Several immigrants named WISE came from Old England to the shores of New England in the early settlement of this country. Which one of these was the first settler is not certain. Thomas is mentioned of Saco in 1636, but is not heard of again. Humphrey was in Ipswich in 1639, and had a wife and children. Joseph of Ipswich is mentioned in 1640. Nicholas was a freeman of Massachusetts in 1645, but there is no further mention of him.

(I) Joseph Wise, immigrant ancestor of the Wises of this sketch, is first mentioned in the will of George Alcock made in December, 1640, and there the testator speaks of him as his servant. Nothing of his antecedents is known. Savage thinks he may have been brought to America by Alcock when he came the third time from England in 1636. He was a butcher late in life, and died September 12, 1684. He married, December 3, 1641, Mary Thompson, perhaps the daughter of William Thompson, of Braintree. She died August 4, 1693. She was a member of the first church of Roxbury, whose record shows that Joseph and Mary (Thompson) Wise were the parents of seven sons and four daughters, who were baptized in the following order: Joseph, Jeremiah, Mary, John, Henry, Bethia, Katherine, Benjamin (died young), William, Benjamin and Abigail.

(II) Rev. John, fourth child and third son of Joseph and Mary (Thompson) Wise, was baptized August 15, 1652, and graduated from Harvard College in 1673. After leaving college he preached at Bradford, and went from that place as chaplain to a company of soldiers in King Philips war, in January, 1676.

This company, under command of Major Treat, was ordered to Nowagansett. He declined an invitation to settle and preach at Hatfield in 1677-78. In 1679 he took the oath of fidelity. He was highly recommended by the general court and went to Ipswich, where he was ordained August 12, 1683, and preached in a new parish called Chebacco, now Essex. In town meeting, August 23, 1687, he advised the town not to comply with Governor Sir Edmond Andross' order for raising a tax of a penny on a pound, without the authority of the people's representation. This is the first expression on these shores of that doctrine. "No taxation without representation," which afterward became the watchword of American patriotism. John Wise stated the issue clearly and forcibly: "Let us not pay the tax, because it has not been imposed by our representations;" and the town unanimously adopted a declaration to that effect. This occurred ninety years before the Declaration of Independence. For this bold act John Wise,with five of his fellow townsmen, was put in jail in Boston, kept there many days, and the Chebacco pastor was fined four hundred dollars, put under five thousand dollar bonds to keep the peace, and deposed from the ministry. Subsequently, with other principal men who acted with him, he made concession for such opposition to the government, and was permitted to resume his parochial duties. He was one of the representatives from Ipswich who met in Boston to reorganize the legislature after the administration of Andross was overthrown. He was appointed December 24 of the same year with the selectman of the town according to order of the general court to draw up a narrative of the late governor's treatment of himself and other Ipswich inhabitants. This narrative, like others of the kind, was forwarded to England to substantiate the charges against Andross. About this time Mr. Wise deemed it his duty to prosecute Chief Justice Dudley for denying him the right of a hearing under habeas corpus proceedings, while in prison. In compliance with the request of the legislature, July 5, 1690, he went as one of the chaplains of the ill-concocted expedition of Sir William Phipps against Quebec. In 1705 it was recommended by the Boston clergymen as an association to other similar bodies to consider the proposal for "Standing Councils," etc. This was a scheme of the Mathers to introduce an oligarchy into the New England church. Mr. Wise led the opposition to this proposition, and after a long and bitter struggle defeatedit. While conducting this controversy, he published, in 1710, a remarkable pamphlet entitled "The Churches Quarrel Espoused." It was "an excoriating satire," and the first American writing where learning, humor and sarcasm were combined with the literary spirit; and in this respect it marks a new era in American literature. It remains to-day the most thorough American exposition of church polity ever produced in this country. At a critical moment, it put a stop to the assumption of authority on the part of ministers; it established loyal congregations in their independence for all time to come; and it has been repeatedly used in the highest courts as an authority upon the questions of which it treats. Five years later it was re-written and more fully developed, being called "A Vindication of the Government of the New England Churches." Forty years after Mr. Wise's death, on the eve of the revolution, there sprang up an extraordinary demand for this book, and in 1772 an edition of one thousand copies was struck off and immediately sold. A second edition very soon found an equally quick sale among the leaders of the revolution. In several places the language of the book is almost identical with that of the Declaration of Independence, written long afterward. In all practical matters Mr. Wise was a leading citizen. In 1721 he advocated inoculation for small pox against deeply rooted prejudices and general reproaches. In person Mr. Wise was of majestic form and great muscular strength and activity. When young, and before his ordination, he was accounted a superior wrestler. Such repute was much more respectable in his day than in ours. Some years after his settlement at Chebacco, Captain John Chandler, of Andover. who had found no champion able to throw him, went down on purpose to prevail with Mr. Wise to try strength with him. After much objection he consented to take hold once with the captain. The result was that the military man was thrown over a bank wall and into the highway and compelled to acknowledge himself beaten. The intellectual powers of Mr. Wise compared well with his physical. His mind was of the first rank. His classical and theological attainments were eminent. His composition was rich in thought, purity, learning and piety. His oratory was eloquent. He died April 8, 1725. His wife's name was Abigail. Their children were: Jeremiah, Lucy, Joseph, Annie, Ruhaini, Mary, Henry and John. Three of the sons, Jeremiah, Henry and Joseph, graduated from Harvard College.