Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Winchester Savings Bank
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1979. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“Tlie pulpit for the first six months was occupied by different clergjmen. Bichard Metcalf, the present pastor, was called, and on June 14, ISGG, was duly installed.”
History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts (1880). Machine-read text.
one of 1100 National Register listings in Middlesex County · listed in 1979 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.
National Register reference number.79000361- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
HE town of Winchester is in the easterly section of Middlesex County, eight miles northwest of Boston by the Boston and Lowell Railroad, whicii here sends off branches to Woburn and Stoneham. Its form is triangular, and it is bounded on the north and northwest by Woburn, on the east by Stoneham and Medford, on the south by Medford and Arlington, and southwest by Lexington.
December 3, 1849, the committee reported favorably upon the plan, their report was accepted, and a committee chosen to draft a petition to the legislature. December 7, 1849, the committee reported the draft of a petition, which was accepted, and another committee chosen to obtain signers thereto. Samuel S. Richardson, Oliver R. Clark, and John A. Bolles were chosen a committee to take the necessary stejis to secure a town charter, and they employed Hon. Albert H. Nelson, of Woburn, as tiieir counsel. December 24, 1849, a committee, of which Hon. F. O. Prince was chairman, Avas chosen to select a name for the town and insert tlie same in the petition, which had received one hundred and seventy-six names. A great deal of difficulty was experienced in settling upon the name to be given to the new cliild, but finally it was decided to christen it Winchester, in lionor of Colonel William P. Winchester, a wellknown and public-spirited citizen of Boston, who thus became its godfather. The petition was presented to the legislature, January 19, 1850, and referred to the committee on towns. While it was pending in the committee, remonstrances were ])resented and referred to said committee from Luke Wyman and ciglity-nine others, of West Cambridge (now Arlington), and the selectmen and one hundred and three others, of Medford. At a townmeeting, held inWoburn, February 7, 1850, it was " Voted, That tlie town is willing that the prayer of tlie petition should be granted on just and equitable terms, to be agreed upon by a committee from each part of the town."
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 74 fires within 5 miles of Winchester Savings Bank between
2015 and 2020, burning about 101 acres in total. None started naturally. 27 were recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Arson/incendiarism
27
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
17
Debris and open burning
12
Recreation and ceremony
12
Smoking
2
Misuse of fire by a minor
2
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
Equipment and vehicle use
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 1,681 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Winchester Savings Bank between 1898 and
1975: 697 Animalia, 526 Plantae, 392 Fungi, 29 Protozoa, 17 Bacteria, 11 Chromista, 9 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by ?, A B Seymour, A B. Proper and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
15 workings within 5 miles of Winchester Savings Bank: 8 past producers, 4 producers, 3 plants.
7 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Silica, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Peat. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Winchester, the town this property stands in, in 5 storm reports between 1995 and 1999: 4 flash flood, 1 thunderstorm wind.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
1,808 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
The Winchester Savings Bank is a free standing Romanesque Revival structure of irregular plan located.. at the corner of Mount Vernon Street and Winchester Place. Situated in the central business district of Winchester, it is closely surrounded by commercial and civic structures. The one story red brick building stands on a foundation of rough faced sandstone blocks and is trimmed with sandstone as well. The multi-gabled roof is covered with slate and is pierced at its southern end by a tall paneled and corbeled chimney. Sash, unless otherwise noted, is 1/1 and has been replaced. The facade of the bank faces south on Mount Vernon Street and is set off from that street by a low sandstone wall.
It is focused on a crossed gable at its eastern end and a round one story tower at its western end. The entrance, located in the gable section, is recessed within a barrel vault which is supported by a series of three short, paired colums on each side. Approached by a flight of five granite steps, the original door has been replaced by a plate glass version. The words "Winchester Savings Bank" appear on the broad face of the entrance arch which is further emphasized by a heavily molded archivolt. Next to the entrance is a tri- partite window, consisting of a standard size central section with narrower flanking lights. These are surmounted by a sandstone transom and fixed lights which carry a heavy sandstone 1intel and a dentilled cornice.
A palladian window with heavy sandstone trim is located in the gable. The tower, which is constructed completely of sandstone, contains three round arched windows which are linked by a continuous transom, voisseurs and archivolts.
/ARCHITECT W.E. and E.K. Blaikie The Winchester Savings Bank retains integrity of location, setting, design, materials, workmanship, feeling and association, and is an excellent example of the Richardsonian Romanesque style adapted to a small scale structure. It became the first bank in Winchester when it was established in 1871 to meet the needs of a growing population of factory workers and suburbanites commuting to Boston on the Boston, Lowell and Nashua Rallway. Ihe present building, constructed in 1892, was also the first structure in Winchester to be used only for banking purposes. The bank was conceived in 1870 by a group of prominent businessmen including David Skillings, Stephen Cutter, James Dwinnel, A.K.P. Joy, Henry Cutter and John Cobb.
The Winchester Record reported in 1885 that "previous to 1870 a gentleman of the town upon solicitation, accomodated parties by receiving such sums as were offered him, and holding for the benefit of the owner, until their want required the return. This money, but for him, might have been squandered and lost, simply because the depositors had not the capacity to invest and care for it themselves." In 1870 this gentleman formed the bank and presented a petition to the Legislature for a charter. This was re- ceived in 1871 and the bank was opened in a room rented in a house belonging to Stephen Cutter, one of the first vice-presidents.
By 1880 the bank had outgrown its quarters and rented space in the newly com- pleted Brown and Stanton Block in Winchester Center, which still stands and houses a variety of commercial enterprises. By 1890 the bank had outgrown its facilities again, and purchased a piece of land on the corner of Mount Vernon Street and Winchester Place from Mary Ann and Andrew Shephard who owned a residence on the site.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 79000361, 11 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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