USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Winchester > History of Winchester, Massachusetts > Part 27
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The original lock-up of the town was in the basement of the engine house on Vine Street where there were two cells for the accommodation of the occasional vagrant or drunkard and the very rare person who had committed a real crime. In this base- ment also the local trial justice - Abraham B. Coffin was the first, and George S. Littlefield succeeded him - was accustomed to hold
1 Winchester Star, January 4, 1901.
THE TOWN HALL
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TOWN HALL AND PUBLIC LIBRARY
hearings when necessary. After the establishment of the Woburn District Court in 1873, Winchester was attached to that district. Mr. Littlefield was for some forty years an associate justice of that court, as Mr. Curtis W. Nash is at present.
When the town hall was built in 1886 a much more commodi- ous lock-up was provided in the basement of that building, which also contained a room or rooms for the use of the chief and later of the patrolmen. This served until 1913, when a really serviceable building was erected for the police department as a wing of the new fire house.
It is time to tell the story of the building of the town hall, to which reference has just been made. As has generally been the case when matters of high import to the citizens of Winchester presented themselves, this business of a town hall was not settled without controversy, and warm controversy too. The town had existed for more than thirty years, and several town meetings had voted down proposals to build one; but by 1885 public opinion was beginning to recognize its necessity. The inconvenience of having the various town offices scattered in different buildings through the center, the inadequacy of Lyceum Hall as a meeting place (for it would hold only a third of the qualified voters) and the rising expense of rented quarters for the town boards and officers, all furnished arguments for the erection of a town house. The annual meeting of March 28, 1885 voted to appoint a committee of five - John T. Wilson, Joseph H. Tyler, S. W. Twombly, Stephen Thompson and George D. Rand - to consider and report upon the matter.1 The site most generally approved was the vacant land about an acre in extent at the corner of Washington and Pleasant2 streets. This lot was owned by O. W. Gardner; but to make the site symmetrical in shape it was thought to be necessary to buy some part of the land belonging to Alexis Cutting on Washington Street.3 But Mr. Gardner wanted $9,000 for his property, and Mr. Cutting was said to ask $6,000 for the much smaller parcel of land required of him. The members of the committee hesitated to pay such prices, and took under consideration several other sites, particularly the Nutter
1 Town Records, Vol. III, page 66.
2 Now Mt. Vernon Street.
3 His house was that now occupied by the American Legion.
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HISTORY OF WINCHESTER
estate which ran through from Main to Washington streets just behind the present site of the high school.
The town at once divided on the question, and discussion became warm, and sometimes acrimonious. At the town meeting of April 1, 1886 a new committee was appointed and virtually instructed to buy the Gardner and Cutting land; the vote was I27 to 65.1
The new committee consisted of John T. Wilson, Joseph H. Tyler, Moses A. Herrick, David N. Skillings, Jr., Henry A. Emer- son, Thomas P. Ayer and Stephen Thompson. All except Mr. Wilson turned out to be opposed to the purchase of the Gardner lot, which they had been virtually instructed to buy. Their thrifty souls revolted at the idea of paying so much money for the land, and they succeeded in convincing themselves that some other site - probably the Nutter estate - would be a better one anyway. In this they had the support of J. F. Dwinell, another very emi- nent citizen of the town. Indeed the majority of Winchester's men of leading, if not of light, were behind the committee when it came before the town at a meeting on April 20, and asked for the repeal of the vote instructing it to buy the Gardner lot. Mr. Wilson alone disagreed with the request and urged the town to stick to its origi- nal decision. The fight on the floor of the meeting was lively and not always good tempered. There is no stenographic report of the debate, but the newspapers of the day called it "heated,"2 and at times disorderly, and spoke of Mr. Wilson's "aspersions" upon the actions and the motives of his colleagues.3 The discussion was pro- longed for over three hours; when the vote was taken Mr. Wilson's views won, 178 to 147; the town hall was to be built on the Gardner lot, and at a cost of $50,000 which the town appropriated.4
But the conflict was not even yet over; the defeated party continued to insist, first that a clear title could not be got to the Gardner lot, and next that if a title were secured, the land lay so near the level of the river that a fortune must be spent in draining and levelling it. The town meeting of July 16, 1886 was again the scene of fireworks, when it was proposed to annul all former actions
1 Town Records, Vol. III, page 107.
2 Winchester Star, April 23, 1886.
3 Middlesex Journal, April 29, 1886.
4 Town Records, Vol. III, page 119.
29I
TOWN HALL AND PUBLIC LIBRARY
taken by the town with reference to a town hall. But the protes- tants were still in a minority. The only practical result of the meet- ing was the discharge of the whole building committee, which had twice been overruled by the voters, and the election of another consisting of Abraham B. Coffin, Robert C. Metcalf, Dr. Winsor, W. H. Brewer, Charles H. Dunham, Robert Cowdery and C. H. Ayer, a group of gentlemen who had not been conspicuous in the long struggle. Not even Mr. Wilson, who had won his fight for the Gardner lot against long odds, was permitted to serve.1 The affair left scars that were long in healing; for men of the standing of Mr. Herrick, Mr. Dwinell, Mr. Tyler, Mr. Ayer and Mr. Skill- ings were not easily reconciled to seeing their views ignored, and they did not forget some of the harsh things said by their opponents in the heat of the debate. Yet it must be admitted now that the voters were right, and that no other site proposed had the advan- tages of convenience and sightliness that the Gardner and Cutting land possessed.
The committee named above duly acquired the land, though it was obliged to bring action for a taking of the Cutting land before the owner agreed to sell what the committee wanted. The town hall also was built during 1887, according to plans by Rand and Taylor, architects. The design of the building was criticized at the time and has often been criticized since, chiefly for a lack of com- pactness in the mass, and for a want of harmony in the architectural style; but the hall is not without dignity and has served the town acceptably for half a century. .
The lack of compactness referred to was caused by the addi- tion to the original plans of a wing to be occupied by the public library. The early history of this useful institution has been given.2 For several years before 1886 it had been installed in rooms on the second floor of the Brown and Stanton Block. The new quarters in the town hall were far larger and better arranged, and the library remained in them for forty-four years, during which it throve and increased in size, until the rooms which at first had seemed so com- modious became crowded in their turn. Edgar J. Rich, who for twenty-five years has been a member of the Board of Trustees, was
1 Town Records, Vol. III, page 126.
2 See Chapter XIII, page 178.
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HISTORY OF WINCHESTER
active in town meetings in advocating the erection of a suitable library building. Records show that he served on seven different committees appointed for the purpose of considering the question before the town saw its way clear to erecting the much needed building. Finally, in 1930, the town appropriated $175,000 for the purpose, and a building committee consisting of Ralph T. Hale, chairman, M. Walker Jones, James Nowell, Edgar J. Rich and Carl F. Woods was duly appointed. The library cost $173,000 - another instance where an important public building was con- structed within the original appropriation. The site was on the corner of Washington Street and the Mystic Valley Parkway on land long occupied by the residence of Mr. A. K. P. Joy, and later of his son, Fred Joy,1 and his two daughters.
The new library was designed by Kilham, Hopkins and Greeley, and Robert Coit. It is a handsome structure of cut stone, decorated within somewhat in the "modern" style and containing ample well- lighted and convenient reading rooms, staff rooms and book stacks. At the rear of the building a most attractive gallery for the exhibi- tion of works of art was added. In one wall are the very handsome windows of Tiffany painted glass given in memory of Joseph H. Tyler, long a prominent resident of the town and trustee of the library.2 The gallery was at first used for the exhibition of the twenty or more paintings that are the property of the library, but since the formation of the Winchester Art Association in 1932 these paintings have been hung in the reading room and elsewhere, and the gallery is filled by monthly exhibitions of the association, where the work of contemporary artists and sculptors and craftsmen, usually from Massachusetts, is shown.
There are two mural paintings in the building. The larger one, painted by Aiden L. Ripley, is on the wall of the delivery room. It represents the occasion of the sale of the land on which Winchester stands, by the Squaw Sachem to the white men.3 The other, over the fireplace in the reading room, is the work of Ettore Caser. Its subject is "Bible Reading in a Puritan Home."
The library also contains an historical room assigned to the
1 Mr. Joy was state Senator in 1901-1902.
2 Mr. Tyler was for years Register of Probate of Middlesex County.
3 See Chapter I. This mural, or the central figures in it, is the subject of the frontispiece of this book.
THE PUBLIC LIBRARY
1
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GROWTH AND PROGRESS
use of the Winchester Historical Society. This society, recently revived, was originally formed in 1884. Its first president was Abijah Thompson, its secretary Rev. George Cooke, and its libra- rian George S. Littlefield. The society was active for a number of years and collected a great amount of local historical material, much of which was printed in the nine numbers of the Winchester Record published during 1885, 1886 and 1887. This material, in manu- script, together with much added since and a variety of historical relics, is preserved in the rooms of the society.
The first president of the revived society was Dr. J. Harper Blaisdell, and Mrs. B. F. Thompson was the secretary. William N. Beggs succeeded Dr. Blaisdell in 1935.
The public library has had a number of librarians; in its earlier years changes were frequent. But since 1888 the office has been continuously held by Miss Cora A. Quimby. The length of her faithful and efficient service is remarkable among Massachusetts librarians. As an instance of long, devoted and unpaid public serv- ice, it may not be inappropriate to mention that the present chair- man of the Board of Library Trustees, Mr. George H. Eustis, has held that position for thirty-three years. Now (1936) in his ninety- first year, he is constant and active in the supervision of the administration of the library.
The eighties of the last century were notable for a number of "first things" in Winchester. In 1881 the first town newspaper made its appearance - the Winchester Star. The paper was origi- nally owned by the Whittier Brothers, who also published the Stoneham Independent. It was printed in Stoneham and was identical with the Independent save for its headline and a half page or more of Winchester items furnished by the local representative of the publishers. But in 1889 Theodore P. Wilson, who for several years had been that representative, took over the Star, established a printing office and made the paper in fact as well as in name a Winchester institution. The first number under his ownership came out on August 31, 1889. The Star office was then in the Miller Block beside the Aberjona. It was later moved to Church Street, and it now occupies a substantial brick building on Church Street not far from the corner of Main Street, which was built in 1915.
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HISTORY OF WINCHESTER
Mr. Wilson made the Star a local newspaper of real and devoted service to the town. He was its owner and editor until his death in 1919 when he was succeeded by his son T. Price Wilson, who is still its proprietor.
In 1888 the Winchester Times appeared and maintained a six months existence. During 1900 and 1901 the Winchester Press was published. It was largely a vehicle for the printing of a mass of historical material about the town and the First Church, collected by the Historical Society, though it contained local news as well. Mr. Abijah Thompson was its chief promotor.
For a year or two about 1907 Mr. A. William Rooney printed the Winchester News, which was distributed without charge, being supported, in theory at least, by its advertising; but it was not financially successful. Since its demise the Star has been without competition in its field.
In 1886 Winchester saw its first street cars. In that year the North Woburn Horse Railroad, which already ran between Woburn Center and North Woburn, extended its tracks to Winchester, running the length of Main Street as far as Symmes Corner. The cars, drawn of course by horses, jingled through the center about once an hour; but even that disturbance of the peace was resented by some citizens, who made a valiant but unsuccessful attempt to persuade the selectmen to refuse permission for the tracks to enter the town. The horse cars were "dangerous; they would lead to all kinds of accidents, depreciate property and bring undesirable visi- tors into the town."1 However, the majority sentiment was that it was a great public improvement. The tracks were extended in 1888 to the Medford line, to meet a car line that came up from Medford Square, and it was possible (if one had plenty of time) to travel by horse car from Winchester to Boston. The cars to Med- ford did not run in the winter, however, and complaints of the irreg- ularity and inconvenience of the service are frequently to be found in the columns of the Star. Electric cars were substituted for horse cars over this line in 1896 - after some six years of unfulfilled promises-and this service continued to the satisfaction of the town until 1928, when the Eastern Massachusetts Railway, which had
1 Winchester Star; letters in the issues of June 11 and 18, 1886.
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GROWTH AND PROGRESS
made the Medford-Woburn line a part of its system, abandoned the trolley cars for the motor busses, a cheaper, more flexible and more convenient form of transportation.
The car lines to Stoneham and Arlington were built ten years later than the Woburn road. They were electrified from the first; the company that constructed them was called the Mystic Valley Railroad, and some Winchester money was subscribed to its capi- tal. The first cars to Stoneham ran in June 1896; the Arlington line was delayed by the protests of people living on Church Street against having the tracks laid in that street, but the opposition yielded in the end and the road was opened on July 24, 1897.1 For a few years it was necessary for passengers on this line to change cars at Winchester center, for permission could not be had to carry a second rail crossing over the railroad tracks. But eventu- ally an agreement was reached to permit the Stoneham-Arlington cars to use the rail crossing already laid by the Woburn railroad, and travellers could complete the journey between our two neighbor towns without having to dismount and walk across the railway tracks. This road followed the Woburn-Medford line into the sys- tem of the Bay State Railway Co. and later into the Eastern Mas- sachusetts, and motor busses replaced the trolley cars, at the same time that they appeared on the Woburn line.
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Electric lights first burned in Winchester in 1888. The Win- chester Electric Light Co. was formed by J. F. Dwinell, George S. Littlefield, H. C. Miller, Henry C. Buck (of Somerville) and a few other business men.2 It began by purchasing its current from the Somerville company, but we read that it installed a dynamo in the "old mahogany factory" (Cutter's Mill) in June 1888.3 A few sputtering arc lights appeared in the streets, and the store fronts and an occasional residence glowed with surprising brilliance. In those early days, however, electricity was still a somewhat uncertain experiment in the lighting field - at least as far as Winchester was concerned. There was frequent complaint about the "failure" of the lights both while the Winchester company furnished them and after the larger Woburn Electric Light Company took over the
1 Winchester Star, May 4, May 25, July 19, 1895, July 30, 1897.
2 Winchester Star, March 3, 1888.
3 Winchester Star, June 17, 1888.
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HISTORY OF WINCHESTER
Winchester company, about 1890. The town appointed a com- mittee in 1892 to consider the matter of establishing a municipal lighting plant; and that committee, of which Arthur E. Whitney was chairman, recommended unanimously that the town should build such a plant. The town meeting proceeded to vote its accept- ance of the state statute permitting towns to build their own light- ing plants, but the thing went no farther. It was brought up again in 1894, and another committee appointed. The pros and cons were debated in a lively manner in the newspapers.1 A com- mittee of well-qualified private citizens including William B. French, Charles T. Main, Louis F. Cutter, George A. Fernald and D. W. Pratt issued a careful study of the question and came to the conclusion that it would be uneconomical for the town to go into the business of electric lighting for itself. The majority of the voters appeared to agree, for when the matter was brought to the floor of the town meeting April 8, 1895 in the form of a vote to appoint lighting commissioners and proceed to the erection of a plant it was "indefinitely postponed."2
The lighting service soon showed improvement; the Woburn company was reorganized, and taken over (in 1908) by the Boston Edison Company; and we hear of no more proposals for a munici- pal plant. The excellence of the service given has been unques- tioned for many years; the question of the rates charged has from time to time exercised the minds of many, and probably will always do so.
1 Winchester Star, June 26, February 2, 1895.
2 Town Clerk's Report for 1896, pages 24, 25.
CHAPTER XX
MEN AND EVENTS AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY.
A GROWING TOWN. THE HOSPITAL. THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATED
WINCHESTER had in 1890 a population of 4,861. It was on the brink of its greatest development in numbers and in wealth, a growth which increased its population to 7,248 in 1900 and to 9,309 in 1910, while its assessed valuation rose from $4,667,055 in 1890 to $12,758,750 in 1910. This increase was almost wholly in residential property; industrially Winchester has stood still to say the most of it; it has become a beautiful and thriving suburban town, a great part of whose citizens have their business and their occupations in Boston. Its industries are hardly as numerous as they were forty years ago.
In 1890 the Waldmyer tannery still stood on what is today Manchester Field, the large tannery of Loring and Avery, formerly that of Alexander Moseley and later that of Beggs and Cobb, was operating on Swanton Street, John Maxwell had a profitable tan- nery on the river bank south of Cross Street, and the Blank Broth- ers had a fourth on Lake Street. Of these only the Beggs and Cobb tannery survives. The Maxwell tannery was destroyed by fire in 1887, after a prolonged dispute between Mr. Maxwell and the Knights of Labor, who were the first aggressive labor organization to appear in the town. In spite of some suspicions, it was never proved that the fire was other than an accident. The tannery was rebuilt; but after Mr. Maxwell's death it was abandoned. The property was sold to the Whitten Co., manufacturers of Plymouth Rock Gelatine, and it is still (1936) occupied by that company. The Blank tannery was burned in 1910 and not rebuilt. The Wald- myer tannery, as we have seen, disappeared when Manchester Field was created.
The Whitney Machine Co. was active in 1890 in the old mill at the foot of the Converse mill pond. Near by was the furniture
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HISTORY OF WINCHESTER
factory of S. C. Small. Both buildings disappeared years ago. The Whitney Co. removed in 1911 to new quarters on upper Main Street, but since the sale of the company to the United Shoe Machinery Co. in 1930 that building has been untenanted.
The old mahogany mill of the Cutters was abandoned as such before 1890, but it was in use then and for some years later for the manufacture of school furniture by E. E. Peck, Miller and McLean and the L. M. Hall Furniture Company. This mill was torn down many years ago; the old mill pond above it has disappeared, and there is nothing now to suggest that for more than a hundred years the spot was a busy mill site.
Felt was being made at the Bacon mill below Wedgemere Sta- tion in 1890 and is still being made there today. About 1895 the Eastern Felt Co. (originally the Eastern Felting and Buffing Wheel Co.) was established on Horn Pond Brook at the foot of Canal Street, on the site of the ancient Belknap mill, built more than two centuries ago. Patrick Noonan, who had learned the mastery of the trade in the Bacon mill, was its active head, and long a prominent citizen of the town. Patrick T. Walsh, also a Winchester resident, is at present the president of the company.
The watch hand factory of James H. Winn's Sons, on the site of the old Richardson mill beyond Forest Street, was prosperous in 1890, and is no less prosperous today1- a unique and interesting industry.
In 1893 the Mckay Metallic Fastener Co., manufacturers of machinery important in the making of shoes, built a large and handsome factory on the vacant land near the river and north of Swanton Street. Their location in Winchester was in no small part due to the fact that it was the residence of Louis Goddu, a very talented and ingenious man, several of whose inventions were essential to the business of the company. Mr. Goddu, who lived on Madison Avenue until his death in 1919, was the holder of no less than three hundred patents, which ranged from the little wire clips, which are everywhere used to bind papers or pamphlets together, to the most complicated of shoe machinery. He was a native of Canada, who began life without what are called "advan- tages," but whose remarkable mental ingenuity won for him a
1 See Chapter XV, page 208.
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MEN AND EVENTS
very considerable fortune. He was with Forrest Manchester and D. N. Skillings (Jr.) one of the original park commissioners of the town. He left a large family, many of whom still live in Winchester.1
The Mckay Company employed a large number of hands, and the establishment of their factory here led to the building of a number of new houses, especially in Harvard and Irving Streets. After a few years, however, the company was absorbed by the United Shoe Machinery Company, which concentrated all its man- ufacturing at Beverly. The fine new factory was sold to the Puffer Company, manufacturers of soda water fountains, and it was used by them for twenty years or more. The company is no longer in business, and the building, though admirably adapted for manu- facturing purposes, lies idle.
In 1898 Arthur T. Downer established the Winchester Laun- dry in a little wooden building on Converse Place, having pur- chased a business of the same sort, which, after a few months exist- ence, was about to pass into oblivion. From this small and humble beginning he built up one of the most successful laundry enter- prises in the state. The original building, after several enlargements, was replaced in 1912 by a large brick and concrete building, and in 1920 the old Methodist church was purchased and remodelled for the executive offices of the business. Incorporated in 1906 and again with enlarged capital in 1913, the Winchester Laundry acquired branch establishments in Newton and Lowell, and in 1926 it became the principal factor in the establishment of New England Laundries, Inc. From a mere "shoestring" in 1898, the capital involved has increased to $1,550,000 in 1935.
There is also to be mentioned the patent leather factory of the Allen H. McLatchy Co., a more recent industry located on Cross Street, and a prosperous manufactory of sash, blinds and doors, which James J. Fitzgerald operates in the old Chapin school- house on Swanton Street. Such in brief is the recent industrial history of Winchester.
The years just previous and just subsequent to 1890 brought to Winchester a number of men who were to become very eminent citizens of the town. One of the most conspicuous was Edwin Ginn, who bought in 1881 the estate on Bacon Street between
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