Captain James R. Wright
Born about 1742 in Augusta Co, Virginia, British Americamap
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of John Wright and Lydia (Grant) Wright
Brother of Mary Wright, Joshua Wright, John Wright, Mary Wright, Sarah Wright, Esther Harris Wright, Lydia Wright, Elizabeth Wright, Janet Wright, John Wright and Elizabeth (Wright) Payne [half]
Husband of Mary (Miller) Wright — married 1765 in Augusta, Virginiamap
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of James Wright Jr., James Wright Jr., Hannah (Wright) Lynn, Ellen (Wright) Winn and Mathena (Wright) Robison
Died 25 Mar 1782 in Mercer, Lincoln, Kentucky, United States
Biography
The land upon which the Wright House was built was the first to be settled in this part of Pennsylvania. Two brothers, Joshua and James Wright, laid claim with a Virginia title to 800 acres in 1764 and erected a crude cabin about 200 yards from the present location of the house. These two young men had been in the vicinity with Colonel Boquet that year while serving with an expedition from the Cumberland Valley against the Indians in what is now Ohio. This was three years before the signing of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, with the Indians ceding the land to the white man. James and Joshua Wright were Virginians of Scotch-Irish descent. They were loyal to the Virginia colony during the boundary dispute with Pennsylvania and, thus ignored the Pennsylvania law prohibiting settlement of the land west of the mountains. Their boyhood home had been on the north fork of the Shenandoah River near Harrisonburg, VA.
It is in the Augusta County records that the Wright name first appears in the annals of American history. John Wright, the father of James and Joshua, died in 1762 but in the years from 1746 until 1762 he had become quite prosperous, having entered into many land deals. At the time of his death he held notes on ten of his neighbors, had built and operated a grist mill and had extensive land holdings. The Wright family which James and Joshua left behind in Harrison-burg in 1764 had consisted of John and Lydia Wright, their four sons, Abraham, James, Joshua and John and their six daughters, Mary, Elizabeth, Sarah, Janet, Esther and Lydia.
The young men dreamed of the free land making them wealthy men. Upon reaching their late teens they began, during the inactive seasons of farm life, to travel up and down the Shenandoah Valley, as far north as the Cumberland Valley listening to the stories of older explorers, making friends with them and looking for a chance to climb those mountains. Opportunity came with the Boquet Expedition into Ohio against the Indians in 1764 and they took it. Records show that Joshua did return to Harrisonburg in 1772 to sell a parcel of land he had inherited from his father. In 1779 Joshua bought from his brother James all his share of their joint purchase. After the sale, James Wright went to Kentucky where he later was killed by the Indians.
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wright-4856
