The Broken Wing: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Challenging”

Final Wing Brother Struggled and Failed at Reinvention

Samuel Campbell Wing: 1849-1908 (Maternal Second Cousin 3x Removed)

 

While Samuel C. Wing never lived up to the infamy of his three murderous brothers, he also failed to live up to the achievements and respect his eldest brother Edward earned. (See previous blog post, "Full House") Instead, Samuel struggled to find his place in the world, trying to reinvent himself several times. His challenging life ended in despair and self-destruction.

Samuel Wing was the fourth child and third of the six sons of Samuel Morrison Wing and his wife Emily Weir. He was born in Owensboro, Kentucky on January 1, 1849, and attended college and law school at some point. In 1870, the census shows he was working as a dry goods merchant in Owensboro. The following year on November 22, 1871, he married Martha Cary Hopkins. He was twenty-two. Samuel and Martha’s first child, Lucie, was born September 2, 1872.

Marriage Record for Samuel and Martha Nov 22, 1871.

In 1875, Samuel was appointed postmaster in Owensboro, just as his second child, Elizabeth, was born.

That year seems to be the point when his life began to spiral out of control. Over the next few years, he faced the loss of several loved ones. First, his little daughter Elizabeth died in 1875 at the tender age of three months. He and his wife Martha had another child, a son named Edward Rumsey Wing after Samuel’s eldest brother, in 1876. However, Martha died just three years later in April 1879 at age thirty-one. I haven’t found a cause of death-- perhaps a miscarriage or other birth complication led to death, or some illness. Samuel’s little son Edward died just a year later. In addition, Samuel’s brother Edward died in 1874, and his sister Emma died in 1876. So many losses must have sent Samuel reeling.

Death of Martha Wing, 1879

He managed to complete his legal training just months after his wife’s death. A brief notice in the Owensboro Messenger on December 10, 1879 noted that “the Circuit Court has granted S.C. Wing a licenses to practice law, and he was sworn in this morning.” The article went on to note that Samuel was still acting as postmaster, and it was unknown how much time he could devote to the law.

That seems to indicate that Samuel was a widower with two essentially full-time jobs while he was trying to raise his one surviving child, a daughter.  He apparently felt unable to care for little Lucie, turning her over to his wife’s family to raise. Lucie appears in the 1880 census in the household of her aunt Lucy Reeve and her husband in Henderson, Kentucky. She remained with them until her marriage.

Lucy Wing in 1880 census living with her aunt Lucy Reeve

By the time of the 1880 census, Samuel was living in Louisville with his brother Charles, sister-in-law Annie and their child Emma. The brothers were law partners. The partnership and living arrangements gave Samuel a front-row seat as his brother Charles descended into alcoholism. I wonder if Samuel chose to live with Charles in a vain effort to care for him, or if Samuel’s own personal despair made him unable to live on his own.

While the 1881 Louisville City Directory still shows the brothers practicing law, their partnership had crumbled, and Samuel had left the area, moving to Boulder County, Colorado at some point in 1880. It is easy to understand why he wanted a new start. Samuel’s brothers were spiraling out of control, with three of them becoming murderers in the early 1880s, bringing the family negative press. A news article tried to tar Samuel with the same brush as his murderer brothers, even confusing him with his brother William and claiming he had killed a man. A local columnist defended Samuel in the Owensboro newspaper, writing:

“Sam Wing was born and raised in Owensboro, and was a modest, unassuming boy. When grown he entered the dry goods business with a Mr. Peters, and a few years after married Miss Mat. Hopkins of Henderson. He was postmaster here for several years, and is now mining in Gunnison, Colorado.”

I found it interesting that Samuel’s foray into the law was completely ignored in this short piece. He seems to have abandoned his legal practice when he moved west. The mining endeavor seems to have been unsuccessful, despite the following September 1880 news article in the Owensboro newspaper:

By 1885, Samuel was living in Denver. Government records show he received pay of $900.00 per annum as a postal clerk in Denver. He also worked in real estate, according to the Denver city directory entry for 1891 (see below).

At some point, Samuel switched careers yet again, becoming a representative for the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York. He also relocated again, even further west, ending up in Salt Lake City Utah by the early 1900s. He continued his real estate activities as well, representing East Coast investors in a bid to acquire a downtown block to construct an office building. He also participated in politics, and was appointed secretary of the Utah Republican Convention in 1905. 

Samuel also remarried in 1904. His bride was a young woman from Mississippi who frequently visited family in Utah. Mary Lowe Manning was 27 when she wed 55-year-old Samuel on June 21, 1904. The couple had a little daughter, Dorothy, who was born May 19, 1906.

Just a few years into this second marriage, something in Samuel’s life led him to despair. On March 26, 1908 he purchased a handgun and shot himself in a hallway in a downtown Salt Lake City office building. Newspaper articles speculated about his motivation. The Ogden newspaper suggested he was in financial difficulties, stating:

“Mr. Wing had invested heavily in several mining properties and it is believed that this, with other business reverses, caused his death.”

Ogden Weekly Sun Headline, March 31, 1908

The Salt Lake Herald had a different theory, stating that:

“…it is believed that he resolved upon self destruction to avoid infirmities which had fastened upon him during the past winter and of which there was little hope of cure. Friends of Mr. Wing say that he learned from his physician that he was suffering from Bright’s disease and that he may have killed himself so as to leave his family well provided for and to spare them the expense of the decline which seemed imminent. This belief is based upon the fact that Mr. Wing apparently had no financial or domestic worries.”

Bright’s Disease was a bit of a catch-all term during the early 1900s for several types of kidney disease, including end-stage nephritis, so Samuel may have been convinced he would suffer a slow, miserable death. However, given that his widow was forced to let out rooms after his death, and then returned to her birthplace of Mississippi with their daughter, where she promptly remarried, I believe the Ogden newspaper’s suggestion of financial problems certainly contributed to his despair.

The articles both noted that he seemed in good spirits the day of his death, chatting with friends and business associates, and even getting a shave at the barbershop, where he jokingly instructed the barber to shave him “fit for a wedding or a funeral.”  He had obviously planned his suicide with great care, buying the gun days earlier and preparing letters of instruction to officials on funeral arrangements, and a letter for his wife saying goodbye.

The Herald article also included some surprising details about Samuel’s purported past. A friend from Owensboro, Kentucky who also moved to Salt Lake City, claimed that when Samuel’s term of office as postmaster “expired in 1881, he went to San Francisco, where he entered the insurance business. He was afterwards in Portland and in Spokane and finally came to Salt Lake where he entered the field for Mutual Life, meeting with marked success here. Later he took up real estate and mining. Few men had more friends in Salt Lake than he.”

This account ignores Samuel’s abortive law career, and his fifteen years in Denver where he worked in mining, as a postal clerk and in real estate. If he truly spent time in San Francisco, Portland and Spokane, in was during the late 1890s, when he reinvented himself as an insurance agent.

The article also shockingly claimed that Samuel had three living daughters, while records only show two. The article identified little Dorothy, age 18 months, and Lucie, now married to banking executive named Emery Clark. But it also listed a Miss Macelle Wing, a daughter from a “former marriage” who worked as a nurse at the Latter-Day Sants hospital. I was finally able to locate a Marcelle, not Macelle, Wing in a few Utah records, but wasn’t able to find her mother’s name. Marcelle wasn’t born to Samuel and first wife Martha, as Martha’s obituary lists only Lucie and her brother as the surviving children. Did Samuel have an additional wife between Martha and Mary? Or was Marcelle born out of wedlock in Colorado?

The few records I have found for Marcelle Wing give her a birthdate of July 10, 1886 and a birthplace of Colorado. Samuel was living in Denver then, which would correspond with Marcelle’s birthdate. Marcelle appears on the Utah census in 1910 working as a nurse as stated in the Herald article. In 1912, she married a George Reinmund. I will continue to investigate her parentage.

Samuel Campbell Wing had a challenging life, losing so many family members in a short period of time, and being forced to deal with his siblings’ criminal records. He seems to have been a restless man, moving further and further westward, changing careers every few years in an endless attempt to recreate himself. Perhaps his lifelong struggles finally overwhelmed him in March 1908, leading him to kill himself at the age of sixty-one.

Samuel is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Salt Lake City. His grave is alone; his children and widow all left Salt Lake City a few years after his suicide.

 

 

Sources:

Samuel Wing licensed to practice law. Owensboro Messenger and Examiner. Dec. 10, 1879. Accessed through Newspapers.com.

Defense of the Wing Family. Owensboro Messenger. Apr. 10, 1883. Accessed through Newspapers.com.

Findagrave entry for Samuel C Wing. https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/81812584/person/262560612134/facts

“Samuel C Wing Shoots Himself.” Salt Lake Herald. March 27, 1908 issue. Salt Lake City, Utah. Accessed through Newspapers.com.

"Insurance Agent Blows Out Brains", Ogden Weekly Sun, March 28, 1908. Ogden, Utah. Accessed through Newspapers.com

Two Aces and Three of the Worst Kind: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Full House”

The Tragedy of the Wing Brothers: Two Good Guys and Three Killers 

Edward Rumsey Wing: 1843-1874 (Maternal Second Cousin 3x Removed)
Theodore Weir Wing: 1845-1867 (Maternal Second Cousin 3x Removed)
William Wirt Wing: 1851-1881 (Maternal Second Cousin 3x Removed)
Charles Fox Wing: 1854-1897 (Maternal Second Cousin 3x Removed)
Albert E. “Bert” Wing: 1860-1920 (Maternal Second Cousin 3x Removed)

 

While the Wing brothers were distant relatives-- what genealogists call collateral, as opposed to direct, ancestors-- their lives were so fascinating I felt they deserved a blog post. Five of the brothers’ lives were cut short under sad circumstances -- I guess I could describe them as “collaterals, damaged”, if you will excuse the pun.

The Wing brothers were born to Samuel Morrison Wing and Emily M. Weir, who was a first cousin several times removed on Lorene Jandy’s side of the family. Samuel and Emily married September 2, 1838, and had seven children: six sons and one daughter. Of those sons, two were heroic and showed great promise, but died tragically young. Three others were literally killers. This combination of good and bad comprises a truly bizarre “full house”. As for the final brother, his life was filled with loss and attempts at reinvention, and ended in suicide—his story will be covered in a separate post.

The Aces: Edward and Theodore

The eldest Wing brothers, Edward and Theodore, were born in 1843 and 1845. When the Civil War began, they were the perfect age to enlist. Edward Rumsey Wing, who had just graduated from Centre College in 1861, served as the aide to Union General James S. Jackson, and participated in the Battle of Perryville where General Jackson was killed. Following the war, Edward became a lawyer and politician, and married Louisa Scott. After an unsuccessful campaign as the Republican nominee for Kentucky State Treasurer in 1869, President Grant appointed Edward to be the U.S. Minister to Ecuador. He was only twenty-six and was the youngest foreign minister ever appointed.

Edward had been dealing with poor health for some time—apparently some sort of heart condition—and according to an article in the Owensboro newspaper, had hoped the Ecuadorean climate would improve his health. Sadly, it did not. The newspaper stated that he “had several severe spells of inflammatory rheumatism, the last one so severe and of such long continuance that it determined him to come home.” He had tendered his resignation to the government, but died October 5, 1874, in Quito before he could return home. He had served five years as the Ecuadoran minister, and was only thirty-one years of age. The newspaper described Edward in glowing terms as a “very handsome person, of strong, clear, and vivacious intellect, a very ready, fluent and attractive public speaker, and of a chivalrous and enthusiastic disposition…”  

Theodore Weir Wing attended West Point in 1862 and enlisted with the Kentucky 35^th Infantry at the age of only eighteen. He was commissioned as a First Lieutenant in 1863, and served in the Civil War. Before he was mustered out in 1864, he was promoted to Adjutant. Following the war, he first attended law school at the University of Michigan, and then decided to enlist in the regular army—his military file contains letters from various individuals recommending him to receive an appointment as a 2^nd Lieutenant. He received his commission in May 1867 and was stationed in New Orleans. He contracted yellow fever there and died September 26, 1867 at the age of twenty-one.

Both Edward and Theo are buried in Rosehill Cemetery in Owensboro, Kentucky and their graves have large monuments.

Three of a Kind--the Killing Kind: Charles, Albert and William

William Wirt Wing was born in 1851 and attended college at Kentucky University; he appears on a class list in 1869 when he would have been eighteen years old. At some point, he decided to leave home and travel out west. His obituary explained the decision as follows:

…he was always regarded as a peaceable, harmless and honorable young man. Several years ago he became slightly demented on the subject of religion, but, recovering, he left his home to seek his fortune in the wilds of the far West. He was not addicted to drinking…” (See “A Terrible Encountre” below)

A more hostile article about the brothers stated that William “was always regarded as a little off in the upper story…” (See “Brothers in Blood” below.)

Whatever the truth about his early years, he moved to the New Mexico Territory and was employed by the Prairie Cattle Company as a cowboy. On October 18, 1881, William and a friend and co-worker named Burney were practicing marksmanship at the mess camp, recklessly shooting at each other’s hats. Burney had enough and quit the game, which angered William. The newspaper reported:

“At this, Wing pointed his pistol, a forty-one calibre, at Burney and fired, the ball entering Burney’s breast. Burney attempted to defend himself, and fired two shots at Wing, one of which did not take effect. The other was better directed, however, and entered Wing’s side, passing through his left lung and his heart, and came out at the left breast. He died almost instantly…Burney survived his antagonist only twenty-four hours…”

William Wing was only thirty years old at his death. His burial location is unknown.

Charles Fox Wing was born November 16, 1854. His mother died six years later, and he was sent to live with his uncle, Edward Rumsey, in Greenville, Kentucky. Rumsey sent him to college at State College, and Charles became a lawyer. He was admitted to the bar in 1877 at age twenty-two, and married Annie Hawthorn later that year. They had two children, Emma and Charles.

Charles’ legal practice was successful at first, and he decided to run for office. He entered the Democratic primary as a candidate for the state legislature. He lost the nomination in a very close vote, which provoked hard feelings between Charles, his brother Albert, and a precinct captain they blamed for Charles’ loss. Albert stabbed the precinct captain and fled to avoid prison. The incident led Charles to begin drinking to excess.

He relocated to Louisville in 1879 to practice law with his brother Samuel, but as the Louisville Courier Journal reported, “the drink habit had by this time such a strong hold on him that notwithstanding his brilliancy as lawyer and the influence of friends and relatives, he failed to make a success.” Another article was harsher, stating that Charles was “always considered the most blood-thirsty of the [Wing] boys, and his whole life has been rounded in a heap of disgraceful rows and fights. On several occasions he had attempted to take the life of his fellow-man, and has been heard to express himself that he never would be happy until he killed somebody.” (See Brothers in Blood below.)

Charles moved his young family to his wife’s hometown of Princeton, Kentucky in 1882 and took a position as City Attorney. On December 29, 1882, Charles “became drunk and while in that condition went out upon the streets and was soon engaged in using disgraceful language in a promiscuous crowd.” The City Marshal, W. R. Crugar, took him into custody, and was escorting Charles to the second floor of the police station when Charles pulled out a gun and shot Crugar in the head, killing him. Charles fired several more bullets, barely missing other officers, and was eventually captured and disarmed.

Charles’ family connections helped to secure the finest legal representation and repeated postponements of his trial. He was finally convicted in June 1885, two-and-a-half years after the murder, but he was only convicted of manslaughter, receiving a ridiculously light sentence of ten years in prison.

Following his release from prison, he moved to Greenville without his wife and children, but remained a violent drunk. The Courier Journal reported:

“He was a very troublesome and dangerous character in his sprees, and was liable to hurt his best friends or closest relatives. He had been incarcerated in jail for a number of months under the charge of trying to kill his old aunts, the Misses Wing, with whom his had lived since coming back here”.   

Shortly after he was released again, he travelled to St. Louis and took a room in a boardinghouse. His body was pulled out of the Mississippi River a few days later. It appeared he died October 3, 1897. Whether he had been murdered or had committed suicide couldn’t be conclusively determined, but suicide was the most likely explanation. His jacket pocket held a case containing a photo of a beautiful woman—his wife?—and a notepaper reading “I love thee and will leave thee never, Until my soul leaves life forever.” Charles was forty-two years old. His family did not bring his body back to Kentucky. He was buried in St. Louis.

Albert E. Wing was born February 24, 1860. His mother died shortly after his birth, and he was sent to Greenville to be raised by his father’s unmarried sisters. He seems to have been close to his brother Charles, for supposedly at the age of 19 he stabbed a precinct captain who Albert felt had disloyally voted against Charles in a political nomination fight in 1879. Albert also shot a schoolboy the same year. Still, he didn’t serve time until he murdered a man in April of 1883 in a fight over a woman. His life of crime continued, and included prison breaks and another murder. His complicated rap sheet deserves its own blog post, which will follow this one. Bert ended up dying in prison at age sixty, the only brother to live that long.

It is mind-boggling to imagine how a family with so many advantages could produce such a motley bunch of sons. One newspaper article defended the family, stating that “the wound given the dear old father by the late conduct of his two sons, was deep enough without adding insult and falsehood…” The writer was criticizing the lurid “Brothers in Blood” article.

While I’m sure Samuel Wing Sr. was wounded by his sons’ crimes, he had to bear some of the responsibility as well, if only for abandoning the two youngest boys to be raised by family members. And some of the gossip in the “Brothers in Blood” article seems to have been true in some respects. The article claimed that the Wing brothers had always been wild, stating:

“…while in their tender years the boys…were terrors to the neighborhood. At home they had full sway, and abroad they went armed with pistols and generally conducted themselves in desperado style. Sam, Weir, Charles and Albert usually went together, and made a practice of invading the public highways and shooting hogs, cattle or any brute that happened to come within the range of their pistols. They had a reckless disregard for human life..”

The news item below reporting that nineteen-year-old Albert shot a schoolboy would indicate that at least some of this gossip was based in reality. 

Samuel Wing, Sr. seems to have been an indifferent parent at best to have permitted such violent behavior. He was fortunate that at least two of his sons stayed on the right side of the law and were worthy of respectable burial in their hometown cemetery.  

 

Sources:

“Tributes to Rumsey Wing”. Louisville Commerial , Louisville, KY.  Reprinted and revised in the Owensboro Monitor, Owensboro, KY.  Nov. 11, 184 issue. Accessed via Newspapers.com.

Theodore Weir Wing headstone photos by CAWatkins on Findagrave.com

https://www.fold3.com/unit/160580/kentucky-35th-volunteer-infantry-company-fs-union-civil-war-stories

“Brothers in Blood”. Louisville Commercial, Louisville KY.  Apr. 6, 1883 issue. Reprinted in St. Louis Globe Democrat. St. Louis, MO.  Apr. 7, 1883 issue. Accessed via Newspapers.com.

“A Terrible Encourntre: A Former Citizen of Owensboro Slain, and in Return He Kills His Slayer.” Owensboro Messenger Examiner. Owensboro, KY. Nov. 9, 1881 issue. Accessed via Newspapers.com.

“The Tragic End of an Ill Spent Life Came to Charley Wing of Greenville”. The Owensboro Twice-a-Week Messenger. Owensboro KY. Oct. 6, 1897, issue. Accessed via Newspapers.com.

“The River Claims the Life of Charles F Wing.” Louisville Courier-Journal. Louisville, KY. Oct. 4, 1897, issue. Accessed via Newspapers.com. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-courier-journal-death-of-charles-f/122035834/

“At St. Louis the Body of Charles F. Wing Will Be Buried”. Louisville Courier-Journal. Louisville, KY. Oct. 5, 1897, issue. Accessed via Newspapers.com. https://www.newspapers.com/image/32971111/?match=1&terms=charles%20f%20wing

“Albert Wing, Wanted Here, Is Arrested”. Frankfort State Journal. Frankfort, KY. Apr 30, 1914 issue. Accessed via Newspapers.com.

Defense of the Wing Family. Owensboro Messenger. Owensboro, KY. Apr 10, 1883 issue. Accessed via Newspapers.com.