Jonathan Bowers Winn (24 August 1811 – 12 December 1873) was a school teacher, currier, business owner, banker, and benefactor.

Both the Winn Professorship of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Divinity School and the Woburn Public Library were bequests from his estate.

[4] Business was booming and Woburn soon became the leading town in leather production in Middlesex County and Winn amassed a small fortune.

The next year (1869) he was elected a member of the Governor's Council for Massachusetts and was subsequently re-elected until 1873 when declining health forced him to retire from public life.

[1][10] His son Charles Bowers Winn, who had never been in good health, was the sole surviving heir and died two years later (19 December 1875) leaving the bulk of the estate to the library with the intent that most of the funds would be used to construct a new building that would be "an architectural ornament to the town."