source: Evelyn Weiland & Margaret Beach, Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum, 25 October 2001
We’re proud of it, though it hasn’t grown much over the years. People who built this village were proud of it, so they kept their homes looking nice and well kept — that has gone the way of some unkempt places. The population never exceeded 100 (plus many dogs and cats).
New Winchester was a planned village, having East William, West William, North Main and South Main streets. Alleys were designed to give easy access to barns and sheds. The big necessity in the early days was the blacksmith shop on East William, where “Bub” Cress shod many horses and fixed iron rims for the wagons and buggies. Just east, on the opposite side of the road, was the two-room schoolhouse where grades one through four were in the “little” room, and grades five through eight were in the “big” room. There was one teacher for each room. If you wanted to go to high school, you had to go to Galion or Bucyrus, or later to Martel, until Whetstone Consolidated School was built.
We had two grocery stores at the crossroads. Then in 1931, Ona and Art Gardner came to town and built a filling station, and later a garage for auto repair. They sold groceries and soda as well. New Winchester had a small town hall where you went to vote and where parties were often held. Now there is a fire station where once a grocery stood, and voting is done here on Election Day. On West William Street (now Monnett-New Winchester Road) was our United Brethren Church, which later became the Evangelical United Brethren Church, and then United Methodist. Today, it is a Pentecostal Church.
In the early days when there was a death in the community, Sam Cress, janitor of the church for 36 years, was notified, and he would climb up into the belfry and toll the bell the number of times of the age of the deceased. Telephones in those days were big and battery operated, but necessary: So we had a telephone office with the central, as we called it, located in the front room of Irene Sheaffer’s home (today owned by Judy Jones). Operators were on duty 24 hours a day. Each family had a different ring to the phone, like one short and two long, and of course, you could listen in on your neighbor’s conversation.
There was a railroad track west of the village. Old Fanny, as she was called, came from the south, and we could go to Bucyrus at 11 a.m. and return at 4 p.m. Also earlier than that, early 1900s, a bakery in Bucyrus would send bread, etc., on the train where Bill Mason (owner of the grocery where the Davises live) would send boys with a two-wheeled cart to pick up the bread and baked goods. Ed Heinle would go to Kansas to buy cattle and ship them here to the depot, where he’d sell them to local farmers.
Also adding to our industry in the earlier years, Myron Albright had several trucks he used to haul the rides from Seccaium Park on Route 19, for the Jolly Brothers. He also went to mines and brought back coal to many families and local industry. On the other side of the tracks there was an elevator run by Jim Fink, and later by his son-in-law, Warren Holtshouse. They would buy coal by the train carload and sell it to the local people to use for heating and cooking. At one time, we had a medical doctor, Dr. Ott, who lived where Margaret Beach now lives.
Not to be overlooked is the fact that we had a saloon on North Main Street, owned by Wesley Heinla. It was sold and moved across the street to become a residential building. In later years, it was home for Joe and Julia Krantz, who moved here from Virginia. And back further yet, there was a large building on the southwest crossroads that was a hotel and livery stable. Now the elevator, the blacksmith shop, the filling station, the grocery stores, etc., are all gone. But Dan and Lisa Eichhorn and their family are in the renovated schoolhouse, from which he operates a heating and cooling business. Now we have a beautiful golf course just north of the village. New Winchester has contributed quite a bit to the community over the years. We do not have many dates, but memories supply many stories
