Which Are the Oldest Businesses in Winchester?

After begin­ning to research old busi­ness­es in Winchester, it occurred to me that there might be a num­ber of ways to approach the subject. 

One could say the old­est, or ear­li­est, busi­ness­es were those estab­lished by the pio­neer set­tlers of the area.  These includ­ed fer­ries, grist­mills, sawmills, woolen mills, rope walks, stone quar­ries, tan­ner­ies, dis­til­leries, and boat­yards, to name a few.  Of course, all com­pa­nies or own­ers of these ear­ly busi­ness­es are long gone, and the indus­tries them­selves have under­gone extra­or­di­nary tech­no­log­i­cal changes.

What I had in mind, rather, were those busi­ness­es that start­ed in Winchester and are still going con­cerns today.  Even lim­it­ing the sub­ject in this way still leaves the def­i­n­i­tion open to sev­er­al inter­pre­ta­tions.  For exam­ple, it could mean those that pre­served the com­pa­ny name or that had the same own­er or the same loca­tion, or vari­a­tions on these.  My inten­tion with this arti­cle is to describe the old­est busi­ness­es in var­i­ous defined cat­e­gories.  These are the ones I’ve been able to iden­ti­fy, but there could be some oth­ers that have escaped my notice.

Winchester Cemetery Company, 1854

Winchester Cemetery is the old­est busi­ness I’ve found going by the same name with the same own­er and oper­at­ing in the same loca­tion.  It was orga­nized on February 17, 1854, and has become one of the city’s gar­den spots.  The found­ing offi­cers were J.D. Sympson, pres­i­dent; W. H. Garner, vice-pres­i­dent; V. W. Bush, sec­re­tary; A. H. Hampton, trea­sur­er; and direc­tors, David T. Matlack, George B. Nelson, Abram Renick and R. M. Scobee.  They pur­chased 12 acres of land on the Lexington-Winchester Turnpike from Samuel Hanson.  The ceme­tery present­ly con­tains approx­i­mate­ly 55 acres, and its data­base of buri­als lists over 19,000 names. 

After this, it gets more com­pli­cat­ed, as you’ll see.

Winchester Sun, 1882

James J. Adams began his jour­nal­is­tic career in Winchester with a small paper called “The Smooth Coon.”  In September 1882, he print­ed the first issue on a hand-fed press in the back of the old cour­t­house.  The paper caught the pub­lic’s eye, and Adams changed the name to the Winchester Semi-Weekly Sun.  The first issue was print­ed on November 1, 1878 under the name of the Sun Publishing Company.  The paper became a week­ly in 1881 and was renamed the Winchester Sun.

In 1903, the Winchester Sun merged with R. R. Perry’s Winchester Sentinel and became the Sun-Sentinel.  Then, in 1908, Perry enlarged the scope of the paper, becom­ing Winchester’s first dai­ly news­pa­per, the Winchester News.  The News was renamed the Winchester Sun in 1912 with Lucien Beckner and Carl Robbins as edi­tors and pub­lish­ers.  In 1924, the paper moved to the old Parrish & Bradley whole­sale gro­cery.  The Sun con­tin­ued there until mov­ing to Court Street in 2025.

One can see that this is a tan­gled sto­ry of name changes, as well as numer­ous changes in own­er­ship and loca­tion.  Nevertheless, The Winchester Sun marks its begin­ning in 1878. 

Freeman Corporation, 1900

As with the Winchester Sun, the Freeman Corporation also has a lengthy his­to­ry of name and own­er­ship changes. 

In 1900, George Hon, Green Garrett, and George Tomlinson formed the Reliance Manufacturing Company and pur­chased the plan­ing mill of the Conn-Hagan Company.  The mill stood between Winn Avenue and the C&O‑L&N depot.  In September 1902, the mill was destroyed in a dis­as­trous fire.  The com­pa­ny rebuilt and reopened the fol­low­ing year.

Reliance sold the mill to B. F. McCormick Lumber Company in 1910.  The next year, the Hon-Tomlinson Lumber Company was incor­po­rat­ed.  They pur­chased a lot on Magnolia Avenue and erect­ed a plant for mak­ing tobac­co hogsheads.  Capable of pro­duc­ing a thou­sand bar­rels a day, it was said to be the largest of its kind in the world.  The fac­to­ry uti­lized an inge­nious stave-mak­ing machine invent­ed by Tomlinson.  In 1920, Hon left the busi­ness, which car­ried on as the Tomlinson Lumber Company.  The ever-cre­ative Tomlinson began pro­duc­ing his patent­ed take-down table (known all over as “Tomlinson tables”). 

After Tomlinson died in 1953, his grand­son, E. E. Freeman Jr., took over the com­pa­ny.  The busi­ness car­ries on today as The Freeman Corporation on Magnolia Avenue and spe­cial­izes in the pro­duc­tion of hard­wood veneer.