In the "Q.R. Miscell., 560-562, Licenses to pass beyond the sea, Eliz, toCar. I." Public Records office, London, is this quaint entry: "XXII Junii 1624, Deborah Wynge XXXII years old, wife of Mr. John
Winge, preacher, resident in Vlishing, with her two children, vizi, Stephen III years old and Debora Winge XIII years old. Vrs. ib. 't." This is the only record authority we have of the age of Deborah or of
her daughter Deborah and son Stephen.[CI:180:?4:CI]
It is conjectured that Deborah and her children returned to Holland after the death of her husband. The only proof of this is contained in Q.R. Miscell. 560 (licenses to pass beyond the seas. Eliz. to Car.
I.) in the Public Record Office. An item reads: June 23, 1631, Stephen Bachiler, aged 70 years, resident of South Stoneham in Com. Southhampton, et uxer Helen xiviii veeres, vrs fflushing to visite thier sonns and daughters, and so to return within two months." Another, in the same volume reads: "XXV Junii, 1631, Ann Sanborn of age 30 years, widow, resident in ye Strand, vree Vlishing." The sons of Mr. Bachiler known to us were Samuel and Nathaniel and his daughters were Deborah Wing and Ann Sanborn. It is not improbable that Deborah in her widowhood returned to her old home at Flushing.
This visit of Mr. Bachiler to his children was fraught with importance to the future of his descendants, for it was made for the purpose of completing final arrangements for the settlement in New England, which
occurred the following spring.[CI:183:?4:CI]
When the gentlewoman Deborah and her four half-grown sons, landed with their grandsire Bachiler at Boston in June, 1632, they were unusual emigrants. They came from gentle English homes; they had
lived at Hamburg, at Middleburg, at the Hague, and in London; they had crossed seas before; they had been nurtured in the very cradle of English protestantism; they were protestants against the English
Church themselves; they were such notable arrivals that Governor Winthrop himself makes mention of their coming in his diary.[CI:185:?4:CI]
While the Wing Family of America is in firm belief that the Wing family came with Rev. Stephen Bachiler in the [IT:William and Francis:IT] in 1632, Anderson[CI:375:?4:CI] stated they "came to New England in the late 1630s and resided at Sandwich." Mr. Anderson based his conclusion on the fact that none of the Wing's were mentioned in any contemporary New England record until they settled in Sandwich. However, Winthrop's History of New England (I:93) a journal written at the time stated: "June 5] The William and Francis, Mr. Thomas master, with about sixty passengers, whereof Mr. Welde and old
Mr. Batchelor (being aged 71) were, with their families and many other honest men..." It is quite likely that Rev. Stephen came with his daughters Deborah & Theodate, their children as well as his Sanborn
grandchildren and his grandson Nathaniel Bachiler. At Book 2, page 20, in the record of Essex County deeds, there is a deed from Daniel King of Lynn, gent., of five acres of upland, 'being a neck of land given to John Winge, abutting easterly uppon the highway, that runneth from across the brooke which runneth out of the marsh * * which lyeth northwest from the dwelling house of Henry Collem,' etc. given Sept. 1, 1654." The foregoing is one of the few sounds coming to us from the life of Deborah and her sons at Lynn, between the years 1632 and 1637. It is important to us not only for that reason, but because it may help us locate the property upon which the family first settled when they first landed in New England[CI:3499:?4:CI].
Five years went by at Saugus. Then our ancestress, Deborah, and her four sons took up the trek to Shawme--oldest town on the Cape--which later was called Sandwich after their home town across the
water.
The name of John Wing was found in the list of the fifty "undertakers" who assisted the "Ten men of Saugus" in the settlement of Shawme, now Sandwich in 1637[CI:3439:?4:CI].
While the old [IT:Owl:IT] records claim that John moved his family to Yarmouth around 1656, it is known that he was of Yarmouth by 1648, when his son Ephraim was recorded born there. On 27 AUG 1680 brothers John, Daniel & Stephen agreed to forfeit their right of inheritance to their brother Matthew's estate. Mother Deborah was not mentioned in this record so that undoubtedly she was deceased by this time.[CI:374:?4:CI]
In the meager town records of Sandwich no reference has been found to Deborah Wing. This is not strange. Her son John became the head of her household, and women were not prominent in town or public matters. Mrs. Emma Bartlett Chamberlain, historian of the Wing family, a few years ago found a will and the records of the probate of the estate of one Thomas Howell, a brick layer, who died in Boston in the spring of 1647. It appears that Mr. Howell lived at Duxbury in the Plymouth Colony and the inventory of his estate taken May 31, 1648, mentions "chattels at Kenelm Winslow's, at Thomas Burnes and at Robert Waterman's." Mr. Howell's business seems to have taken him abroad from his home. The reference in his probate papers to "Goodwife Wing" and John Winge undoubtedly referred to Deborah Wing and her son John, to whom, by some chance, he had become indebted. The term "Goodwife" as used by the early colonists, designated the head of a household. For further reference to this record see The Owl at pages 661-662.[CI:181:?4:CI]