Wing Family Cemetery
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Wing Family Cemetery is a historic cemetery in
Wayne, Maine Wayne is a town in Kennebec County, Maine, United States. The population was 1,129 at the 2020 census. The town was named after Revolutionary War General Anthony Wayne. During the summer, Wayne is home to Camp Androscoggin. A popular recreatio ...
. Established as a family cemetery in 1867, it is one of the state's most distinctive small cemeteries, organized with concentric circles around a central monument. The cemetery was added to the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1991.


Location

The Wing Family Cemetery is located in a rural setting north of Wayne's village center, on the east side of Pond Road near Pocasset Lake. It occupies a square parcel, which is ringed by a cut granite stone wall. A line of maple trees separates the street from the westernmost wall. with


History

The Wing "Ring" Cemetery was founded by the descendants of the seven sons of Simeon Wing & Mary Allen. The seven sons (Thomas, Ebenezer, Dr. Moses, Aaron, Allen, Simeon & William) emigrated from Sandwich (Pocasset, now Bourne), Barnstable Co., Massachusetts to what was originally called New Sandwich at the end of the Revolutionary War. The brothers settled around the body of water originally called Wing Pond, but now known as Lake Pocasset. Originally, the family had a traditional "burying place" on the homestead of the youngest son, William (as the parents lived with William for the last years of their lives). In 1867, descendants of the brothers formed a Wing Cemetery Corporation for the purpose of creating a new memorial to their deceased members. They leveled off the top of a hill, dug down several feet to remove all of the larger rocks, and graded the lot. Alonzo Wing of Wisconsin drafted the "ringed" formation, aligning the stones in concentric circles around a central obelisk. James Norris Wing learned the trade of stone-cutting and supervised the creation of curved granite footings to form the base of the concentric circles (upon which the gravestones would be placed). The process took several years, and hundreds of dollars (which was privately financed by the Cemetery Corporation through donations from family members). The cemetery was finally completed about 1871.


See also

*
Kent Burying Ground Kent Burying Ground is a historic cemetery at the corner of Fayette Corner Road and Oak Hill Road in Fayette, Maine. Established in 1880 by Elias Kent, it is unusual for its layout of concentric rings around a central monument, only known in on ...
, also a concentric ring cemetery *
National Register of Historic Places listings in Kennebec County, Maine This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Kennebec County, Maine. This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Kennebec County, Maine, United ...


References


Wing Family of America, Inc.
{{National Register of Historic Places Cemeteries in Kennebec County, Maine Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine 1867 establishments in Maine National Register of Historic Places in Kennebec County, Maine Cemeteries established in the 1860s