{"nrhp_refnum":"76000227","name":"Wing Fort House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Spring Hill Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"East Sandwich","county":"Barnstable County","state":"MA","lat":41.750970462000055,"lon":-70.46489460599997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1976-06-03","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Exploration/Settlement","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story, four-bay shingled house with a center chimney on Spring Hill Road in East Sandwich, Barnstable County, Massachusetts. It began as a one-and-a-half-story, one-room 'fort' built shortly before 1641 and was later joined to a second house moved to the site.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the house incorporates one of the oldest surviving structures in New England and is an important architectural and historic landmark on Cape Cod. It is also noted for having been owned by the same Wing family since 1641, giving a record of how successive generations of a New England family lived.","narrative":"Wing Fort House, on Spring Hill Road in East Sandwich, is a shingled, two-story, four-bay house with a center chimney, set among open marshland near Cape Cod Bay. Its oldest part is a one-room 'fort' built shortly before 1641 and bought that year by Stephen Wing. In the mid-eighteenth century a second house, probably built around 1700, was moved to the site and joined to the first. Each house lost its original chimney, a new roof and eighteenth-century paneling were added, and a kitchen was built at the back. Behind the paneling in the Old Fort Room, seventeenth-century vertical sheathing with a rare spline molding survives. The house is significant as one of New England's oldest surviving structures and for continuous ownership by the Wing family since 1641. The Wing Family of America, Inc. acquired it in 1942, and it now serves as a museum. Later tree-ring testing of its timbers was inconclusive.","period_of_significance":"1641-present","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Used as a museum open to the public and as a meeting place for the Wing Family of America, Inc.; condition described as good, with the building well maintained.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:54.628165-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/65/7940/63794065/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/76000227.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/76000227/fe7ab55308-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/76000227/fe7ab55308-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"RadPal","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wing_Fort_House_02.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">RadPal</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wing_Fort_House_02.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63794065","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Fort_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8025087"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/barnstable-county/wing-fort-house-76000227/"}