All of us in the Wing Family of America are related to the brothers John, Daniel, and Stephen Wing. The story of their coming to America is a challenging mix of tradition and fact. Central to the tradition is the story that they came to New England on the ship William and Francis in 1632 with their widowed mother Deborah and her father Stephen Batchelder and settled in Saugus in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. We do not have documents that prove they were on the William and Francis because the only listing of passengers simply notes that six or seven persons accompanied Rev. Batchelder.

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Nor do we even have proof that Deborah was his daughter. That is a strong tradition both for the Wings and the Batchelders. It is interesting to note that Daniel had a son Bachelor, which is one of the spellings of Batchelder that were current then.

 

What we do know is that John Wing owned property in Saugus, and that in the timeframe 1637/8 he settled in Sandwich. He stayed there for about ten years and then moved to Yarmouth. He probably remained a member of the Congregational Church all of his life. His brothers Daniel and Stephen remained in Sandwich all their lives, and we know definitely where they and many of their descendants lived. Within 20 years they were part of the eighteen families that created the Quaker meeting in Sandwich. They were faithful members of this congregation all of their lives, which meant that they suffered a variety of problems while also being respected by their neighbors. They clearly passed their faith on to their descendants whose migration across our country often mirrors Quaker migration.

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We know very little about their mother Deborah’s life in America. She probably lived with John (although he was her son, as the man he would have been listed as the head of the household in town records). And then she probably moved with him to Yarmouth.

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What we do know is that we are all her descendants.