William R. Wright

1775-1850 · Essex County, New Jersey → Butler County, Ohio → La Grange, Cass County, Michigan

Born 1775, Essex County, New Jersey

Died 1850

Children include Susannah

He took his family out of New Jersey to Butler County, Ohio, in 1808, and twenty years later moved them again, to the prairie in southwestern Michigan. That second journey the county history describes: they came across country from southwestern Ohio in wagons in October 1828, saw nobody at all after Fort Wayne until they reached Edwardsburg, and camped in the woods on the way. They arrived with five horses and twelve head of cattle and nothing to feed them but two acres of standing corn bought from a neighbour. The corn ran out. They cut down hackberry trees, split them into rails to carry them in, hewed off the rough bark and stripped the spongy layer underneath to feed the stock, and the animals lived on it through a winter of deep snow, weak enough that a beast that lay down had to be watched and helped up. The family ate corn meal and potatoes. He became a justice of the peace, married the first couple wedded in the township in 1829, and took the acknowledgement on the plat of Cassopolis in November 1831. He died at La Grange in May 1850.

Children

Susannah Wright (1800-1890)

Sources

History of Cass County, Michigan (1882), in the chapter on La Grange township. 'In the month of October, the Wright family arrived, and located on Section 21, where Stephen D. Wright now lives; and about the same time came Eli P. Bonnell and his wife (Elizabeth Wright). William R. Wright and his wife Sarah (Baldwin) were from Butler County, Ohio, and had come there in 1808, from New Jersey. They came across the country from Southwestern Ohio in wagons, and had a dreary ride ... After leaving Fort Wayne, Ind., they saw no human beings, until they arrived at Edwardsburg; but encamped nights in the most favorable places they could find in the dreary woods. On arriving at their destination, they bought two acres of standing corn from Abraham Loux, and this was all they had with which to feed five horses and twelve head of cattle they had brought with them.' The same chapter records that they cut hackberry trees and stripped the inner bark to feed the stock through the winter, that the family lived on corn meal and potatoes, that Squire William R. Wright married the first couple wedded in the township in 1829, and that the Cassopolis plat was acknowledged before him on 19 November 1831. Of a neighbour it adds that Isaac Shurte 'emigrated to Butler County, Ohio, where he married Miss Mary Wright,' born in New Jersey 11 June 1801.

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Cite: Heirology, "William R. Wright (1775-1850)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/william-r-wright-1775-1850-8c0a42.