|
|
|
||||||||
Sarah Briggs Wing
According to the book, "ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY ALLIED FAMILIES; John Briggs
came to New England in 1635 on the ship, The Blessing, and was then aged twenty,
which places his date of birth at 1615. There is no mention of a Katherine
or Catherine Briggs. At this writing we only know for sure that John Briggs
arrived on the Blessing in 1635 and died in 1641.
The fact is that our particular family line descends from two Briggs lines, that I suspect were originally one. While we descend from Sarah Briggs family, we also descend from the family of Rebecca Briggs Cornell, of Rhode Island. Poor Rebecca suffered the the fate of burning to death, her even more unfortunate son, our ancestor, Thomas Cornell, was hung for her murder. Be that as it may, I strongly suspect that somewhere, back in the hazy marshes of England, the Briggs family of Sandwich and the Briggs family of Rhode Island were one and the same.
Since we can only assume that John Briggs, aged 20, arrived by himself on the Blessing, until proven otherwise, it would be safe to assume that he did not marry Kathyrne until after his arrival in New England. Which means he had to work pretty fast. And apparently he did. In a little less than 6 years he evidently married and fathered 2 children. Unfortunately at this time we have not discovered a date of birth for either Samuel or Sarah. We do not even know the order of birth, but they couldn't have been far apart. Even if we give John Briggs a couple of months to get his footing, engage a bride and manage to impregnate her, we are talking about a year more or less...which would put one child being born perhaps late 1636 or early 1637....and no doubt, Kathryn breast feed, which even if she stopped when the first born was around 2 years of age, the other would not have been born until about 1640 or thereabouts. A poignant piece of history is the inventory of John Briggs possessions, which include a cradle. The inventory was exhibited at Plymouth in October of 1641. If we assume that Sarah was the oldest child, she would have only been 4 or 5 when her father died. I have not been able to find any record that confirms that Kathyrn Briggs died in the same year or even shortly after her husband died...there is just nothing to be found about her after John's death...at least at this writing. And the fact remains that neither Sarah nor her brother, Samuel, named a child Kathyrn. And Samuel did not name a son, John, athough Sarah did, but that was also the name of Stephen Wing's father. So, what happened to Samuel and Sarah Briggs? Which kind family in Sandwich took the burden of these two young children? So far there is no hint. Whatever happened to Kathyrn Briggs, whether she fell ill, was too poor to care for her children, or died, it was not an uncommon practice to place your own children in other homes where they could perhaps be raised with more stability and learn a trade or how to get along in the world. When Sarah Brigg's father died in 1641, Stephen Wing was a twenty year old man, not yet married, but very likely courting Oseah Dillingham. Stephen Wing would not marry Oseah Dillingham until the fall of 1646. Of course we are all aware that Oseah was pregnant with their first child, Nathaniel Wing, because on March 2, 1647, Stephen Wing was brought to court because his wife, Oseah, had borne a child at an unseasonable time after their marriage. By now Sarah Briggs would be anywhere from six years old to possibly ten years old. By the time that Oseah Dillingham Wing died on April 9, 1654, Sarah Briggs was somewhere between twelve and sixteen years of age. This must be why most historians put her age at her marriage at fourteen. Stephen Wing married Sarah Briggs November 11, 1654, a short six months after the death of his first wife. (This date is based on the research of Kathryn Graham Wing). The idea, promoted by many of the early Wing historians, that Stephen Wing married Sarah Briggs in such haste because he had lost his first wife, Oseah, and it was "incumbent" on him to marry quickly because he had a young family strikes me as vaguely apologetic. Actually, that supposition crumbles in light of the facts. By the time that Stephen married Sarah Briggs, his son Nathaniel was eight years old, his son Ephraim was deceased (April 2, 1649 - December 10, 1649), and his daughter, Mercy would have been about four years old if she survived infancy. The fact that Stephen Wing remarried so quickly after the death of Oseah is not a matter of speculation at all nor does it require an apologetic explanation. The truth is that it was not at all unusual that Stephen Wing remarried in such a short time. I think if there is any term that could really describe our ancestors it would be that they were realists. No matter how broken hearted Stephen may have been over the death of his first wife, the fact was, she was gone and life had to go on. Apparently his married life with Oseah had been tranquil and happy and his second marriage was a reflection of the satisfaction he got from married life. Likewise, Sarah Briggs deserves better than to be cast in history forever and ever as the hasty selection made because it was "incumbent" upon Stephen to marry quickly. Stephen Wing and Sarah Briggs would have a marriage that would last for thirty-five years, ending only because of Sarah's death. There was assuredly an ample supply of marriageable young women in the colony that would have been more than happy to take care of Stephen Wing and his two children. In fact, many of them probably had more attractive dowries than Sarah Briggs who was an orphan with one brown cow as a dowry for an impending suitor. I am quite certain that Stephen Wing was not interested in the brown cow. Although, I could be wrong. According to the book, "EVERYDAY LIFE IN EARLY AMERICA" by David Freeman Hawke; "Cattle and swine received a lasting welcome through the century up and down the coast. Both provided not only sustenance but also a cash income, especially cattle."_____________________ "Cattle rather than land were often willed to children orphaned by a father's death. The legal guardian was compensated with the male and the children got title to the female cattle." So maybe it was the cow after all that brought Stephen and Sarah together. and those of us that are Sarah's descendants may always look at cows just a little differently. In the meantime, whatever became of Samuel Briggs, the only brother of Sarah Briggs? Little is known about her brother, Samuel Briggs until about 1664 when he married Elizabeth Ellis, at Sandwich, Massachusetts. Elizabeth Ellis was the daughter of John Ellis and Elizabeth Freeman of Sandwich, Massachusetts. It appears that Samuel Briggs spent his young years growing up in the same community that his sister lived. Whether or not they were raised together or separately is a question that has yet to be answered. The marriage between Samuel Briggs and Elizabeth Ellis may say more than we realize about Samuel's station in life since Elizabeth Ellis's family members on both sides of the house were very eminent inhabitants of Sandwich, Massachusetts. Her grandfather was the venerable Edmund Freeman (one of the Ten Men of Saugus) and her father was the prominent Lieutenant John Ellis who was appointed Lieutenant of the Sandwich Military Company June 9, 1653, and seems to have taken a prominent part in the affairs of the settlement. (Benson Family Records, page 116). Samuel Briggs and Elizabeth Ellis would have several children, all of them the first cousins of Sarah Briggs Wing's children. Sarah Briggs Wing may have considered herself to be tremendously blessed to have seven children that appeared to be thriving and that every birthday they celebrated only bolstered their chances of surviving to adulthood. Compared to her sister-in-laws and even her own husband's first family, Sarah was lucky indeed. To have been orphaned so young, it must have been a rare pleasure for her to enjoy her own children. Therefore, it must have come as a horrible shock when she received the news that her first born child, Stephen Wing II, had been slaughtered in Captain Michael Pearse's Plymouth County Company in one of the many battles of the King Philip War. (One Hundred and Sixty Allied Families, pg. 275) Stephen wasn't alone, forty-six men had been slaughtered by the Narragansett Indians, five of which were from Sandwich, Massachusetts. Stephen was killed on March 26, 1675 at the young age of twenty years. Shortly after his death, his half-brother Nathaniel Wing and his cousin, Ananias Wing, enlisted in the war. Nathaniel was about thirty years old at the time of his enlistment and Ananias was about twenty-four or twenty-five. Both of these young representatives of the Wing family fought in one of the most fierce and bloodiest battles of the King Philip War, the battle of December 10, 1675 at South Kingston, Rhode Island in a swamp by the name of Pattyswamscott. Thankfully they both came home alive, Nathaniel presumably returned to the home of his father and step-mother. Five years later, her oldest daughter, Sarah Wing would marry Robert Gifford of Sandwich and Sarah would become a grandmother for the first time at the age of about forty-one. Out of seven children, Stephen Wing and Sarah Briggs had two daughters. Sarah Wing Gifford was twenty-three years old when she married and their other daughter, Abigail Wing, never married. All of her children that married named a daughter "Sarah," excepting her oldest daughter and namesake, Sarah Wing Gifford and Sarah's Briggs Wing's youngest son, Matthew Wing, who named his only daughter, Abigail. Sarah Briggs Wing died on January 26, 1688/89, twenty six days after her youngest child, Matthew Wing turned fifteen years old, the same Matthew Wing that would eight years later marry a woman that was fourteen years his senior and the mother of six children. I don't think it takes a degree in psychology to figure out what may have motivated that marriage. Sarah was in her late forties when she died. Of course we don't know the cause of death, we are lucky just to know when she died. Like I mentioned earlier, our Massachusetts Bay ancestors were realists...not quite two months after his mother died, Elisha Wing married Mehitable Butler on March 12, 1688/89. Elisha would name his first daughter, Sarah, an obvious honor for his mother. Stephen Wing buried his second wife of thirty-five years at Spring Hill Cemetery, probably one space away from his first wife and he probably wondered when he would join them. Well, Stephen would not join them for another twenty-two years. He spent the rest of his life a widower, living at the Old Fort House, with his son, Ebenezer Wing and his family and Abigail Wing, the daughter that never married. Sarah would never know all of the children that would call her "grandmother." or the descendants that eight generations later are proud to claim her as their own. ..the orphan with only a brown cow as a dowry. The children of Stephen Wing & Sarah Briggs; 1. Stephen Wing, born September 2, 1656 2. Sarah Wing, born February 5, 1657/58 3. John Wing, born September 25, 1661 4. Abigail Wing, born May 6, 1664, 5. Elisha Wing, born December 2, 1668 6. Ebenezer Wing, born November 5, 1671 7.Matthew Wing, born January 1, 1673/74.
|