Winchester Wedding

The land on which Winchester now sits was purchased from Native Americans by representatives of the settlement of Charlestown in 1639, and the area was first settled in 1640. In the early years of the settlement, the area was known informally as Waterfield, a reference to its many ponds and to the river which bisected the central village. In its second century the area was referred to as Black Horse Village, after the busy tavern and hostelry in its center. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, present day Winchester comprised parts of Medford, Cambridge, and Woburn. The movement toward incorporation of what by this time was called South Woburn was likely precipitated by the rise of the Whig Party in Massachusetts.* The Whigs sought to split a new jurisdiction away from heavily Democratic Woburn, and found enough supporters in the burgeoning village to organize a movement toward incorporation. Representatives of the planned new town selected the name Winchester in recognition of Colonel William P. Winchester of nearby Watertown, who pledged three thousand dollars toward the construction of the first town hall. Upon the signature of then Governor Briggs, the town of Winchester was officially incorporated on April 30, 1850. Curiously, Colonel Winchester did not live to visit the town which had honored his family name. He succumbed to typhoid fever within months of its incorporation.