Table of Contents
Winchester has been the home of many people who have won acclaim in their professional lives or participated with distinction in historic events. Below is a list of such individuals by category.
Please contact the Archival Center for suggestions for further inclusions.
AERONAUTICS/AVIATION
Jay Bayard Benton, aeronaut
Paul Collins, aviator, president of National Airways which grew into National Airlines
George Creamer, built first plane in Winchester
Robert Stevens Fogg, aviator
Rick Hauck, astronaut
Richard Leghorn, WWII photo recon pilot, involved with Cold War national security, arms control, and disarmament, instrumental in formulating the "Open Skies" doctrine.
Gertrude Meserve, youngest licensed commercial pilot (age 19) in 1939, an original member of the WAAFs
ARCHITECTURE
Blaikie Brothers
Allan E. Boone
Robert Coit
Richard B. Derby
Jerome Bailey Foster
George Rand
F. Patterson Smith
Ralph S. Vinal
Royal Barry Wills
ART
William H. W. Bicknell, etcher
Edward A. Brackett, sculptor
Carla Maria Casagrande, photographer
Adelaide Cole Chase, painter
Ernest Dudley Chase, artist and pictorial map maker
J. Foxcroft Cole, painter
Eva D. Cowdery, portraitist and painter
Jim Dobbins, cartoonist
William S. Forbes, founder of the Forbes Lithograph Manufacturing Company
Edmund Garrett, illustrator, bookplate-maker, author, landscape painter
Francis Getty, known for his lithographs and drawings
Arthur Griffin, photographer
Caroline Murphy, artist
Hermann Dudley Murphy, painter and frame-maker
Annie Nowell, painter
Otis Philbrick, artist
Dana Ripley Pond, painter
Charles & Maurice Prendergast, painters
Esther Mabel Baldwin Williams, painter
EDUCATION
Annie Ware Winsor Allen, founder of the Rodger Ascham School in White Plains, N.Y.
Mary Pickard Winsor, founder of the Winsor School in Boston
ENGINEERING & INVENTION
George Norman Albree, aeronautical engineer
Andrew Alford, electrical engineer and inventor, inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (1983) for his invention of the Localizer Antenna System which guides aircraft during landings
Leonard Bailey, tool maker and designer
Glenn H. Browning, a pioneer in radio electronics
Louis Goddu, holder of over 300 patents, mostly in the field of shoe-making machinery
George McFadden, inventor of mechanical toys and whimsical clocks
Arthur G. B. Metcalf, aeronautical engineer, electronics industrialist, inventor
Joel Whitney, manufacturing machinist
ENTERTAINMENT (Movies, Television, and the Theater)
Bette Davis, Academy-Award winning actress
John Cazale, actor
Louis and Richard de Rochmemont, Academy-Award winning movie producers
Frank Fontaine, actor and entertainer
Jane L. Winsor Gale, founder of Boston's Toy Theater
Thurston Hall, actor
Priscilla Morrill, actress
Dudley Murphy director
Barry Newman, actor
Carlene Samoiloff, acting teacher and children's theater producer
Sonny Tufts, actor
EXPLORATION, NAUTICAL ADVENTURE
Stevenson Corey, member of Adm. Byrd’s second Antarctic expedition, 1933-35, for whom Mount Corey was named
Capt. Richard Phillips, Winchester native and high school graduate, captain of a U.S. ship hijacked by Somali pirates, subject of the 2013 film “Captain Phillips,” starring Tom Hanks
Philemon Wright, regarded as the founder of the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau
FINANCE, BUSINESS
Elisha Bangs, president of the Boston Stock Exchange
Charles Arthur Conant, journalist, author, and promoter, a recognized expert on banking and finance
George Fernald, banker
James H. Hustis, president of the Boston & Maine Railroad
Thomas Lawson, businessman and author
William E. Schrafft, head of the Schrafft Candy Co. founded by his father
HISTORY & SCHOLARSHIP
Whitney Smith, vexillologist and flag scholar, founder of the Flag Research Center
LITERATURE, LIBRARIES, LINGUISTICS, JOURNALISM, PUBLISHING
Mary Antin (1881-1949)
Susan Cooper, author of children’s books
Peter Dee, playwright
Thomas Dreier, editor, writer, advertising executive, and business theorist
William Isaac Fletcher, librarian, bibliographer, and indexer, head librarian of Amherst College, president of the American Library Association (1891-92), member of Library Hall of Fame (1951)
Edwin Ginn, publisher
Andrew Comstock McKenzie, Author
William S. Packer, editorial writer for the Boston Globe
Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, journalist and writer born in Winchester
William D. Sullivan, sports editor for the Boston Globe 1884-1910
Frank Trott, turf writer for the Boston Globe
Herbert S. Underwood, managing editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser and Record
Lura Woodside Watkins, historian and research scholar in the areas of indigenous New England crafts
Joshua Whatmough, linguist, chair of Harvard University's linguistics department
Charles Edgar Lewis Wingate, editor of the Boston Sunday Post and author
MILITARY
Capt. Arthur S. Adams, director of the Navy’s administration division of training, administrator of the Navy’s V-12 program during WWII, Legion of Merit
Cdr. Joseph R. Barbaro, credited with landing the first troops at D-Day
Rear Adm. William Houck Buracker, during WWII was commanding officer of the USS Princeton during the Battle of Leyte Gulf
General John M. Corse, Civil War
Capt. Jefferson Ford, Civil War navy
Colonel Julia Estelle Hamblet, director of the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve (1946–48), and director of Women Marines (1953–59) (born in Winchester)
Lt. Col. John Hanlon, a member of the 101st Airborne during WWII, awarded silver and bronze stars, won national fame following the war for repaying a debt of honor to the villagers of Hemroulle, Belgium
Lt. Col. Richard S. Leghorn, WWII aerial reconnaissance pilot, instrumental in formulating the “Open Skies” doctrine
Gertrude Meserve, an original WASP
Gen. Mark Alexander Milley, 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Lt. Edwin Noble, member of the Kościuszko Squadron
Adm. Edward Hanson “Iceberg” Smith, led Coast Guard efforts to defend Greenland in WWII
Capt. William F. Spicer, Civil War
Adm. Henry Knox Thatcher, Civil War
Hezekiah Wyman, Revolutionary War legend
MUSIC & DANCE
T. J. Anderson, composer
Gladys Fogg Benedict, blind coloratura soprano
Emma Grebe & Francesca Grebe Ginn, members of the Eichberg String Quartette
Emmons Hamlin, keyboard instrument manufacturer
James C. Johnson, choir director and music teacher
Mary Goddard Kellogg, aesthetic dancer and dance designer/producer
Yo-Yo Ma, internationally renowned cellist
Joshua Phippen, piano soloist and music teacher
Handel Pond, piano and organ manufacturer
Richard Stoltzman, internationally renowned clarinetist
Annie Laura Tolman, cellist
PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY
Edwin Bissell Holt, psychologist and philosopher
Herbert Charles Sanborn, philosopher, academic and one-time political candidate
Carle C. Zimmerman, sociologist
POLITICS, LAW, GOVERNMENT, CIVICS
Ralph H. Bonnell, served as the Chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party
Samuel Elder, president of the Boston Bar Association
Edward Everett, governor of Massachusetts
Ella Esther Thompson McCall, First Lady of Massachusetts
Samuel Walker McCall, governor of Massachusetts
Frederick O. Prince, mayor of Boston
Harris Sawyer Richardson, politician, president of the Massachusetts Senate (1948-49 and 1950)
John A. Volpe, governor of Massachusetts
Charles N. Zueblin, professor and author, lecturer and promoter of civic reform
SCIENCE & MATHEMATICS
János Miklós Beér, MIT professor emeritus of chemical and fuel engineering and a pathbreaking researcher in the field of flames, combustion, and cleaner-burning fossil fuels
Allan Cormack, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1979
Scudder Klyce, philosopher and scientist
Frank B. Livingstone, biological anthropologist, Martin Luther King Award, Charles R. Darwin Award for Lifetime Achievement
Joel Metcalf, minister and astronomer, discoverer of comets and asteroids
John O. Pastore, member of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985
Bjorn Poonen, mathematician, four-time Putnam Competition winner, a Distinguished Professor in Science in the Department of Mathematics at MIT, an alumnus of Winchester High School (1985)
Richard Schrock, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2005
Claude Shannon, mathematician and computer scientist, known as “the father of information theory,” Harvey Prize (1972), the Kyoto Prize (1985), and the Shannon Award (1973)
Karl von Terzaghi, mechanical engineer, geotechnical engineer, and geologist known as the “father of soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering”
Frances Williams, horticulturalist
SPORTS
Joe Bellino, Heisman Trophy winner
Bob Bigelow, Boston Celtics
Horace Hills Ford, baseball player
Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb, WHS 1960, in 1966 crashed the formerly all-male Boston Marathon
Jim Herberich, competed at the 1988, 1994 and the 1998 Winter Olympics in bobsledding
Art Johnson, left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball
Harry Parker, rower
Laurence Owen, winner of National US Ladies Championships and the North American Championships in 1961
Maribel Vinson Owen, Winchester native, nine-time national champion and the 1932 Olympic bronze medalist, a member of the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame and a three-time inductee in the United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame as a singles skater, pairs skater, and coach
Maribel Owen, winner of National Junior Pairs title in 1956 and National Pairs Championships in 1961.
Robbie Robinson, Negro League baseball player
Branch Russell, Negro League baseball player
Ed Sanford, Boston Bruins
Harry Sinden, Boston Bruins
Irving Small, captain of the American Olympic Hockey team in 1924 at the first Winter Olympic Games, held in Chamonix, France, when the Americans won the silver medal.
Gordon Smith, player on the 1932 Olympic ice hockey team at Lake Placid, (silver medal) and went to Berlin for the Winter Olympics in 1936 (bronze medal)
Alicia Sacramone, five-time Gymnastics World Championships medalist and 2010 Olympic silver medalist
Leon Tuck, a member of the U.S. hockey team which won the silver medal at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp
Dr. Ellen Knight, archivist for the Town of Winchester, is a local historian and journalist, as well as an independent scholar in Boston arts history.
