Sometime between the evening of Saturday, November 9 and the morning of Monday, November 11, 1861, robbers stole approximately $60,000, from the Winsted Bank. About $8,000 of this was in specie (gold and silver) and the rest included miscellaneous bills and treasury notes. The bank had been formed in 1848 (making it the second oldest bank in Litchfield County after the branch of the Phoenix Bank of Hartford on North Street in Litchfield) and the bank building was erected at 690 Main Street in 1851. Many of the stolen bills were Winsted Bank notes and the loss from the robbery led to the bank having insufficient net worth to receive a federal bank charter. The bank closed in 1864 and the building was acquired by the Winsted Savings Bank in 1867.

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Winsted Bank (1851)