Story by Fred Gahimer.
Matthew Wing – John Wing – Daniel Wing – Daniel Wing – Edward Wing – Edward Tucker Wing – Sarah (Wing) Hughson
Much thanks to Raymond Wing and the Wing Family of America (WFA) for information and corrections on this topic. The Wing Family website has much more information on Wing’s in America.
MATTHEW WING was Merchant Taylor [tailor] in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England circa 1548. He and wife MARY were married about 1573 (MATTHEW was 25 years old at the time). They later had five sons and five daughters, with his eldest son, Fulke, born about 1574. The Parish Register at St. Mary’s Church, Banbury, record his children, except Fulke, where baptized there between 1576 and 1592. Since the register began in 1558, it is thought MATTHEW and MARY moved to Banbury about 1575. MARY was buried July 24, 1613; MATTHEW on October 19, 1614. His will was made August 19, 1614, and was proved on November 15, 1614. He was known to have a son, JOHN.
[Note: a previous version mentioned a Godfriedus Wingius as an ancestor of MATTHEW WING. It’s now thought that Godfriedus had two wives, but no children.]
THE REV. JOHN WING, son of MATTHEW WING, was baptized January 12, 1584. He was a plebe at St. Alban’s Hall. He matriculated at Queen’s College, Oxford, October 15, 1598 at age fourteen, and obtained a B. A. Degree on February 12, 1603. He married DEBORAH BACHILER, daughter of the Rev. STEPHEN BACHILER (later descendants spelled this STEVEN BATCHELOR).
Rev. JOHN WING and DEBORAH had at least four sons and at least two daughters: Deborah, John, DANIEL, Joseph (presumed to have died young), Stephen, Matthew, and other daughters. In the early married life, John and Deborah lived at Stroud, Kent, then about 1612 he moved to Sandwich, Kent. He became Vicar of Great Yarmouth, then Sandwich. In about 1615 he moved to Hamburg, Germany, where he was Pastor of English Merchants. In about 1620 he became the Pastor of English Presbyterians in the island of Walcheron in Flushing, province of Zeeland (now part of the Netherlands). From there he moved to the Hague about 1627. According to New England Families, he authored several printed books. He died in England in 1630. In his will, he mentions his sons and daughters, but not by name, except Deborah who was already “advanced in marriage.”
THE REV. STEPHEN BACHILER was born in 1561. He matriculated at St. John’s College, Oxford, on November 7, 1581, and obtained a B.A. degree on February 3, 1585. It is thought he had a first wife, but there is no confirmed information about this.
STEPHEN became Vicar of Wherwell, now Horell, Hants, on January 26, 1587. He married (ANN BATES? sister of Rev. John Bates?), and one of their children, DEBORAH, was born likely born about 1590.
From Raymond Wing,
“STEPHEN and the famous minister Rev. Roger Williams preached views not supported by the Puritan magistrates in Massachusetts Bay Colony and were punished by the authorities (with Williams being banished to Rhode Island while Bachiler eventually being stripped of his pastorate at Hampton, NH). It is believed Bachiler was the only Colony minister who voted against banishing Williams (records only mention where the vote was near unanimous, with one unnamed pastor voting against the banishment).”
Williams founded Rhode Island.
On August 9, 1605, STEPHEN was ejected from living for Puritanism. He organized the Plough Company of emigrants and landed in New England on June 5, 1632. Sometime before 1656 he returned to England and was buried in London on October 31, 1656. He was the ancestor of Whittier, Daniel Webster, and William Pitt Fessenden.
DEBORAH BACHILER, as a widow, sailed across the Atlantic aboard the ship “William and Frances” with her father, Rev. STEPHEN BACHILER, and her four sons, landing at Boston, Massachusetts, on June 5, 1632. They settled at Sandwich on Cape Cod. It is thought DEBORAH died before 1680 since the probate record of her son, Matthew, listed his three brothers (John, DANIEL, and Stephen) as heirs (and not DEBORAH).
DEBORAH’s daughter-in-law, Elizabeth, wife of John Wing (II) is thought to be the Goodwife Wing who died in Harwich, Massachusetts in 1692.
What thoughts must have passed through her mind as the ship William and Frances glided up the fairway in Boston Harbor in 1632 to anchor on the shore of a savage and trackless country. With her four sons and her father, the forty-year-old mother had turned her back on European civilization for a journey to the New World. How distant must have seemed the peaceful green fields, stately forests, and the solid villages nestled in the hills of the England she left behind.
True, England was just emerging from the Middle Ages. London, for all its 250,000 people, still had its wall closing it in, but life there represented the continuity of centuries, the availability of food and goods, a settled government (soon to change), and the benefits of art and literature. Dark clouds foreshadowed the struggle between King Charles I and Parliament, but even so, the Civil War was ten years distant. Notables in literature and art included Sir Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Anthony Van Dijck, and Inigo Jones. William Shakespeare was alive when she was a girl.
Earlier, Mother Deborah had enjoyed a settled life in Holland, the richest nation of Europe, where Rembrandt and Rubens painted, and where the neat, clean homes and streets bespoke peace and safety. Even the Thirty Years’ War, then at its height, did not touch the Wing family.
The beckoning shores of the New World held Mother Deborah and her brood (save for young Matthew). With faith in their destiny, they remained to make a new life and eventually their descendants, a new nation.
by Herbert Gilman Wing, 1992 Wing Reunion
DANIEL and HANNAH (SWIFT) WING FAMILY
On June 28, 1640, Andrew Hallett conveyed certain landed property to DANIEL, the instrument being witnessed by JOHN WING and Edward Dillingham.
In 1641, DANIEL helped his younger brother Steven build the Wing Fort House in what is now East Sandwich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The house is still standing, although it has been greatly enlarged, and is still owned by the Wing Family of America. It is the longest continuous ownership of a structure by one family in America.
In 1643, DANIEL was enrolled with his brothers among those who were at time between the ages of sixteen and sixty, and therefore liable to bear arms. In 1652, his name was among those appointed to take charge of the fishing interests of the place.
In 1654 a mill for the accommodation of the inhabitants, costing twenty pounds, was paid for by DANIEL and twenty-one other inhabitants.
In 1652 his name and a number of the prominent citizens of Sandwich were first mentioned in connection with a serious religious dissension in the town. In 1657 the people called Quakers made their first appearance in Sandwich, and DANIEL early became an adherent to that faith. In March, 1658, he was fined twenty shillings for entertaining Quakers in his home. He refused to take the “oath of fidelity” because this particular oath would have pledged him to assist in the execution of an intolerant enactment. He was therefore fined twenty pounds. In December 1658, he was excluded from the number of freemen.
On September 5, 1641, DANIEL married HANNAH SWIFT, daughter of John Swift, of an old and honorable family in the western part of town. DANIEL and HANNAH’s first child was born July 28, 1642, according to town records. She was given the baptismal name of her mother, and was the first child born of Wing parents in America. When 19 years old, Hannah was mentioned in the will of her grandmother, Joan Swift, in 1662. Joan left Hannah and her cousin Experience Allen (another granddaughter) “all her linen and pewter”. In addition, Joan bequeathed Hannah her “best hat,” and directed that forty shillings be divided between Hannah and her brothers, Samuel and John. A hat, in those days, was an article of no little value and consequence. Women of mature years usually wore a steeple-crowned felt hat or perhaps one made of beaver. Gov. Thomas Mayhew, grandfather of Jerusha Mayhue, who married Hannah’s cousin, Joseph, sold the island of Nantucket to its first settlers for a part consideration of “two beaver hats, one for my wife, and one for myself.” We are justified in picturing Hannah in those days of her married life, wearing her grandmother’s high crowned hat. The Swift packers of Chicago, all of whom are descendants of Joan, must look for at least a part of their ancestral family plate (pewter) among the descendants of Hannah. Hannah was probably a member of her father’s family during the strenuous days of the Quaker persecutions. When 25 years old, on May 20, 1668, Hannah married Jedediah Lombard of Barnstable, and after, perhaps of Truro.
It is noticeable that DANIEL made no mention of his daughter Hannah in his will executed in 1698, and this is likely attributable to one of two circumstances; either she was deceased at that time, or had incurred the stiff old Quaker’s displeasure by marrying “out of meeting.”
Lydia Wing, second daughter of DANIEL and HANNAH, was born May 23, 1647 according to town records, or Mar. 28, 1647 according to the Friend’s records. Lydia is said by the Hoxie documents to have been married to Thomas Hambleton. She is mentioned in the will of her father as “Lydia Abbott.” Lydia is the only one of the daughters provided for in Daniel’s will, and although she is fifty-one years of age at the time, her father “constitutes and ordained to be over her John Jennings and Thomas Smith.”
Deborah Wing, the third daughter, was given the name of her grandmother, Deborah Wing. She was born in Sandwich on Nov. 10, 1648, and died in 1659 at the age of eleven.
Samuel Wing, the first son, was born on June 28, 1652 in Sandwich. Samuel was 7 or 8 years old during the years of his father’s persecution as a Quaker. He was mentioned in the will of his grandmother, Joan Swift, who bequeathed him, “a mare foal of a year old,” and left 40 shillings to be divided between his brother John, sister Hannah, and himself. He was a member of the Friend’s Meeting at Spring Hill, and the births of his children are recorded there. He was admitted a townsman, and took the oath of fidelity at Sandwich in 1681. He married about the year 1678 a wife named Mary. In DANIEL’s will, Samuel is given his father’s “right of land on Scorton Neck” and it was also agreed that his brother Jashub should pay him the sum of 30 pounds four years after his father’s death. Samuel lived and died in Sandwich, and his estate was administered in Barnstable County. He died about 1701, and his estate must have been of some means, as it inventoried 384 pounds, and his personal property at 166 pounds, 5 shillings.
Hepzibah Wing, DANIEL and HANNAH’s fourth daughter, was born in September 1654. Nothing else is known of her.
John Wing, second son of DANIEL and HANNAH, received the name of his paternal grandfather, the Rev. John Wing. He was born on Nov. 14, 1656. John took the oath of fidelity at Sandwich and was admitted a townsman in 1681. He married Martha Spooner, daughter of the house of Spooner soon after, and then the next year, they settled on the west shore of Buzzard’s Bay. His home was at Great Hill upon the extreme point of a neck of land extending far out into Buzzard’s Bay from the west shore, known for many years as “Wing’s Neck.” The home site is now an extensive park enclosed in a high stone wall, handsomely laid out with buildings erected by a New York Merchant named Searles, who had planned a magnificent estate.
John Wing signed his name with a mark. He was the first of the sons of DANIEL to leave the home nest at Sandwich, and he was evidently a man with the instincts of a pioneer. He left a large landed estate and made liberal provisions for his children in his will. He died Aug. 1, 1717. His will, dated Mar. 25, 1717, recites:
In the Name of God Amen The Twenty-fifth Day of March on one Thousand Seven hundred Seventeen, I, John Wing, Senior of Rochester in the County of Plymouth in the Province of The Massachusetts Bay in New England Cooper & Being of a disposing mind And Memory Thanks be given to God, And Calling to mind The mortality of my body & knowing it is appointed for all men once To Dye Do make and Ordain This my Last Will & Testament, That is to Say, I bequeath my Soul in to the hands of God who Gave it and my body to The Earth, to be buried after my decease at the Discretion of my Executors, And as Touching such worldly Estate wherewith it hath pleased God to Bless me with, I dispose of the Same in the following manner & forme: Imprimis I give & Bequeath To my Loving wife Martha Wing The Easterly End of my now Dwelling House, to be hers dureing her Natural life, as also one Cow out of my Stock at her Choice also two swine which is also to be of her Choice as also Twelve pounds money per year yearly paid her by my son Samuele Faile in Maintaining her In all respects as hereinafter I shall will & order him to Do.
Item I give & Bequeath to my Eldest son Stephen Wing & his Heirs and assigns besides what I have already given him by Deed, Twenty Shillings money to be paid to him or his Heirs out of my Estate by my son Samuel within one month after he come to the age of twenty-one uears, & That to be his full part and portion of my Estate.
And so on…
Beulah Wing, fifth daughter of DANIEL and HANNAH WING, was born on Nov. 6, 1658. She married Aaron Barlow of Rochester, a son of the much hated Marshall George Barlow, who is held in detestation by the Quakers of Sandwich for his persecutions of them during the years 1658-9.
DANIEL WING was born November 21, 1664, and nine days later, on November 30, his mother died. His older sister Hannah, then 21, probably assumed the care of the family household, for she seems not to have married until some four years later.
DANIEL and DEBORAH (DILLINGHAM) WING FAMILY
In 1686, DANIEL married DEBORAH DILLINGHAM, who was a daughter of HENRY and HANNAH (PERRY) DILLINGHAM, devout Quakers, and a granddaughter of EDWARD DILLINGHAM. DEBORAH was five years older than Daniel, having been born on December 21, 1659. Her father “lived in the field east of Sandwich Academy”. After his marriage, DANIEL settled “up near the woods, somewhat by himself”, and he was the first to live on the Wing homestead upon Lake Shawme. DANIEL was admitted a townsman in Sandwich in 1691. He owned considerable property.
The children of DANIEL and DEBORAH were:
- EDWARD, July 10, 1687
- Samuel, August 12, 1690
- Jemima, August 14, 1692
- Dorcas, October 6, 1695
- Rebecca, July 1, 1700
- Zaccheus, April 3, 1702
- Hannah, October 29, 1705
On May 13, 1717, DANIEL deeded an undivided interest in 100 acres of land he possessed in Dartmouth, Bristol County, to his son EDWARD. This land now lies within the limits of the city of New Bedford. In 1730, in a “list of heads of families in Sandwich”, mention is made of DANIEL, Nathaniel, Ebenezer, and “Widdow” Wing.
DANIEL must have had some trouble with one Thomas Debuke, because an old undated paper says:
Mr. Daniel Wing,
I have received forty shiling of Mr. Isaac Robertson and you are to pay the officer his fee upon Mr. Robertson’s request, he being a particular friend of mine. I shall let the action Drop and so for the future I would have you take care what you say about men you know nothing off.
Yours,
Thomas Debuke
While DANIEL and his son Zaccheus were coopers, they wanted land, and a good deal of it. They were an ambitious people, and must have been very industrious; they were “thrifty”, and would not have been content with this small parcel of land”. As early as 1719, DANIEL obtained a portion of the Joseph Foster twenty acre lot, and in the deed, which is still preserved, Foster speaks of it as having been “laid out to me for a part of my Lott in the first Division”. Subsequently, the whole of this wood lot became a part of the Wing property; and in the division by the two brothers, the portion which fell to Paul has always been known as the “Foster Lot”.
When DANIEL was 67 years old in 1731, his son Zaccheus married Content Swift, and DANIEL conveyed to him the same year, “all upland, salt and fresh meadow land, swampy ground and wood lots which I am the owner or proprietor of in the town of Sandwich with the orchards, fruit trees, underwood and fences Belonging to all or any of said lands with the south-westerly end of my dwelling house and the Chamber over it (after my decease and my wife’s, the other part of the house also) together with my barn and all other buildings on said lands”. The consideration stated was 400 pounds.
From the fact that there is scant mention of the vital records of the family of DANIEL and DEBORAH in the Friends’ records at Spring Hill, and because he was given credit for work in building the “minister’s house”, it is believed that DANIEL was not in good and regular standing among the Quakers.
It is probable that DANIEL WING died in the early months of 1740. His will was probated in Barnstable County on May 3, 1740. It bore a date of March 22, 1737. He appointed his son Zaccheus his executor; mentions children “of my two oldest sons deceased, and son Zaccheus, daughters Rebecca Hatch and Hanna; children of his daughter Dorcas, and gives to his granddaughter Susannah a cow which his son-in-law John Sheperd has in keeping”.
EDWARD and SARAH (TUCKER) WING FAMILY
EDWARD WING, son of DANIEL AND DEBORAH (DILLINGHAM) WING, resided for some time in Sandwich, but in 1721 moved to Dartmouth, Bristol County, Massachusetts, where his father had been the owner of lands which were now deeded to him. He was married three times. He married Desire Smith of Dartmouth in November, 1713, but she died before having any children. On June 1, 1717, Edward married SARAH TUCKER, daughter of ABRAHAM and HANNAH TUCKER.
They had five children:
- Hannah, March 13, 1720
- Abraham, November 26, 1721
- Deborah, December 22, 1723
- Jemima, May 15, 1725
- EDWARD, July 27, 1727
EDWARD married Patience Ellis in October, 1728, and they had two children:
- Sarah, June 7, 1731
- Mary, May 27, 1733
In some legal instruments held by some of the Wing descendants are a number of receipts, notes, deeds, and conveyances, from which we are able to infer what must have been the relations of the several parties. Among these is a certificate of marriage after the Friends’ form, of EDWARD WING and SARAH TUCKER, all of Dartmouth, dated, “First day of sixth month, 1717.” Among the names appearing as witnesses to this document are: John, John jun’, Joseph, Abraham, Henry, Ruth, and Content Tucker; Jedediah Allen; Adam, Jacob, and Elizabeth Mott; Matthew, Edward, Sarah, Samuel, and Dorcas Wing; Mary Lapham; Joseph, Joseph jun’, John, and Benjamin Russell; Susannah Jemkins; and William and Isaac Wood. There is also a deed in which DANIEL WING, “a husbandman,” one-half of his undivided interest in his lands in Dartmouth; a Collector’s warrant for the town of Dartmouth, dated March 21, 1725-26, in which EDWARD WING is mentioned as a constable; two deeds, dated 1698, by which DANIEL conveyed to EDWARD WING two parcels of land, one of 85 acres, and another of 15 acres, in Dartmouth; two other deeds, dated respectively 1716 and 1727, in one of which EDWARD is styled an “innholder” and a “weaver.”
EDWARD WING FAMILIES
EDWARD WING, son of EDWARD and SARAH (TUCKER) WING was thought to be born in Sandwich, Barnstable County, Massachusetts on July 27, 1727, though some accounts say he was born at Dartmouth. His first wife was Content Wood of Dartmouth, who was born September 7, 1723. Prior to 1754, he moved to “Nine Partners” in Duchess County, New York. His wife died there while giving birth to twins, and according to the records of the Quaker Monthly Meeting at Oblong, the infant children were taken into the families of Friends. Edward was a saddle and harness maker by trade.
The children of Edward and Content were:
- Thomas, born at Sandwich
- William, who died young
- Abraham T., June 12, 1754
- Russell, twin, June 12, 1754
On August 23, 1758, he married HANNAH HOAG, the daughter of David and Keziah Hoag of Nine Partners. She had been born on November 22, 1735. They had seven children.
- Content, June 8, 1759;
- Abigail, March 25, 1761; killed by lightning at age 13
- SARAH, December 5, 1762; m. Cornelius Huson in Dartmouth, Bristol County, Massachusetts, where her father and grandfather, both named EDWARD, had lived after the elder EDWARD had moved there from Sandwich, Massachusetts.
- Hannah, November 17, 1764; m. Roger Haviland; four sons
- David, April 28, 1767;
- Joseph, May 12, 1770; m. Irene Phelps; seven children
- John, June 2, 1779; m. Phebe Terrell; seven children
In 1793 they moved to Queensbury at Wings Falls (later Glens Falls), New York to join his brother Abraham Wing, who was the first settler in that area (and for whom it was name after), having gone there in August, 1763.
He was seeking new land for the expanding Quaker families at the Oblong in Duchess County. [The Oblong was a strip of land 580 rods wide which extended along the eastern side of the Counties of Duchess, Putnam, and Westchester in New York, which Connecticut also claimed, but finally conceded to New York.]
In 1765 Abraham purchased a partnership in a saw mill with Nehemiah Merritt for five shillings, and in 1771 also became a partner in a grist mill with Samuel Bronson.
At the annual town meeting held at Queensbury on Tuesday, ye 5 day of May 1767, for the township of Queensbury:
1 voted, Abraham Wing, Moderator 2 voted, Asaph Putnam, Town Clerk 3 voted, Abraham Wing, Supervispr 4 voted, Abraham Wing and Asaph Putnam, Assessors 5 voted, Asaph Putnam, Constable 6 voted, Ichabod Merritt, Collector 7 voted, Benager Putnam, Pathmaster 8 voted, Benjamin Wing, Pound-keeper 9 voted, Abraham Wing and Ichabod Merritt, Overseers of the Poor 10 voted, Benjamin Wing and Phineas Babcock, Fence-viewers
On May 5, 1772, it was voted that “a Pound be Built about 10 rods North East from the house of Abraham Wing and to meet at the house of s’d Wing on Monday the first day of June at Eight o’Clock in the fore Noon to Build said pound on the penalty of Six Shillings each man for non-appearance.”
Abraham was a prominent leader in the area all his life, serving as Town Moderator 1766-69, 1772-80, 1783-88, 1790-94. He died there in 1795. The area had originally been called “Four Corners”, but became known as “Wings Falls” after Abraham.
The absence of fences led the settlers to mark their stock by “ear marks” to identify them similar to brands.
Most of the early settlers of Queensbury had come from Duchess County and had known each other for many years. Most were Quakers who were opposed to the Revolutionary War and therefore took no part in it. However, they often suffered from the Continental Army pilfering food and other belongings from the settlers. After the battle of Saratoga in July 1777, the retreating Continental Army confiscated considerable livestock and grain, and dismantled the saw mill of Abraham’s without compensation. He submitted claims to the army. Having few fences back then, the pigs ran wild, and were identified by ear notches, much like cattle brands were later used in the west. The farmers then had to “round up” their pigs when they needed them for butchering or for market. These roving porkers were probably easy pickings for the Army.
When the war came their way, the settlers would hastily gather movable property and flee to their old homes in Duchess County, to return when the danger was past. These were so frequent that, in the language of the old residents, “It got to be very easy to go, for they soon had but little to move.”
The settlers were also bothered by a concentration of Tories who lived about ten miles away, and who often raided them.
After the war was over, Colonel Jacob Glen moved into the area and rebuilt many of the mills which had been destroyed by the war. He became very prosperous and lived in a grand manner. In 1788, he convinced Abraham Wing to allow the name of the town to be changed from Wings Falls to Glens Falls.
In either 1785 or 1800, the Quaker log church was built near the burial ground at the intersection of Bay and Quaker Roads. It was the first church in Queensbury. At this site in 1911 some Wing descendants erected a stone marker with a large bronze plaque thereon.
*WING*
In memory of
ABRAHAM and EDWARD WING *PIONEERS*
IN THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY
They were descended from
REV. JOHN WING
and
DEBORAH BATCHELDER
She with four sons came to America in 1632. In 1762 King George gave a grant of the town of Queensbury to Abraham and Edward Wing and others. About 1785 the Society of Friends built a log meeting house on this ground. Here was kept the first school. Here was the first burial ground of the pioneer fathers.
*Erected By*
THE WING DESCENDANTS *1911*
This plaque implies that EDWARD WING went with his brother Abraham in 1763, or joined him shortly thereafter, to the area of Four Corners (Wings Falls). However, the Wing history has him going there in 1793, two years before Abraham’s death. No mention of Edward has yet been found in the early history of Queensbury.
About 1794, SARAH WING, the daughter of EDWARD WING and HANNAH HOAG, married CORNELIUS HUGHSON (later Huson), probably in Queensbury. In the Wing history, it is stated that: “Sarah, a daughter of Edward and Hannah (Hoag) Wing, married a gentleman named Hewson, and resided in the west.”