that denomination were holding public worship in Union Hall, over the S. S. Richardson building on Main Street. When Lyceum Hall was built - through the efforts of John A. Bolles, Josiah Hovey, Charles McIntire, Wyman Locke and H. K. Stanton- Baptists all - the services were transferred thither, and a dedi- catory service was held in the hall on January 12, 1852, at which Dr. Rollin H. Neale preached the sermon. At the same time the Baptist Society was formed, with fourteen members, including the men named above and Benjamin Abrahams, Aaron D. Weld, Hiram Andrews, S. G. Grafton, Nathan Jaquith, Jr., Cyrus Ban- croft, John Hopley, K. W. Baker and Horace P. Stone. Rev. N. A. Reed was invited to become the first minister and he began his work in Winchester in April.
The First Baptist Church was constituted with eighteen mem- bers on August 18, 1852; and public recognition services, with Mr. Reed as pastor, were held on September 2; Dr. Neale, who was one of the leading Baptist clergymen in New England, again delivered an address. Dr. T. F. Caldicott of Woburn preached the sermon, and the pastors of several Baptist churches from neighboring towns took part in the service.
1 Materials for a much more extended history of the Congregational Church exist in MSS. preserved in the rooms of the Winchester Historical Society, most of which were printed in a series of some thirty articles in Vol. I of the Winchester Press. Rev. Leander Thompson, Abijah Thompson, David Youngman, Miss L. J. Sanderson and others prepared them.
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The church continued to occupy Lyceum Hall for its public worship, prayer meetings and Sunday school until 1864. Under the pastorate of Rev. Henry Hinckley, whose faith and energy were notable, steps were taken to provide a church building for the society, which had greatly increased in membership, especially during the religious revival of 1858, to which reference has already been made. The lot on the corner of Washington and Mt. Vernon streets was purchased; and although those were the difficult and trying days of the Civil War, the society, under Mr. Hinckley's inspiring leadership, raised a sum of money sufficient to erect the commodious and attractive church building which stood for more than sixty years on that spot. The edifice, entirely free from debt, was dedicated with appropriate services on June 9, 1864. Just thirty years later, the building was improved by a re-decoration of the auditorium and the purchase of a new and larger organ, which was placed behind the pulpit instead of at the back of the church where the first organ had stood. The pastors of the church since its organization have been as follows:
Rev. N. A. Reed, 1852-1854. Rev. E. B. Eddy, 1855-1860. Rev. J. D. Messon, 1860-1861.
Rev. Henry Hinckley, 1862-1867.
Rev. S. J. Bronson, 1867-1870.
Rev. L. G. Barret, 1870-1874.
Rev. H. F. Barnes, 1874-1881.
Rev. J. F. Fielden, 1881-1892.
Rev. C. H. Wheeler, 1892-1894.
Rev. William E. Schliemann, 1894-1898.
Rev. Amos Harris, 1899.
Rev. Henry D. Hodge, 1899-1919.
Rev. Clifton H. Wolcott, 1920-1926. Rev. Benjamin F. Browne, 1928.
Rev. Merritt Gregg, 1931-1933.
Rev. R. Mitchell Rushton, 1933-
During interims between pastorates the church has been served by Rev. Dr. Wood of Arlington, Rev. C. H. Moss of Malden, Rev. Herbert S. Johnson of the Warren Avenue Church, Boston, and Rev. J. W. Brougher, Jr. Under Rev. Mr. Fielden's pastorate
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HISTORY OF WINCHESTER
the Baptist Church and Society, hitherto separate bodies, were consolidated, and the First Baptist Church of Winchester was incorporated. Pew rentals were abolished and weekly voluntary offerings took their place.
In 1928 the need of a new, larger and better equipped church building having long been felt, the Baptists of Winchester under- took to raise the money for an edifice that should include not only an auditorium and vestry rooms, but a modern and commodious parish house as well. The beautiful stone structure which stands today on the original lot at the corner of Mt. Vernon Street, a monument to the faith, devotion and sacrifice of the church mem- bers, was the result. This building cost in the neighborhood of $200,000. Within and without it is designed with taste and judg- ment. In its tower there is a chime of bells, the music of which floats far and wide through the center of the town. An attractive and well-planned home for the second oldest religious body in Winchester, it is also a notable addition to the beauty of the town.
The Winchester Unitarian Society may be said to have had its beginnings in a Sunday school organized in 1855 by Edwin A. Wadleigh, and continued for some four years under his superin- tendence. The school met in various places - the Mystic School- house, Livingstone Hall, and the home of Mrs. Sharon on Main Street. Some fifty or sixty children attended, many of them pupils in the Industrial School of which Mrs. Sharon was then the matron.1 During these years there were also occasional preaching services at the Mystic School on Sunday afternoon or evening, which were addressed by Unitarian ministers from the surrounding towns - Rev. Charles Brooks of Medford, Rev. J. F. W. Ware of Cambridge, Rev. Mr. Marsters of Woburn and Dr. Frothingham of Boston among them.
The movement to establish a living Unitarian church in Win- chester was coincident with the arrival in the town of Dr. Frederick Winsor. Dr. Winsor was an earnest Unitarian, and the stimulus of his energy was all that was needed to awaken the spirit of a rather numerous body of citizens, who were of his mind in matters of religion. On Sunday, November 19, 1865, about twenty-five men and women met in his parlor to listen to a sermon by a visiting
1 See page 187.
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CHURCHES IN WINCHESTER
clergyman, Rev. A. B. Calthrop; a preaching service in Lyceum Hall a week later attracted an audience of eighty, and a few days later articles of association, forming the Winchester Unitarian Society, were drawn up and signed by Dr. Winsor, Charles J. Bishop, Charles P. Curtis, Jr., Edward Shattuck, F. O. Prince, Edwin A. Wadleigh, Joseph Goddard, A. H. Field, G. W. Spurr, T. P. Ayer, Leonard Nutter, Joel Whitney, George P. Brown, F. W. Perry, William Pratt, S. F. Ham, Hosea Dunbar and C. J. Bishop, Jr.
At a meeting held at Dr. Winsor's on December 5, Mr. Bishop was chosen moderator, Mr. Curtis clerk and Dr. Winsor treasurer.
Services were held in Lyceum Hall, beginning on December 3. In May the young society called Rev. Richard Metcalf of Provi- dence, R. I. to be its minister, and on June 14, 1866 Mr. Metcalf was duly installed as pastor. The sermon on this occasion was delivered by Rev. James Freeman Clarke, the distinguished minis- ter of the Arlington Street Church in Boston. Mr. Metcalf was a graduate of Brown University, a man of great intellectual powers and a deep spiritual nature. During his fifteen years in Winchester he made a very strong impression on the people of the town. Unhappily his health was never robust. Twice before coming to Winchester he had been obliged to resign pastorates for that reason, and failing health cut short his service here in what should have been his prime. He died June 30, 1881, mourned by many beyond the circle to which he ministered.
By 1869 the society had so increased that the erection of a church building seemed possible and necessary. Articles of incor- poration were taken out, a lot was purchased on Main Street just south of the present site of the new Junior High School. The corner stone of the church building was laid on August 25, 1869 at a service thus prettily described by one who was present:
"The service had a cozy, family look. The singing was chiefly by the Sunday school ... the scholars stood in one corner round the organ, and the older people sat on the banks, the walls, or wherever they could find a stick of timber. The babies that could stand alone were trotting round near the minister, without being a bit in awe of him."1
1 E. A. Wadleigh in Winchester Record, Vol. II, page 154.
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The church was completed and dedicated March 17, 1870. It was a substantial if not beautiful building, crowned with tower and spire at one corner. It contained seventy-two pews seating three hundred and eighty people, with room in the gallery for fourteen pews. The cost was $23,000, most of which was generously sub- scribed in the beginning by the members and friends of the society. One gift of $1,000 was made by Alexander Moseley who was not a resident of the town, but who owned the large tannery at Main and Swanton streets. The organ was the gift of Emmons Hamlin.
On the death of Rev. Mr. Metcalf he was succeeded by Rev. Theodore C. Williams of Roxbury. His pastorate was of brief duration, for in 1883 he was called to the important Church of All Souls in New York City. Rev. John L. Marsh was the next pastor, and later ministers have been Rev. Herbert H. Mott, Rev. Arthur W. Littlefield, Rev. William I. Lawrance, Rev. Joel Metcalf and Rev. George Hale Reed, who is the present pastor. Rev. Mr. Lawrance resigned in 1910 to become president of the Unitarian Sunday School Association. Rev. Mr. Metcalf was a nephew of the first minister, Rev. Richard Metcalf. He was distinguished not only as a clergyman but as one of the most active and learned amateur astronomers in the United States. He is credited with having discovered more than forty asteroids, several variable stars and at least three comets; some of these discoveries he made while living in Winchester, for he had a telescope erected on the roof of his house in Lawson Road. He also constructed several telescopes for his own amusement, one of which with a sixteen-inch glass found its way into the Harvard Observatory. What a magnificent hobby for a clergyman to ride!
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