The Winchendon Courier is a free community newspaper for Winchendon, Massachusetts, and the towns around it — online every day, with the Morning Brief by email.
The masthead
- Published by Winchendon Media Co., Winchendon, Massachusetts
- Built on FAHM — software we developed here in Winchendon
- The editor — editor@thewinchendoncourier.com
- Founded November 28, 1878
Where the paper came from
Frank W. Ward published the first Winchendon Courier on Thursday, November 28, 1878, two weeks after the town's earlier weekly, the Journal, printed its last known issue. Mrs. Marian D. Gorham edited it from 1889 to 1902; Ward's daughter, Etta I. Ward, owned and edited it from 1902 until November 1920, when she sold it to Courier Press, Inc., where H. Burr Eldredge and Cranston D. Eldredge ran it for four decades. Wilfred Weiss bought it in July 1960. From 1995 it was one of Stonebridge Press's weeklies, and in 2019 it moved online as The Winchendon Courier Online. The Beals Memorial Library keeps its pages from 1880 to 1964, free to read.
The whole story, with its sources, is on the History page.
How the paper is made
The Winchendon Courier is built on FAHM, software we developed here in Winchendon, Massachusetts, for local businesses and community organizations. Meeting stories are written with the help of AI models that run locally, on our own servers. An editor checks them before they run — except short briefs from neighboring towns, which post on their own and say so at the top. How we report sets out how, and where a person decides.
Reach us
editor@thewinchendoncourier.com — tips, corrections, letters, obituaries and ads. More on the Contact page.
Last updated October 7, 2026