Cornelius WRIGHT

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• Reference Number: 15268
• _UID: 81CB1CB621B9486192F375F572BAD445D512

Notes:

Information downloaded from Don Dickenson's GedCom last updated December 14, 2003.

Cornelius married Hannah BAKER on 9 Mar 1788 in Williamstown, Berkshire Co., Massachusetts. Hannah and died. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• Reference Number: 3392
• _UID: 4640221B1F614D1AAE881728DE45357AF18B

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Information downloaded from Don Dickenson's GedCom last updated December 14, 2003.

Jonathan married Mary WELLS on 17 Apr 1760 in Newington Congregational Church, Newington, Hartford Co., Connecticut. Mary was born on 7 Aug 1739 in Newington, Hartford Co., Connecticut; died on 19 Aug 1823 in Williamstown, Berkshire Co., Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• Reference Number: 13320
• _UID: CF8B83A508184C7BB7A424DC4A24488C065B

Notes:

Information downloaded from Don Dickenson's GedCom last updated December 14, 2003.

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• Reference Number: 304
• _UID: BC053831BF93477A954CBBE8B5777C89F24D
• Baptism: 26 Sep 1714, Wethersfield, Hartford County, Connecticut

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Josiah Wright was the son of Jonathan and Hannah (Hand) Wright. He was born on September 19, 1714 in Wethersfield, Hartford Co., Connecticut. He married Abigail Boardman on May 15, 1735 in Wethersfield. Josiah, Abigail and their youngest children moved from Wethersfield, Hartford Co., Connecticut to in about 1764, after their eldest sons Jonathan and Josiah were married in Wethersfield. While some of their children went with them to Williamstown, Berkshire Co., Massachusetts, their son Josiah remained in Wethersfield. Evidence of where they went when they left Wethersfield, and an interesting description of the family is contained in the book Origins in Williamstown (MA), Perry, Arthur Latham - 1894, page 612:

"There came to Williamstown in 1764, from Weathersfield, Connecticut, a man by the name of Josiah Wright. His wife's name was Abigail, and both became members of the Williamstown church, it is to be presumed, by letter. They had a son, Josiah Wright, Junior, and probably several other sons. There was a Gideon Wright and his wife Sarah, who were also very early members of the church; and it is not to be doubted that a pew was set aside in the meetinghouse of 1768 for the Wright family. There is an epitaph in the old burial-ground by Hemlock Brook, -- "Mr. Jonathan Wright, who died April 10, A.D. 1766 in the 30th year of his age." Justice Wright and his wife, Mercy, had children born in town, 1779-1782; and Stephen Bacon, 2d, told the writer that when he was a small boy -- that is, at the beginning of this century -- there was an Aaron Wright, who lived on the Upper Hopper Brook above Bacons'. But, as we shall see shortly, interest in the Wright family turns rather on a locality than on persons particular. Josiah Wright, Junior, bought of Samuel Clark in July, 1772, for 5 pounds, the meadow lot No. 63, which is the meadow lot directly south of Blair's (now Hubbell's). As we have seen before, Blair's original house stood north of the road, in what is now an orchard; and there is some considerable evidence that Wright owned meadow lot No. 62 as well as 63, and, at any rate, his access to 63 must have been past the present Hubbell buildings to the south. However this may be (and it is not important), it is certain that Josiah Wright's son settled not long after his arrival in town on first-division fifty-acre lot No. 61, the northern end of which comes up to the Blair road before that road turns sharply north into the Stratton road. The eastern side of Wright's lot 61 flanks what was then Aaron Bacon's lot 63 (these were both fifty-acre lots), and Bacon must have come out to the Blair road very near where the senior Wright built his first home. This house was superseded after a while by a brick house, which has only lately been taken down, and about which cluster a series of weird traditions, which the future novelist of the town (may God speed his coming!) may likely enough work up into a tale that shall outlive these imperfect records now being woven into a loose fabric that may ravel out in time.

It is not at all certain, hardly probable, that the brick house was built while the elder Wright was still in the saddle there. If not, it was certainly built by one or more of his sons. The family remained in possession, and gradually acquired a bad reputation. The father and mother moved on to Arlington, Vermont, where Abigail died in February, 1795, and Josiah in February, 1799, he in his eighty-seventh year and she in her seventy-ninth; and at some time between the close of the war and the close of the century, the inmates (inhabitants) of the brick house were thought so ill of by their neighbors that the latter lent a ready ear to a story of murder committed by the former, and repeated it over, little by little, with ghostly details and additions, to their children, from several of whom the writer has derived it directly, though, of course, with quaint and considerable variations. This is not history, nor does it aspire to become such; but there may have been some basis of fact, and surely a stiff basis of locality, for a story that has been told under breath, and not without shudders, for several generations, in the Blair family and in the Williams family, -- the two nearest neighbors, -- and also in the Corbin and other families at the South Part. It is the only tale of robbery and murder and ghosts that connects itself, even in dimmest outline, with the early story of Williamstown, and runs in general in something like the way following: The Wrights had become considerably indebted to a certain pedlar driving one horse who frequented those parts in quest of the usual driblets of gain. The neighbors has seen him drive up to the brick house, had watched for his return, and had not discovered it. In the mean time, mysterious movements were observed in and around the house. Lights were seen at unusual times, and in usually unfrequented parts of the house. The suspicions of the neighbors, that something wrong was going on in and around the Wright house, were thoroughly aroused, and these suspicions were mutually inflamed by communicating them. In a day or two, all was still and apparently abandoned at the brick house. Neighbors combined in fear and dread, but with all due resolution, to search for the body of the pedlar and for his various effects. Possible places of interment or hiding away were scrutinized, sheds and barn and cellar were examined, and nothing was found anywhere of a questionable character, until at last the pedlar's horse was discovered in the best room of the brick house, with cloths wrapped round his hoofs, apparently so that his stampings on the floor might not be heard by the neighbors, before the inmates (inhabitants) had gotten a good ways off from the premises. No stampings or neighings from the real horse had then been heard by anybody; but years and years afterwards, and to many successive occupants of the house, mysterious sounds issued from that room, slight but distinct, treadings on that floor, deadened as if falling on cloths, and neighings, not equine and earthly, but stifled and supernatural, as if the ghost of the pedlar had come back to seek for his horse, and the horse had greeted his old master with at least the distant echoes of accustomed sounds. There are old people, still living, who have confessed, in the writer's hearing, to strange perturbations of mind as they have entered or quitted, or even thought of (in the night), the square room of the old brick house above Blair's."
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WILLIAMSTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS 1790 US CENSUS:
In The Gore Adjoining - Sorted By Head of Household.

|--------Free White --------|
|-- Males ---| |
16 Under Females | Other Slaves Page
& Over 16
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------
Wright, Aaron 1 1 4 0 0 39
Wright, Elias 1 1 2 0 0 39
Wright, Jesse 1 3 1 0 0 39
Wright, Jonathan 1 2 1 0 0 39
Wright, Josiah 2 0 3 0 0 39
Wright, Miles 1 2 3 0 0 39
Wright, Solomon 1 2 4 0 0 39
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In the Berkshire MA (Northern District) Land Records Indexes (grantor and grantee), Josiah Wright (including Josiah Wright, Jr.) appeares as grantor in 15 transactions from 1769 to 1803.


Information downloaded from Don Dickenson's GedCom last updated December 14, 2003.

Josiah married Abigail BOARDMAN on 15 May 1735 in Wethersfield, Hartford County, Connecticut. Abigail was born on 3 Sep 1717 in Wethersfield, Hartford County, Connecticut; died on 16 Feb 1795 in (Age 78) Williamstown, Berkshire Co., Massachusetts; was buried in Old Burial Ground, Williamstown, Berkshire Co., Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• Reference Number: 305
• _UID: 52D9866BABF444548389E703BA8AB0FA37E6

Notes:

Information downloaded from Don Dickenson's GedCom last updated December 14, 2003.

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• Reference Number: 11842
• _UID: 873CF141CC4F4D77B55AE4305EA9BC18D2FE

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WILL OF JONATHAN WRIGHT - dated March 29, 1740 - Wethersfield, Connecticut: I, Jonathan Wright of Wethersfield, do make and ordain this my last will and testament: I give to my wife Anne 1-3 part of my moveable estate, as household goods, &c. I give to my son Judah Wright, whom I make and ordain my only and sole executor, all and singular my land and 2-3 of my stock and cattle, by him freely to be possessed and injoyed, only that part I now order him my sd. executor to distribute to some of the rest of my dear children out of my estate, to say: First , I order my executor to pay 15 pounds money to my daughter Thankfull. 2ndly, I order him to pay 15 pounds to my daughter Elizabeth. Also, that he pay 15 pounds to my daughter Mary. Also, that he pay 5 pounds money to my daughter Jane. Also, I order him to pay to my granddaughter Damarus 4 pounds money. Also, I order him my abovesd. executor that he pay to my two grandsons, Jonathan and Josiah Wright, 4 pounds money each, when the eldest of them comes of age . JONATHAN WRIGHT, s Witness: Martin Kellogg, Joseph Andrews, Joseph Benton. Before signing and sealing, the following was written and is part of the will of the above mentioned Jonathan Wright, to say: that 2-3 of my household goods to be equally divided among my daughters . JONATHAN WRIGHT, s Witness: Martin Kellogg, Joseph Andrews, Joseph Benton. Inventory taken on July 14, 1740 by Jabez Whittlesey and Martin Kellogg - 296 pounds, 1 shilling, 5 pence Will exhibed by Judah Wright and proven October 2, 1740 (Court Record, page 73) (Hartford District Probate Records - Vol. 13, pages 210-11)

Jonathan married Hannah (Ann) HAND on 26 Mar 1706 in Wethersfield, Hartford County, Connecticut. Hannah was born on 10 Jul 1683 in Of East Guilford, New Haven, Connecticut; died after 1724. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• _UID: 7492957B4E804EFD8F213E18EA5904AE2A00

Notes:

Information downloaded from Don Dickenson's GedCom last updated December 14, 2003.