Winchester Country Club
1902-
Ralph Bonnell’s message to the Winchester Country Club membership in 1952, marking the club’s fiftieth anniversary, rings as true today even after the club celebrated its centennial:
“The entire history of the Winchester Country Club is fraught with evidence that it was founded and has continued on the proposition that among the durable satisfactions of life the chief is human relationships at their best.
“In its charter dated May 5, 1902, it is stated simply that the Club is incorporated ‘for the purpose of encouraging athletic exercises, and for the establishment and maintenance of places for social meetings.’ But we should look behind these modest words.
“In 1639 Squaw Sachem ‘Queen of Massachusetts’ and her husband, Webicowits, gave the land, on part of which the Club now operates, to Jotham Gibbons, the deed stating the consideration to be ‘…the many kindnesses and benefits we have received…in parte of requittal whereof and for our tender love and good respect…’ Squa Sachem’s sign was a teepee, Webicowits’s a new moon. These signs, as the main features of the Club’s seal, serve to keep ever fresh and act in the Club’s direct history epitomizing human relations at their best.
“The immediate predecessor of the Club was the Winchester Golf Club started in 1897 and using a small nine-hole course on leased land near Winter Pond. Its members, about 40 in number by 1902, clearly treated the game as a means, not an end. To provide a better means they formed our club and bought the Stephen Swan farm of about sixty acres, the property on which the Club house stands. As that for which the Club stood became more extensively appreciated, the Club’s membership grew and by successive purchases more property was acquired until about 175 acres were owned.
“In 1916 the nine-hole course first used in 1903 became an eighteen-hole course and the old barn became an assembly hall and locker building. The plan throughout was the provision of a better and more extensive setting for the development and play of the best human relations.
“It is fitting that we understand and appreciate the heritage we have from those who started this club, who obtained for us this beautiful location, and who in developing the property and nurturing this activity were setting forth so clearly the guide for realization of its present and future value. But we can neither appreciate this heritage nor be worthwhile beneficiaries of it unless we respond to the tradition behind it and by our own contribution of conduct and spirit make that tradition and this Club more poignant forces in the future. Be not heedless, nor complacent. The first fifty years were by no means the hardest.”