Winchester

How Winchester began

Winchester was laid out on November 8, 1815, by General Joseph Darlinton, who named it for Winchester, Virginia, near where he was born and raised; the original plat held seventy lots, and Joel Bailey added eighty-two as South Winchester. James and Joseph Baily opened the first store in a log building in 1819, Joseph Eyler kept the first hotel and tannery, and Levi Sparks built the first oil mill in 1830. The Scott post office, opened in 1820, took the name Winchester on April 1, 1880. On July 15, 1863, General John Hunt Morgan's raiders held the village for most of a day. The Cincinnati & Eastern narrow-gauge railroad reached it on August 7, 1877. The village was incorporated in 1864 or 1865 and counted about 800 people in 1900 and 987 in 2020.

Platted November 8, 1815, incorporated 1864 (Wikipedia) or 1865 (Evans and Stivers), by General Joseph Darlinton.

Where the name comes from

Evans and Stivers's 1900 county history says General Darlinton, who owned the site, laid it out and named it in honor of Winchester, Virginia, near which he was born in 1765 and reared; he always spoke of it affectionately but never revisited it.

Before the town

A mound and three circles, the circles about 150 feet across with walls some five feet high when first seen, lie about half a mile north of the village, and in 1896 James McNutt found a cache of eighteen finely made spearheads a mile north of it, according to Evans and Stivers's 1900 county history. The history assigns them to no culture or period.

• Mound and three circles north of Winchester (earthwork) — About half a mile north of the village, prehistoric, undated (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1815 — Joseph Darlinton lays out the village of Winchester on November 8 with seventy lots, naming it for Winchester, Virginia; Joel Bailey later lays off eighty-two lots as South Winchester.
2. 1819 — James and Joseph Baily open the first store in a log building on lot 44; Joseph Eyler keeps the first hotel, on the northwest corner of South Street, and owns the first tannery; Dr. A. C. Lewis is the first resident physician.
3. 1820 — The Scott post office is established with Judge Joseph Eyler as first postmaster; it is renamed Winchester on April 1, 1880.
4. 1830 — Levi Sparks builds the village's first oil mill; the Methodist Episcopal church is organized in Winchester the same year and the Baptist church in 1831.
5. 1845-1848 — Dr. A.C. Lewis, the village's first resident physician, built the house that would later bear his name.
6. 1851 — Moses Patterson begins operating a carding mill and a steam flouring mill, which with the adjoining tannery burn in the fall of 1863.
7. 1859 — The Independent Agricultural and Mechanical Association of Adams, Brown and Highland Counties is organized and holds its first fair October 2-5, 1860, on grounds south of the village; Moses Patterson is president and I. H. De Bruin secretary.
8. 1863 — Confederate cavalry under John Hunt Morgan (Morgan's Raid) passed through the Winchester area during the Civil War.
9. 1864 — Winchester was incorporated as a village.
10. 1871 — A four-room brick school building is erected; the village's special school district had been organized in 1865.
11. 1877 — The first passenger train on the Cincinnati & Eastern narrow-gauge railroad reaches Winchester, the terminus, on August 7.
12. 1885 — The Winchester Bank is organized with Hon. L. J. Fenton as cashier.
13. 1900 — Evans and Stivers count about 800 people, two hotels, three dry goods stores, three drug stores, a roller mill and lodges of Masons, Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias, and note new enterprises: a bent wood works, a canning factory and a shoe factory.
14. 1980 — The Dr. A.C. Lewis House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, on October 31.
15. 2020 — Census recorded 987 residents, down 6.1 percent from 1,051 in 2010.

Stories

The doctor's house on the Underground Railroad

Dr. A. C. Lewis, considered the first resident physician of Winchester, built his house between 1845 and 1848. Wikipedia calls him a known abolitionist and says he used the house as a station on the Underground Railroad. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Captain Hines under the kitchen floor

On the morning of July 15, 1863, General John Hunt Morgan's cavalry rode into Winchester about nine o'clock, made their headquarters in Nicholas Bunn's tavern on Main Street and stayed until four in the afternoon, waiting to capture the mail. Anna Meek McKee, a girl spending that summer with her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. H. I. De Bruin, described the day: Mrs. De Bruin handed over the key to her absent husband's dry goods store, and the raiders paid in Confederate money, perhaps because the lodge room above it showed that the owner was a Free Mason, as Morgan was; the Thompson store across the street was rifled and its goods scattered. Morgan was carrying a prisoner, Capt. Hines of Winchester, Kentucky, who slipped away at three o'clock; the raiders rode up and down the street swearing to burn the house that hid him. He ran into Jerome De Bruin's house, was passed to Mrs. De Bruin, who had given three sons to the Union army, and was hidden in a cellar behind a wall of which stones were removed and replaced. At four the raiders left by the Grace's Run road for Harshaville and Locust Grove, and that evening General Hobson's army arrived with seven thousand men, whom the women of the village fed through the night. Hines was given a pass and a horse by Hobson to go home.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org

Every historic place in Adams County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Winchester Public Water System63% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells near Manchester)
• Adams County Regional Wd37% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (wells near Manchester)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Police stations (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 2 of 3 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 0 of 1.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-04-16
• Financial Audit, 2021 to 2022, released 2025-06-26

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

Cite this page