Wing

 

Matthew Wing - Mary

Matthew Wing of Banbury, County Oxford, England, tailor, and his wife Mary had 10 children: Fulke, Thomas, Sibill, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, John, Matthias, Jammes, Sarah and Joan. Matthew's will was dated August 9th 1614 and proved November 15, 1614. He was buried in the Banbury Church yard.

Rev. John Wing - Deborah Batchelder

Rev. John Wing, third son of Matthew Wing, "pastor of the English Puritan Church at Middleborough in Zeeland" who spoke of himself as "late of the Hague" in Holland, clerk now (1629) living in St. Mary Aldermary, London, married Deborah Batchelder born 1592 daughter of Stephen Batchelder by his first wife. Rev. John Wing died in London in 1630, leaving a will dated November 2, 1629 and proved in the prerogative court of Canterbury August 4, 1630.

John and Deborah had five children: Deborah, Daniel, Stephen, John and Matthew.

Deborah and her four sons came to America in 1632 settling in New England, in Saugus, Mass. Deborah died in Yarmouth, Mass.

Daniel Wing - Hannah Swift

Daniel came to America with his mother Deborah and three brothers. They first went to Saugus, Mass and then to Sandwich in 1637. On July 28th 1640 Daniel acquired his first homestead. On December 5, 1641 he married Hannah Swift.

Daniel must have been something of a fisherman in his day. In 1652, the town made an agreemnt with Daniel Wing and Michael Blackwell, for the taking of the fish in Herring River.

The records of Monthy Meeting of Friends shows that the Sandwich Monthly Meeting was the first established in America, and this was before the year 1660. The families of Daniel and Stephen Wing were among the first eighteen to embrace the new religious teachings, demanding freedom of conscience and a separation of the church and state.

Daniel Wing was before the Plymouth Court on numerous occasions for refusing to take the oath of fidelity to English government, being fined each time after he had claimed with others of the "friends" that it was unlawful to take any 'oath' at all. He was also fined on several occasions for refusing to assist the marshal at Sandwich in persecutions of the Quakers. He was once fined five pounds, which, in those days, represented the ordinary earnings of a man for a whole year. Repeated fines having eaten into Daniel's holdings, his relatives cast about for some means of relief from such financial persecution. Under an old English law a man might be declared legally dead by the courts and his property made over to his heirs--apparently a forerunner of our modern proceeding in bankruptcy. Threatened with financial ruin by the fines imposed upon him, the shrewed old Quaker, while unyielding in his religious convictions, took advantage of this now almost forgotton law and caused his estate to be administered in his own life time. His brother John, then of Yarmouth, loyal to his brother even though himself a Non-Quaker, seems to have conducted the proceedings for him. In the eyes of the English law Daniel Wing at the age of 43 was legally dead.

The Quaker persecutions ceased by the order of King Charles in 1662, and thereafter we find Daniel and Stephen Wing, with their fellow Quakers, assuming their old places in the public affairs of the colony, althought it was not until 1675 that the town of Sandwich voted to record the names as among those with "just rights and privileges of the town." The Plymouth Court already had restored Daniel's citizenship in 1669 and appointed him as one of two official surveyors of the highways. For the fact that Daniel, in his will made thirty-nine years after his "legal death", left the bulk of his property to his younger children, all born after the episode of 1659, it is inferred that his older children continued to enjoy the fruits of his first acquired estate.

Hannah Swift Wing, the first wife of Daniel Wing, died January 1, 1664. Daniel and Hannah had 10 children: Hannah, Lydia, Deborah, Ephraim, Samuel, Hepzibah, John, Beulah, Deborah and Daniel Jr. Daniel was left with 9 living children (Deborah I having died) and was widowed for more than two years. On June 2, 1666 he married Anna Ewer, daughter of Thomas and Sarah (Learned) Ewer. They had three more children: Experience, Batchelor and Jashub.

A tablet to the memory of Daniel Wing was erected upon a rising eminence just at the rear of the present mansion, upon what was believed to have been his orginal homestead in Sandwich. This tablet was dedicated with impressive ceremonies by the Wing Family of America on the afternoon of July 15, 1910.

DANIEL WING

SON OF THE REV. JOHN AND DEBORAH WING, CAME TO BOSTON IN 1632 WITH HIS MOTHER AND BROTHERS JOHN, STEPHEN AND MATTHEW, WITH WHOM HE SETTLED IN SANDWICH IN 1637. HE BOUGHT THIS LAND FROM ANDREW HALLETT IN 1640, AND HERE HE LIVED AND DIED. HE WAS AN ORIGINAL MEMBER OF THE FIRST FRIENDS' MEETING IN AMERICA, ESTABLISHED AT SPRING HILL IN 1659, AND SUFFERED GREAT PERSECUTION AT THE HANDS OF THE PLYMOUTH GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. HE DIED IN 1697 AND LIES BURIED AT SPRING HILL. ERECTED IN 1910 BY THE WING FAMILY OF AMERICA, INCORPORATED.

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©2002 by Joan Case
Last updated on Sunday, November 10, 2002

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