Win-Wri: Windom through Wright

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography.


WINDOM, William, 1827-1891, lawyer.  Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Served in U.S. Congress 1859-1869, U.S. Senate, 1870-1877. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 562; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 383-384; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 23, p. 631; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 383-384:

WINDOM, WILLIAM (May 10, 1827-January 29, 1891), representative and senator from Minnesota, secretary of the treasury, was the son of Hezekiah and Mercy(Spencer) Windom, Quaker offspring of pioneer settlers in Ohio. Born in Belmont County, in that state, he moved with his family in 1837 to Knox County, a still newer frontier. The boy made up his mind to become a lawyer, to the di stress of his parents, who, however, aided him as he worked his way through Martinsburg Academy and then read law with Judge R. C. Hurd of Mount Vernon. There, admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-three, he began practice, entered politics, and was elected public prosecutor as a Whig.

After a few years he determined to try his fortune in Minnesota Territory, and in 1855 settled in Winona. Becoming a member of the firm of Sargent, Wilson & Windom, he practised law, dabbled in real estate, and was elected to Congress as a Republican, when the state was admitted in 1858. His service in the House lasted until 1869. He was a member of the Committee of Thirty-Three, a supporter and friend of Lincoln, and in the contest between Johnson and the Radicals, allied himself with the latter. For two term she was chairman of the committee on Indian affairs; he headed a special committee to visit the Indian tribes in 1865 and also a committee to investigate the conduct of the Indian commissioner in 1867. After the Sioux outbreak he was one of the signers of the memorial urging the President to have all the captured Indians hanged. While generally fair in his attitude towards Indians, he always considered the Sioux beyond the pale.

Windom sought a senatorial position in 1865, but it was not until 1870 that he reached the Senate, being appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of D. S. Norton. In the following session the legislature elected another for the remaining weeks of Norton's term, but chose Windom for the full term from 1871 to 1877. He was reelected in 1877, resigned in 1881 to become secretary of the treasury (March 8-November 14), and then, after Garfield's death, was again selected to complete his own term. His most notable service in the Senate was probably his chairmanship of the special committee on transportation routes to the seaboard, which submitted a two-volume report (Senate Report, 307, 43 Congress, I Session) advocating competitive routes under government al control, development of waterways, and the establishment of a bureau to collect and publish facts. Both in the House and in the Senate he urged a liberal policy towards railroads, and he was a supporter of homestead legislation. A strong nationalist, he declared, February 28, 1881, when the Panama canal project was being pushed by a French company, that "under no circumstances [should] a foreign government, or a company chartered by a foreign government, have control over an isthmian highway" (Congressional Record, 46 Congress, 3 Session, p. 2212). From 1876 to 1881 he was chairman of the committee on appropriations, and after 1881 chairman of the committee on foreign relations.

In the Republican National Convention of 1880 Windom's name was brought forward by the Minnesota delegation, which supported him faithfully until the stampede to Garfield. As Garfield's second choice for secretary of the treasury, opposed vigorously by James G. Blaine for the place, Windom obtained high commendation for his successful refunding of over $600,000,000 in bonds at a lower interest rate and without specific legal authorization. The secretaryship made no real break in his senatorial career and he confidently expected to be reelected in 1883, but a combination of circumstances--notably his mistake in opposing the renomination of Mark Hill Dunnell for Congress, since he feared Dunnell had an eye on his own seat, dashed his hopes ("Benjamin Back number," in the Daily News, St. Paul, January 23, 1921). His chagrin was such that after a year's vacation in Europe he took up his residence in the East and never returned to Minnesota. For six years Windom was out of office, devoting himself to the law and his considerable holdings in real estate and railroad securities. In 1889 he was again called to the treasury department and held the secretaryship until his death, which occurred suddenly at Delmonico's, New York, after he had delivered an address to the New York Board of Trade and Transportation. His tenure was marked by no especially significant features, although an unstable economic situation, aggravated by monetary disturbance, made his position both important and delicate.

A high-tariff man and generally an advocate of sound money, although he was a believer in international bimetalism and had voted for the Bland-Allison Act of 1878, Windom stood out from the rank and file of his Western contemporaries and hence, for the most part, was looked upon as safe by conservative Eastern Republicans. No scandal ever attached to his name in a period when too many of his contemporaries had to defend reputations not altogether invulnerable (C. T. Murray in Philadelphia Times, reprinted in Daily Pioneer Press, June 2, 1880). On August 20, 1856, Windom married Ellen Towne Hatch of Warwick, Massachusetts, who survived him, with a son and two daughters.

[W. W. Folwell, A History of Minnesota, volumes II, III (1924-26); G. A. Wright, "William Windom, 1827- 1890" (MS.), University of Wis. thesis in Minnesota Historical Society; Memorial Tributes to the Character and Public Services of William Windom, Together with His Last Address (18 91); C. E. Flandrau, Encyclopedia of Biography of Minnesota (1900);  H. C. Folsom, Fifty Years in the Northwest (1888); T. C. Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield (1925), volume II; R. P. Herrick, Windom the Man and the School (1903); Biographical Dir. American Congress (1928); New York Times, January 30, 1891; Daily Pioneer Press (St. Paul), January 30-February 1, 1891; Washington Post, January 30-February 3, 1891.]

L. B. S-e.


WISE, Daniel (January 10; 1813-December 19, 1898), Methodist Episcopal clergyman, editor, writer. He lectured frequently, especially in behalf of the anti-slavery cause.  When in 1843 a number of Methodists withdrew from the Church and formed the Wesleyan Connection, a non-episcopal and anti-slavery denomination, Wise to joined them.  He was appointed in 1852 as editor of Zion's Herald. Through this publication he gave strong support to those who favored the exclusion of all slaveholders from the Methodist Church.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 422-423:

WISE, DANIEL (January 10; 1813-December 19, 1898), Methodist Episcopal clergyman, editor, writer, was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, the son of Daniel and Mary Wise. His formal education was received in the grammar school of Portsmouth, and in a classical school of which officials of Christ Church, Oxford, were the patrons. After leaving school he was apprenticed to a grocer, but soon opened art academy in Portsmouth.

In 1833 he emigrated to the United States and Went to Grafton County, New Hampshire, where he taught school. Having been converted under Methodist influences in England, in 1834, at Lisbon, New Hampshire, he was made a local preacher by the quarterly conference of the Landaff Circuit. His gifts as a writer and speaker were at once recognized and in addition to preaching he lectured frequently, especially in behalf of the anti-slavery cause. Removing to Massachusetts in 1837, he supplied churches at Hingham and Quincy and was employed by anti-slavery societies. Always literary in his tastes, he also edited the Sunday School Messenger (1838-44), said to have been the first Methodist publication of its kind, and the Ladies' Pearl (1840-43), a monthly magazine for the edification of women. In 1840 he was received into the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church on trial, but was not ordained elder until 1843. Meanwhile, he served churches in Ipswich, Lowell, and Springfield. When in 1843 a considerable number of Methodists withdrew from the Church and formed the Wesleyan Connection, a non-episcopal and anti-slavery denomination, Wise was inclined to join them, and in 1844 was without pastoral charge. Finally deciding to remain in the Methodist Episcopal fold, he became, in 1845, a member of the Providence Conference. During the next twelve years he was pastor at Nantucket, Massachusetts, Hope Street Church, Providence, Rhode Island, and Fall River and New Bedford, Massachusetts.

His literary abilities and his reputation as a keen controversialist led to his appointment in 1852 as editor of Zion's Herald. Through this publication he gave strong support to those who favored the exclusion of all slaveholders from the Methodist Church. In 1856 the General Conference elected him corresponding secretary of the Sunday School Union and editor of its publications. This position he occupied for sixteen years, after 1860 also serving the Tract Society in the same capacities. A partial failure of voice compelled him to curtail public speaking and after 1872 he made his home in Englewood, New Jersey, and devoted himself principally to writing. For a few months in 1887-88 he was editor of the Methodist Review.

His books, published over a long period, were numerous and included religious works, biographies, and stories for young people, many of the last named appearing under the pseudonyms Lawrence Lancewood and Francis Forrester. Among his earlier productions were The Path of Life: or, Sketches of the Way to Glory and Immortality (1848); The Young Lady's Counsellor (1852), outlining the sphere and duties of young women and the dangers that beset them; and Popular Objections to Methodism, Considered and Answered (1856), His biographical writings include Uncrowned Kings (1875), stories of men who rose from obscurity to renown; Heroic Methodists of the Olden Times (1882); and a series of brief sketches of English and American literary figures, including among others, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Addison, Carlyle, Wordsworth, Longfellow, and Irving. These sketches all appeared in 1883. Wise was most widely known perhaps for his tales for young people, written with a moral and religious purpose. Their character is suggested by such titles as Dick Duncan: The Story of a Boy Who Loved Mischief (1860); Jessie Carlton: The Story of a Girl Who Fought with Little Impulse the Wizard (1861); and Stephen and His Tempter (1873). Many of these tales appeared under the serial titles "Glen Morris Stories," "The Lindendale Stories," and "The Windwood Cliff Series." In August 1836 Wise was married in New York to Sarah Ann Hill. He died in Englewood, survived by two daughters.

[Year Book of the New England Southern Annual Conference, 1899; Zions Herald, December 28, 1898; Christian Advocate (New York), December 29, 1898; Sun (New York), December 20, 1898.]

H. E. S.


WISTAR, Dr. Caspar, 1761-1818, physician, educator, president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society

(Locke, 1901, p. 93; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 433-434; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 23, p. 700). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 433-434:

WISTAR, CASPAR (September 13, 1761-January22, 1818), physician, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Richard and Sarah (Wyatt) Wistar, and a grandson of Caspar Wistar [q.v.], glass manufacturer. He attended the Penn Charter School and began his medical studies under Dr. John Redman [q.v.]. He attended the courses at the medical school at the time of the separation of the College of Philadelphia and the newly created University of the State of Pennsylvania, receiving the degree of B.M. from the latter in 1782. The following year he went abroad and, after studying for a year in London went to Edinburgh University, where he received the degree of M.D. in 1786. In Edinburgh he served two terms as president of the Royal Medical Society, a student organization, and assisted in founding a natural history society. His graduating thesis, De Animow Demisso, was dedicated to Benjamin Franklin and Dr. William Cullen. After a tour of the Continent he returned to Philadelphia in 1787. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia had been organized in January 1787, and it is a token of the esteem in which young Wistar was held that he was elected a junior Fellow in April, only a few months after his return. In 1789 he succeeded Benjamin Rush [q.v.] as professor of chemistry in the medical school of the College of Philadelphia. When the University of the State of Pennsylvania and the College of Philadelphia were united in 1792 as the University of Pennsylvania, he was made adjunct professor to William Shippen [q.v.], professor of anatomy, surgery, and midwifery. Separate chairs of surgery and midwifery were later given to Philip Syng Physick and Thomas Chalkley James [qq.v.]. On Shippen's death in 1808, Wistar succeeded him as full professor of anatomy and midwifery, and from 1810 until his death continued as professor of anatomy. In 1811 he published his System of Anatomy, the first American textbook on that subject. His chief achievement as a practical anatomist was the elucidation of the correct anatomical relations between the ethmoid and sphenoid bones. Wistar's other writings are all comprised in his Eulogium. on Doctor William Shippen (1818) and a half-dozen communications to the American Philosophical Society (Transactions, III, 1793; IV, 1799, n.s., I, 1818).

His other activities were varied. He was one of the physicians to the Philadelphia Dispensary and a member of the staff of the Pennsylvania Hospital (1793-1810), served valiantly during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, and in 1809 founded a society for the promotion of vaccination. In 1787 he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society, and throughout his life it was a predominating interest with him. He was elected curator in 1793 and vice-president in 1795, and from 1815 to 1818, succeeding Thomas Jefferson, he served as president of the Society. On Sunday evenings (later on Saturday) Wistar kept open house for the members of the Society and visiting scientists in his large mansion at the corner of Fourth and Prune (now De Lancey) Streets. The house is still standing (1936) and is lived in by some of Wistar's collateral descendants. After his death a group was organized to perpetuate these "Wistar Parties," and from 1818 until 1864 the "Wistar Association," composed of from eight to twenty-four members chosen from the membership of the American Philosophical Society, entertained in succession at their homes during the months from December to May. In 1886 the Wistar Association was reorganized, and its parties have continued a feature of social life in Philadelphia. Wistar had an extensive correspondence with foreign scientific men, including Humboldt, Cuvier, and Simmering. The Abbe Correa da Serra, Portuguese minister to the United States, was a frequent visitor at his house. In 1818 Thomas Nuttall [q.v.] named for him the beautiful plant Wistaria.

Wistar was married twice. By his first wife, Isabella Marshall, daughter of Christopher Marshall, whom he married on May 15, 1788, he had no issue. By his second wife, Elizabeth Mifflin, whom he married on November 28, 1798, he had two sons and a daughter. His children left no descendants. For some years before his death he suffered from heart disease, with severe attacks of angina pectoris. He died on January 22, 1818. Even the ill-natured and caustic Charles Caldwell [q.v.] writes of Wistar's genial and generous disposition. Though he criticizes him for unpunctuality in keeping professional engagements and speaks disparagingly of liability as a lecturer in his early years, he regarded Wistar as infinitely superior in scholarship to any of his professional colleagues and says that in his later life he excelled in lecturing. After his death Wistar's family presented his large anatomical collection to the University of Pennsylvania for an anatomical muse um. This was added to very materially by William Edmonds Horner [q.v. ] and other successors of Wistar, and for many years was known as the Wistar and Horner Museum. In 1892 it was taken over by the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, which was founded and generously endowed by Wistar's great-nephew, Isaac Jones Wistar (1827-1905).

[See William Tilghman, An Eulogium in Commemoration of Dr. Caspar Wistar (1818), with notes in MS. in the library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia; Charles Caldwell, An Eulogium on Caspar Wistar, M.D. (1818); David Hosack, Tribute to the Memory of the Late Caspar Wistar, M.D. (1818); Joseph Carson, History of the Medic. Department of the University of Pennsylvania (1869); W. S. W. Ruschenberger, An Account of ... the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (1887); Autobiography of Isaac Jones Wistar (2 volumes, 1914); H. A. Kelly, Some American Medic. Botanists (1914), which contains material supplied by Dr. T. J. Wistar, Wistar's grand-nephew; W. S. Middleton, in Annals of Medic. History (1922), volume IV; death notice and obituary in Poulson's American Daily Advertiser, January 23, 24, 1818. See also R. W. Davids, The Wistar Family (1896); J. R. Tyson, Sketch of the Wistar Party of Philadelphia (1898); and H. L. Carson, The Centenary of the Wistar Party (1918). The College of Physicians of Philadelphia has a number of Wistar's lecture notebooks in MS., as well as a copy by S. B. Waugh of the portrait of Wistar by Bass Otis.]

F. R. P.


WOOD, Reuben (c. 1792-October 1, 1864), jurist, governor of Ohio,  He was elected governor of Ohio by a plurality. In his inaugural he showed his anti-slavery leanings by criticizing the newly enacted federal Fugitive Slave Law, though he did not countenance nullification or violence. His first term was reduced to one year by the state constitution of 1851, which changed gubernatorial elections to odd numbered years. He was easily reelected. In this campaign, Salmon P. Chase [q. v.], then United States senator, left the Free Soil party and supported Wood.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 470-471:

WOOD, REUBEN (c. 1792-October 1, 1864), jurist, governor of Ohio, was born in Middletown, Rutland County, Vermont, the eldest son of the Reverend Nathaniel Wood, formerly a chaplain in the Continental Army. Reuben received his early education at home but at the age of fifteen went across the Canadian border to reside with an uncle. He studied the classics with a Catholic priest and began to read law with an attorney, but was forced to flee from Canada at the outbreak of the War of 1812 to escape forced military service, and landed at Sacketts Harbor, New York, after a hazardous crossing of Lake Ontario in a small boat. For a brief period he did military service and then studied law with General Jonas Clark of Middletown, Vermont.

Wood moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1818, the third lawyer to appear in that village of six hundred inhabitants. He was successful as a jury lawyer, but was soon drawn into politics, being elected to the state Senate in 1825, and serving three terms (1825-30). In January 1830 the legislature elected him president judge of the third common pleas circuit, a position he held until February 1833, when, chosen by the Assembly, he began a service of fourteen years on the Ohio supreme court. A Whig majority refused him a third term in 1847, but his services were recognized by the Democratic party in 1850, when it made him its candidate for governor. He was elected by a plurality over William Johnston, Whig, and Edward Smith, Free Soiler. In his inaugural he showed his anti-slavery leanings by criticizing the newly enacted federal Fugitive Slave Law, though he did not countenance nullification or violence. His first term was reduced to one year by the state constitution of 1851, which changed gubernatorial elections to odd numbered years. He was easily reelected over Samuel F. Vinton, Whig, and Samuel Lewis, Free Soiler. In this campaign, Salmon P. Chase [q. v.], then United States senator, left the Free Soil party and supported Wood.

His second term was marked by much significant legislation to carry out provisions of the new constitution, but the lack of a veto power limited the governor's influence over the legislature. The general anti-bank, hard money position of his party had his approval, though he was not regarded as an extremist. At the National Democratic Convention of 1852, he was a possibility for the presidential nomination, but the presence of factions in the Ohio delegation destroyed whatever chances he had. In July 1853 Wood resigned as governor to become American consul at Valparaiso, Chile, a minor but supposedly lucrative post. Though he was soon acting American minister, he was dissatisfied and returned to Ohio in 1855 to resume his law practice in Cleveland, and presently to retire to his farm, "Evergreen Place," Rockport. In the party split of 1860, Wood, a supporter of the Buchanan administration, presided over a bolting state convention to name a Breckinridge electoral ticket in opposition to the regular Douglas ticket. He became a Union man at the outbreak of the Civil War, however, and had been chosen to preside over a great Union mass meeting in the campaign for the reelection of Lincoln when his death occurred.

Wood's tall, lean frame gained him the sobriquet, " the old Cuyahoga chief." His love of fun and practical jokes and his Yankee wit added to his popularity, though he was rather blunt of speech and at times somewhat tactless. He was married in 1816 to Mary Rice, daughter of Truman Rice of Clarendon, Vermont, and was survived by his wife and two daughters.

[Wood's judicial opinions are in 6-15 Ohio Reports; his papers as governor, in the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Library The events of his administration are covered in C. B. Galbreath, History of Ohio (1925), II, 54 2-50. His part in the politics of the 1850's may be found in E. H. Roseboom, "Ohio in the 1850's," unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard, 1932. A biographical sketch by his grandson, N. H. Merwin, is in manuscript in the Western Reserve Historical Society Library, Cleveland. Brief accounts of his life are in Harvey Rice, Pioneers of the Western Reserve (1883), and "Western Reserve Jurists," Magazine of Western History, June 1885; S. P. Orth, A History of Cleveland, Ohio (1910), volume I; J. F. Brennan, A Biographical Cyclopedia and Portrait Gallery of ... Ohio (1879); Cleveland Herald, October 3, 1864; Daily Ohio State Journal (Columbus), October 5, 1864. See also E. B. Kinkead, "A Sketch of the Supreme Court of Ohio," Green Bag, May 1895.]

E. H. R.


WOODS, Alva (August 13, 1794-September 6, 1887), college president, Baptist minister.  Woods's unpopularity in Alabama was due to his dislike of slavery; he had been chosen president of the newly established University of Alabama on the recommendation of James G. Birney [q.v.], the noted abolitionist. In July 1837, in the midst of student rioting and rebellion, he tendered his resignation for the ostensible reason that his health was impaired and that he wished to educate his son in the free states.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 500-501:

WOODS, ALVA (August 13, 1794-September 6, 1887), college president, Baptist minister, was born in Shoreham, Vermont, and was the eldest of six children of Abel and Mary (Smith) Woods. His father was a Baptist clergyman, a half-brother of Leonard Woods, 1774-1854 [q.v.]. Abel Woods's father was one of the early settlers of Princeton, Massachusetts, and taught the first public school in that town. Alva woods received his early education in the public schools of Shoreham and at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, where he was fitted for college. He entered Harvard College in the fall of 1813 and was graduated with honors four years later. He followed this with a course in the Andover Theological Seminary (1817-21). Ordained a minister of the Baptist Church on October 28, 1821, he accepted a position as professor of mathematics, natural philosophy, and ecclesiastical history at Columbian College (later George Washington University), Washington, D. C., but before beginning his teaching duties he was sent as an agent to the Atlantic states and Great Britain to collect funds, books, and apparatus for the college. While abroad he spent some time attending lectures at Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, returning to his college duties in November 1823. After a year's teaching at Columbian College he was chosen professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in Brown University. In February 1828 he became president of Transylvania University at. Lexington, Kentucky. He remained in this position until March 1831, and there is some indication that his tenure was not altogether comfortable either to himself or to the trustees of the university (Letters of Rebecca Gratz, 1929, p. 215, ed. by David Philipson). The destruction of the main building of Transylvania by fire in May 1829 so crippled the usefulness of that institution for the time being that Woods felt free to accept the offer of the presidency of the newly established University of Alabama. He moved his family to Tuscaloosa in March 1831 and on April 12, 1831, was inaugurated as president (T. M. Owens, History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, 1921, volume II, p. 1358). He remained president of the university until December 1837. William Russell Smith [q.v.], fourth president of the university, says in his Reminiscences of a Long Life (1889) that Woods was not a success as president and that his life in that position was a life of storms. It may be assumed that much of Woods's unpopularity in Alabama was due to his dislike of slavery; he had been chosen president on the recommendation of James G. Birney [q.v.], the noted abolitionist (Jesse Macy, The Anti-Slavery Crusade, 1929, p. 35). In July 1837, in the midst of student rioting and rebellion, he tendered his resignation for the ostensible reason that his health was impaired and that he wished to educate his son in the free states.

Refusing the presidency of three western colleges and a professorship in a theological institution, Woods removed to Providence, Rhode Island, where he gave his attention to preparing his son for Brown University. He as financially independent, and gave his services gratuitously for a number of years as chaplain for the prisoners in the various state institutions. He was a trustee of Brown University (1843-59) and of Newton Theological Institution, Newton Center, Massachusetts, after 1853. In 1868 his Literary and Theological Addresses was printed in Providence in an edition of fifty copies. Woods was married, December 10, 1823, to Almira Marshall (d. 1863), eldest daughter of Josiah and Priscilla Marshall of Boston, Massachusetts. He had two children, of whom the elder survived him. He died in Providence.

[The chief source is the biographical sketch in Woods' s Literary and Theological Addresses (1868), of which there are copies in the libraries of Transylvania Coll. and the University of Ala. See also Harvard University, Quinquennial Catalog (1925); F. E. Blake, History of the Town of Princeton ... Massachusetts (1915), volume II; Biographical Catalog ... Phillips Academy, Andover (1903); General Catalog Theological Seminary, Andover, Massachusetts, 1808-1908 (n.d.); Robert and Johanna Peter, Transylvania University (1806), being Filson Club Publication, no. II; A. F. Lewis, History of Higher Education in Kentucky (1899); obituary in Providence Daily Journal, September 7, 1887. Information has been supplied by  Mrs. C. F. Norton, librarian of Transylvania College, and by Alice S. Wyman, librarian of the University of Alabama]

R. S. C.


WOODARD, Willard, educator, publisher, member of the Free Soil Party.


WOODBRIDGE, Frederick Enoch, 1819-1888, lawyer.  Vermont State Senator.  Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Vermont.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Served in U.S. Congress December 1863 to March 1869.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 600; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)


WOOLMAN, John, 1720-1772, Mount Holly, New Jersey, Society of Friends, Quaker leader, Free Labor Movement, radical abolitionist leader.  Encouraged merchants and consumers not to purchase goods made by slave labor.  Traveled extensively among Quakers, speaking out against slavery.  He wrote and published Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes: Recommended to the Professor of Christianity of Every Denominations, 1754.  In a letter to his fellow Quaker, Woolman said, “Now dear Friends if we continually bear in mind the royal law of doing to others as we would be done by, we shall never think of bereaving our fellow creatures of that valuable blessing, liberty, nor to grow rich by their bondage.”

(Bruns, 1977, pp. 16, 68-78, 223, 246-247, 383; Cady, 1965; Drake, 1950, pp. 51-64, 68-71, 107, 115, 155, 189, 200; Dumond, 1961, pp. 17-19, 22, 87; Locke, 1901, pp. 27-31, 34, 94; Pease, 1965, pp. 5-14; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 16, 18, 232, 433, 457-458, 519-520, 551-553; Soderlund, 1985, pp. 4, 9, 10, 13, 17, 26-27, 29, 30, 43, 44n, 45, 47, 49, 52, 78, 94, 96, 97, 136, 140, 166, 171, 175, 176, 186, 199; Sox, 1999; Woolman, 1922; Zilversmit, 1967, pp. 70-72, 75, 77, 106, 169, 227; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 609-610; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 516-517; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 23, p. 854). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 516-517:

WOOLMAN, JOHN (October 19, 1720-October 7, 1772), Quaker leader and advocate of the abolition of slavery, was born at Ancocas (later Rancocas) in the province of West Jersey. He was one of thirteen children of Samuel and Elizabeth (Burr) Woolman. Contrary to legend, Woolman's forbears were men of substance; his grandfather, who had emigrated to Burlington from Gloucestershire in 1678, was a Proprietor of West Jersey, and his father in 1739 was a candidate for the provincial assembly. John Woolman's formal education ended with that afforded by the neighborhood Quaker school, but he improved his mind by wide reading. After serving a tailor's apprenticeship he set up shop in Mount Holly, and on October 18, 1749, he ma1ried Sarah Ellis of Chesterfield. His worldly affairs prospered to such an extent that he felt constrained to curtail them. "I saw that a humble man," he wrote, "with the Blessing of the Lord, might live on a little, and that where the heart was set on greatness, success in business did not satisfie the craving; but that commonly with an increase of wealth, the desire for wealth increased" (Journal, post, 164). In addition to his trade he was much employed with such matters as surveying, conveyancing, executing bills of sale, and drawing wills. From time to time he taught school, publishing a primer that ran through several editions. At the time of his death he was the owner of several hundred acres, including a fine orchard.

As a youth he was profoundly religious, with leanings toward mysticism, and it was his otherworldliness in thought and deed that was to distinguish him. At the age of twenty-three he felt himself called to the Quaker ministry, and forthwith embarked upon a series of journeys that extended through thirty years and led him from North Carolina to New Hampshire and from the northern frontier of Pennsylvania to Yorkshire, in England. Though he was active with other leading Quakers in opposing conscription and taxation for military supplies, and in Indian conversion, his ministry revolved principally about the question of slavery. His experience in executing bills of sale for slaves early convinced him that slave-keeping was inconsistent with Christianity (Ibid., 161). In 1746 he visited Virginia to view with his own eyes the consequence s of "holding fellow men in property." "I saw in these Southern Provinces," he wrote, "so many Vices and Corruptions increased by this trade and this way of life, that it appeared to me as a dark gloominess hanging over the Land, and though now many willingly run into it, yet in future the Consequence will be grievous to posterity. I express it as it hath appeared to me, not at once, nor twice, but as a matter fixed on my mind" (Ibid., 167). Year in and year out Woolman, traveling on foot, went from place to place arousing sleepy consciences against "reaping the unrighteous profits of that iniquitous practice of dealing in Negroes." He visited especially the slave-trade centers, such as Perth Amboy and Newport. From his hatred of slavery rose many of the singularities that colored the last years of his life. Sugar, for example, was objectionable to him because it was the product of slave labor.

Little was achieved by Woolman during the years of his ministry. New Jersey did, however, in 1769 impose a high duty upon imported slaves, and in 1776 the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting disowned those members who refused to manumit their slaves. Yet Woolman's teachings left a permanent imprint upon all thinking opponents of slavery, both in America and in Great Britain. His writings upon the subject, especially his Journal (1774) and his essay, Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes (1754), served to perpetuate his views. He was interested, too, in the social amelioration of the poor, the landless, and those who were compelled to labor under unjust conditions. Indeed, his essay, A Plea for the Poor (1763), was republished as a Fabian Society tract in 1897. Woolman died of the smallpox at York, England, while laboring among the poor.

Woolman's fame is greater in England than in America. His Journal, acclaimed by Ellery Channing as "the sweetest and purest autobiography in the language" (quoted by Whittier, post, p. 2), has gone through more than forty editions. It enjoys a high esteem-among literary men because of the simplicity of its style, and among a wider audience for the revelation of the schone Seele that it embodies. "If the world could take John Woolman for an example in religion and politics ... " wrote G. M. Trevelyan, ''we should be doing better than we are in the solution of the problems of our own day. Our modern conscience-prickers often are either too 'clever' or too violent ... 'Get the writings of John Woolman by heart,' said Charles Lamb-sound advice not only for lovers of good books but for would-be reformers ... Woolman was not a bigwig in his own day, and he will never be a bigwig in history. But if there be a 'perfect witness of all-judging Jove,' he may expect his meed of much fame in heaven. And if there be no such witness, we need not concern ourselves. He was not working for 'fame' either here or there" (post, 139, 142). Few will quarrel with the dictum that the honor of making the first modern formulation of an explicit purpose to procure the abolition of slavery "belongs to the Quakers, and in particular to that Apostle of Human Freedom, John Woolman" (A. N. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, 1933, p. 29).

[The definitive edition of Woolman's writings is The Journal and Essays of John Woolman (1922), ed. by A. M. Gunmere, which contains an admirable biography and a complete bibliog. See also The Directory of National Biography, which contains some errors; J. G. Whittier, intro. to the 1871 ed. of the Journal and G. M. Trevelyan, Clio, a Muse, and Other Essays (1913).]

J. E. P.


WORK, Henry Clay (October 1, 1832-June 8, 1884), songwriter.  His father was a militant abolitionist, who, in order to help in the cause of treeing runaway slaves, moved his family to Quincy, Illinois, when Henry was three years of age. In Illinois and Missouri he aided about four thousand slaves to escape by maintaining his home as one of the "stations" of the Underground Railroad. His efforts were rewarded with imprisonment.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 531-532:

WORK, HENRY CLAY (October 1, 1832-June 8, 1884), songwriter, was born in Middletown; Conn,, the son of Alanson and Aurelia Work, and a descendant of Joseph Work who emigrated to Connecticut from Ireland in 1720. His father was a militant abolitionist, who, in order to help in the cause of treeing runaway slaves, moved his family to Quincy, Illinois, when Henry was three years of age. In Illinois and Missouri he aided about four thousand slaves to escape by maintaining his home as one of the "stations" of the Underground Railroad. His efforts were rewarded with imprisonment, and upon his release in 1845 the family returned to Middletown. Henry Work received a common-school education in Middletown and later in Hartford, where he became an apprentice in the printing shop of Elihu Greer. In a room above the print shop Work found an old melodeon; he practiced on it, studied harmony, and began writing a few songs to sing to his friends. In 1854 he went to Chicago to ply his trade as printer, but he continued to write songs. His success was at first indifferent, but when "We're Coming, Sister Mary" (composed for the Christy Minstrels) was published, it achieved wide circulation and brought the author a substantial return. In 1864 he wrote his famous temperance song, "Come Home, Father." This was tremendously successful, and, as a "story-song," was thoroughly in keeping with the taste of the period. For years it was sung in the play, "Ten Nights in a Barroom." The opening lines of Work's long "serio-comic" poem, The Upshot Family (1868), are typical of his other efforts in rhyme:

"Far up in Vermont,
Where the hills are so steep
That the farmers use ladders
To pasture their sheep ... "

Work's publisher, George F. Root [q.v.], of the firm of Root & Cady,- persuaded him to try hi-s hand at writing Civil War songs. Because of his abolitionist background Work willingly lent his talents to the Northern cause and contributed "Kingdom Coming" (1861), "Babylon is Fallen!" (1863), "Wake Nicodemus" (1864), "Marching through Georgia'. ' (1865), and a number of other highly partisan songs. Following the success of "Kingdom Coming," Root & Cady offered Work a contract as a song-writer for the firm, and he was able to abandon his work as a printer. He maintained his headquarters in Chicago until the great fire of 1871, when the firm of Root & Cady was ruined financially and the plates of all his songs were destroyed. For a time he lived in Philadelphia and then moved to Vineland, New Jersey, where he had joined his brother and an uncle in purchasing one hundred and fifty acres of land for speculative purposes. The venture was not successful. By 1875 Root & Cady was reestablished, and Work returned to Chicago, where he resumed his career as songwriter, with even more financial success than before. The song "Grandfather's Clock," published after the Civil War, is  said to have sold over 800,000 copies, and to have brought the composer $4,000 in royalties. The exact number of Work's published songs is not known, although the records of his family show a list of seventy-three (Work, post). He died in Hartford, Connecticut, while visiting his mother, and was buried in the Spring Grove Cemetery beside his wife, who had preceded him in death about a year. They had been married in Chicago between 1860 and 1864. Her mental illness in her last years was the burden of Work's sorrow before his death. Two of their three children had died in Chicago.

[B. Q. Work, Songs of Henry Clay Work (privately printed, n.d.); George Birdseye, "America's Song Composers,'' Potter's American Monthly, April 1879; W. S. B. Mathews, One Hundred Years of Music in America (1889); J. T. Howard, Our American Music (1930); Henry Asbury, Reminiscences of Quincy, Illinois (1882); Hartford Courant, June 9, 1884; information from Mrs. B. H. Work of Glastonbury, Connecticut]

J. T. H.


WRIGHT, Elizur Jr., 1804-1885, New York City, reformer, editor, abolitionist leader.  Vice president, 1833-1835, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), December 1833.  Leader, Liberty Party.  Editor of the Massachusetts Abolitionist, founded 1839. 

(Dumond, 1961, pp. 177, 179, 245, 301; Filler, 1960, pp. 61, 63, 74, 132, 135, 156, 193; Goodheart, 1990; Mabee, 1970, pp. 189, 190, 256, 322, 339, 364; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 6-8, 13-14, 16-17, 20, 44, 46, 67, 72; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 46, 521-522; Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 621-622; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 548-549; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 24, p. 11). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 548-549:

WRIGHT, ELIZUR (February 12, 1804-November 21, 1885), reformer, actuary, was born at South Canaan, Connecticut, probably a descend ant of Thomas Wright, an early settler of Wethersfield. His father, also Elizur Wright, mathematician of parts and graduate of Yale, was, like his forebears, a farmer and teacher; and his mother, Clarissa Richards, came from a long line of New England sea-captains. In 1810 the family moved to Tallmadge, Ohio, in the Western Reserve, where the father cleared a farm and founded an academy. Here young Elizur prepared for college. He worked his way through Yale, graduating with distinction in mathematics in 1826. During the following year, as master of Groton Academy, he fell in love with one of his pupils, Susan Clark, whom he married September 13, 1829. A professorship in the newly founded Western Reserve College, then located at Hudson, called him back to Ohio.

In 1832, the genius of anti-slavery evangelism, Theodore Weld [q.v.], visited Hud so n and moved not only Wright but also his colleague, Beriah Green [q.v.], and the president, George Storrs, to agitate immediate abolition in the Western Reserve. Amid rising hostility, Storrs was struck down with tuberculosis, Green accepted the presidency of Oneida Institute, and Wright resigned. Through Weld, he was appointed secretary to the New York Anti-Slavery Society, and, after its organization in December 1833, corresponding secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. In this capacity he edited the Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine (1835-37) and the society's tracts, wrote its reports, and supervised the agents in the field. While his powers were exceeded by others in the movement; his devotion was unsurpassed; and during the crucial years of the agitation, 1834-38, he was indispensable. In 1839, when various controversies began to divide the movement, Wright resigned to become editor of the Massachusetts Abolitionist, organ of the conservative opponents of William Lloyd Garrison [q.v.]. Here he advocated third-party action by abolitionists so vigorously that he was dropped at the end of the year.

For a time, Wright and his growing family approached actual want. With characteristic courage, he published Fables of La Fontaine (2 volumes, 1841), a translation made for his children, and sold the books from door to door at home and then in England. Upon his return in 1846 he started a newspaper in Boston, the Weekly Chronotype, in which he tilted against the protective tariff, slavery, and life insurance companies. Like its editor, the paper was too individualistic to represent organized reform, but its success was such that in 1850 it was purchased by the Weekly Commonwealth, organ of the Free Soil party, with Wright as editor. Unable to conform to party discipline, he was dismissed in 1852, though at the time he was defendant in the Shadrach case, one of the most famous of the fugitive-slave trials.

Meanwhile, several life insurance companies, stirred to self-examination by Wright's strictures upon their methods, employed him to prepare tables which would show total reserves required for safety. These tables enabled life insurance companies for the first time to formulate reserve policies which were exactly adapted to their obligations. Aware, however, that many companies were interested primarily in profits and salaries, in 1853 Wright began lobbying in the Massachusetts legislature for a law to force all companies, doing business in the state to maintain adequate reserves. His lobby was a one-man affair, and it was not until 1858 that his effort was rewarded by legislation (Acts and Resolves ... of Massachusetts, 1858, ch. 177). Its passage forced large companies everywhere to conform their reserve policies to the law in order to do business in Massachusetts and to compete with Massachusetts companies outside the state. Wright, being the only one who understood the intricacies of the new statute, was appointed commissioner of insurance to see to its enforcement. Through his annual reports, in which unsound companies and dishonest practices were pilloried, he secured an extraordinary degree of conformity to sound insurance practice throughout the nation. Though the title often applied to him, "father of life insurance," misstates his censor's function, his efforts probably had more to do with the development of sound standards for life insurance than those of any other man in its history.

In his annual reports, Wright maintained that the reserves of life insurance companies belonged in justice to their policy holders, and in 1861, against the united opposition of the insurance companies, he secured the passage of the famous non-forfeiture law (Acts and Resolves, 1861, ch. 186), by which companies were forbidden to appropriate reserves to their own use. This triumph roused such hostility that Wright was ousted in 1866 by legislation abolishing his office. He was immediately retained as actuary by several companies, at a high salary for his day, and continued his "lobby for the widow and orphan." After thirteen years more of unremitting effort, in 1880 he secured legislation which compelled insurance companies to pay policy holders in cash the full value of lapsed policies (Ibid., 1880, ch. 232). In order to retain their business, companies outside the state promptly conformed their practice to the Massachusetts law. Meanwhile, as a private citizen Wright continued to publish his findings of fraud, theft, perjury, and bribery in insurance company practice, especially in New York; though it was not until 1905, a generation later, that the state of New York was moved to action against these practices. In his last years he worked successfully for a great park for Boston on Middlesex Fells, for conservation in the West, and for other reforms. In the midst of these activities, he died.

Elizur and Susan Wright had eighteen children, of whom six died in infancy. Of their descendants, many have achieved high distinction in various forms of public service.

[P. G. Wright, "Life of Elizur Wright" (MS.), in the possession of Prof. Quincy Wright, University of Chicago; F. P. Stearns, Cambridge Sketches (1905); Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimke Weld, and Sarah Grimke (2 volumes, 1934) ed. by G. H. Barnes and D. L. Dumond; H. R. Stiles, The History of Ancient Wethersfield (1904), volume 11 (Curtis Wright, Genealogy . . . of Descendants of John Wright (1915); F. B. Dexter, Biography Sketchy roads. Yale, College, volume IV (1907) Ohio Observer, 1832-34; Minutes of the Executive" Committee, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-40 (MS.), Boston Public Library; Massachusetts Abolitionist, 1839-40; Weekly Chronotype, 1846-50; B. J. Hendrick, "The Story of Life Insurance," McClure's Magazine, 54 c., June 1906; The "Bible of Life Insurance" (1932), reprinting Massachusetts Reports on Life Insurance 1859-1865 (1865"), together with biographical sketch of Wright; Ellen Wright, Elizur Wright's Appeals for the Middlesex) Fells (1893); Boston Transcript, November 23, 24, 1885; Wright's many pamphlets and books.]

G. H. B.


WRIGHT, Frances “Fanny”, 1795-1852, Dundee, Scotland, Utica, New York, reformer, author, orator, abolitionist.  First woman in America to actively oppose slavery.  Founded Nashoba Plantation to train free Blacks to be self-sufficient.  Manager, American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), 1843-1845.

(Eckardt, 1984; Filler, 1960, pp. 26, 68, 113; Pease, 1965, pp. 38-43; Perkins, 1939; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 30, 110, 396-397, 522-523; Wright, 1972; Yellin, 1994, pp. 10n, 223-224; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 622; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 549-550; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 24, p. 14). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 549-550

WRIGHT, FRANCES (September 6, 1795-December 13, 1852), reformer, free thinker, was born in Dundee, Scotland, the daughte1 of James Wright, a man bf means and radical opinions who promoted the circulation of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man in his environment. Her mother, who was part English, was a daughter of Duncan Campbell, an army officer. Both parents died when Frances was barely two and a half years old, leaving to the child the heritage of an inquiring mind and a large fortune. She was brought up and educated by conventional relatives of her mother in London, but was a difficult and rebellious child and as soon a s her legal status permitted turned her back on London and returned to Scotland. She had had good masters, however, and she now directed her fine abilities toward liberal studies. At eighteen she wrote a sketch purporting to be the story of a young disciple of Epicurus (published in 1822 under the title, A Few Days in Athens), which contained the well-worked-out materialistic philosophy that she followed throughout life. When her guardians suggested that to complete her education she should make the grand tour of Europe, she declared that rather than gaze on the political oppressions of the post-Napoleonic era she would prefer to travel in free America.

Accordingly Frances Wright and her younger sister, Camilla, arrived in New York for the first time in 1818. The next two years were for her years of cultivation and adventure. She frequented the intellectual society of New York, had a play produced anonymously-Altorf, a story of the Swiss struggle for independence, produced at the Park Theatre in 1819 and published the same year-and made a thorough tour of the Northern and Eastern states. With materials for a book on her travels, she returned to England in 1820 and the following year published Views of Society and Manners in America (1821).

It was this book, written in a tone of appreciation unusual among European authors, that led to her friendship with General Lafayette. Her next visit to the United States was timed to coincide with his. She arrived in New York in September 1824 and with her sister accompanied Lafayette during most of his triumphal tour through the states, sharing in the vast celebrations prepared to receive him. With Lafayette, she visited Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and discussed with them the problem of negro C, slavery. The plan of emancipation which she evolved, influenced somewhat by the ideas of Robert Owen, was presented to them and had their approval. Investing a large part of her fortune in land in western Tennessee-a tract which she called Nashoba-she there launched her experiment in emancipation. She calculated that slaves working on the land would earn their freedom in about five years, and she proposed then to colonize them. Her plan, though attended by incidental troubles and disasters, was actually carried out. She purchased slaves in the fall of 1825 and colonized them in Haiti in the summer of 1830. Meanwhile, socialist recruits within the colony had introduced the idea of free unions as opposed to marriage, an innovation which had threatened to wreck the experiment soon after its beginning. Frances Wright, who had visited Europe to restore her health, defended her colleagues in principle at least, and this attitude of hers made the name "Fanny Wright" anathema to the public.

Between 1828, when she joined Robert Dale Owen [q.v.] ln editing the New Harmony Gazette, and 1830, Frances Wright caused a further shock to public sensibilities by appearing on the platform as a lecturer. She attacked religion, the influence of the churches in politics, and the existing system of education based on authority; and defended equal rights for women and the replacement of the legal obligation of marriage by a union based ort moral obligation only. This last doctrine, of course, aroused the most opposition. The rationalistic reforms she proposed, however, anti-conventional as they were, were considered less of a reproach to her than her "unfeminine" action in appearing as a public speaker. The daily newspapers were immoderate in their condemnation, and she was Several times nearly mobbed.

She published Course of Popular Lectures in 1829 (2nd. ed., 1931; volume II, 1836). In 1829 she settled In New York and began, January 28, to publish the Free Enquirer, virtually the New Harmony Gazette under a new name. Robert Dale Owen soon relieved her of post of the editorial work, enabling her to extend her lecture tours. Occupying with her sister, an estate on the East River near the farm later owned by Horace Greeley, she became the leader ot the free-thinking movement in New York, which, after a period of inactivity following the French Revolution, had reawakened. This group advocated as a fundamental reform free education maintained and controlled by the state and urged the working class to organize politically; they formed an Association for the Protection of Industry and for the Promotion of National Education and joined the Workingmen's Party, which, however, shortly disintegrated because the working men were indifferent to the educational aims and hostile to the "infidelity" of their Free Enquirer allies

A trip abroad followed this episode, during which Camilla died, February 8, 1831, and on July 22 Frances Wright married William Phiquepal D'Arusmont, a Frenchman who had been one of her co-workers at New Harmony and in New York. The marriage, of which one daughter was born, was terminated. by divorce.

Returning to the United States with her husband in 1835, she continued writing and lecturing, taking up for public discussion such modern causes as birth control, the emancipation of woman, and the more equal distribution of properly. Though she had no sympathy with Garrisonian abolitionist she urged gradual emancipation of the slaves and colonization of the freedmen outside the United States. In 1836 she supported Andrew Jackson's attack on the Bank of the United States and advocated the independent treasury. fo her last years she gave a great deal of time to propaganda for the abolition of the banking system, maintaining that capital of all kinds should be held by the state, by which all citizens should be employed. In the winter of 1851-52, while living in Cincinnati, she broke her hip in a fall and never fully recovered. A year later she died.

Frances Wright was a woman of extraordinary physical and moral courage, unusual intellect, and considerable imagination. Her fearlessness and initiative contributed definitely to the emancipation of women, though her influence was exerted more by her example than by her doctrines.

[W.R. Waterman, Frances Wright (1924), based in part oh MSS, ill the possession of Frances Wright's grandson, the Reverend William Norman Guthrie, New York; Biography, Notes, and Political Letters of Frances Wright D'Arusmont (1844), which contains some auto- biographical material; Amos Gilbert, Memoir of Frances Wright (1855); Charles Bradlaugh, Biographies of Ancient and Modern Celebrated Free Thinkers (1858); G. B. Lockwood, The New Harmony Movement (1905); R. D. Owen, Threading My Way (1874); S. B. Anthony and others, History of Woman Suffrage (3 volumes, 1881-87); Cincinnati Daily Gazette, December 15, 1852.]

K. A.


WRIGHT, Henry Clarke, 1797-1870, Boston, Massachusetts, reformer, orator, author, abolitionist leader.  Executive Committee, American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), 1859-1864. 

(Filler, 1960, pp. 55, 109, 115, 120, 129, 131, 133, 138, 263; Mabee, 1970, pp. 42, 43, 46, 47, 67-69, 71-75, 77, 80, 82, 94, 140, 195-197, 293, 296, 324, 329, 336, 345, 346, 359, 361, 367, 371; Rodriguez, 2007, p. 399; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 623; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 24, p. 28)


WRIGHT, Paulina, abolitionist, Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Yellin, 1994, p. 73)


WRIGHT, Silas, 1795-1849, statesman, Congressman, U.S. Senator, soldier, favored restriction and abolition of slavery.  Congressman from December 1827 through March 1829, U.S. Senator from 1833 to December 1844, Governor of New York State, 1844-1847. Opposed expansion of slavery into the new territories acquired from Mexico.

(Filler, 1960, p. 90; Garraty, 1949, pp. 165-166, 406-407; Mitchell, 2007, p. 34; R. H. Gillet, The Life and Times of Silas Wright (2 volumes, 1874). Other important biographies are J. D. Hammond, Life and Times of Silas Wright (1848), reproduced as volume III of his History of Political Parties in the State of New York (3 volumes, 1852), and J. S. Jenkins, The Life of Silas Wright (1847). W. E. Chancellor, A Life of Silas Wright (1913); Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 565-567:

WRIGHT, SILAS (May 24, 1795-August 27, 1847), United States senator, governor of New York, was a descendant of Deacon Samuel Wright, an early settler of Springfield and Northampton, Massachusetts The fifth child of Silas and Eleanor (Goodale) Wright, he was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, but grew up in Weybridge, Vermont, where he worked on his father's farm and attended district school. At fourteen he entered Addison County Grammar School and at sixteen Middlebury College. After graduation in 1815 he studied law at Sandy Hill, New York, with Roger Skinner, was admitted to the bar in 1819, and began practice in Canton, New York, boarding with his father's friend, Medad Moody, whose daughter Clarissa he married on September 11, 1833. They had no children.

In 1821 Wright became county surrogate, and within the next decade held a number of local offices and attained the rank of brigadier-general in the militia. An ardent Madisonian in college, Wright was throughout his life a stanch nationalist and Democrat. He led northern New York from the fold of the Clintonians to the "Bucktails," to the "Republicans," thence to the Jacksonian Democrats, and to the left wing of th c: t party. In 1823 he was elected to the state Senate, where he served from January 1, 1824, until December 1827. His firm belief that the yeomanry were usually right made him vote for manhood suffrage and direct election of justices of the peace, yet he held that the people needed the leadership of bosses and honest use of the spoils system to attain the party unity in which lay their hope in the battle against special privilege. He voted against a law providing for the direct election of presidential electors because its adoption would be disadvantageous to the party's candidate, William H. Crawford [q.v.], and voted for the removal of DeWitt Clinton [q.v.] as canal commissioner. He consistently opposed the granting of bank charters by the legislature.

In 1827, as chairman of the committee on canals he made a report opposing the extension of the canal system except when the expected revenues promised to reimburse the treasury. By this time he had become a member of the directing group known as the "Albany Regency." In 1827 Wright took his seat in Congress. At this time he favored a tariff designed for the protection of agriculture as well as manufactures. As a member of the House committee on manufactures he helped frame the "tariff of abominations" of 1828 and took a leading part in defending it; but later, in 1842, he characterized his action as a great error, made through lack of understanding of the subject (Gillet, post, II, 1422). He was reelected in 1828, but resigned in the next year to become comptroller of New York (1829-33). During his years in this office he continued to oppose the building of canals except such as would pay for themselves, and he advocated a tax to replenish the General Fund.

Resigning the comptrollership in January 1833, he became United States senator to complete the unexpired term of William L. Marcy [q.v.], who had been chosen governor. Reelected in 1837 and 1843, Wright was appointed successively to the committees on agriculture, commerce, finance, and post offices and post roads. Master of his subject, cool, and deliberative, logical and powerful in reasoning, he came to hold a high rank "for solid judgment and unselfish service" (Turner, post, p. 114). Benton called him the "Cato of the Senate." Taking his seat when his friend Van Buren was vice-president and the personal choice of President Jackson as his successor, Wright was soon recognized as manager of Van Buren's political interests and with his uncannily accurate sense of public opinion became Van Buren's "most effective lieutenant" (Ibid., p. 118)-a lieutenancy that was almost a partnership. Wright voted for the "Force Bill" and the compromise tariff of 1833; Van Buren consulted him before answering Jackson with regard to the removal of the federal deposits from the Bank of the United States, and, at the President's request, entrusted him with the presentation of resolutions favoring removal (January 30, 1834; Van Buren, ''Autobiography,” post, pp. 729-30). Subsequently Wright with Benton procured the expunging of the resolution censuring Jackson.

Following Van Buren's election to the presidency Wright became chairman of the Senate finance committee (December 21, 1836-March 1841). All measures for rechartering the Bank of the United States he firmly opposed. He opposed the distribution of the ever-mounting surplus among the states, advocating instead its use for defense, investment in easily convertible stocks of states or the United States, or use for general government expenses to permit the reduction of the tariff. The panic of 1837 and suspension of specie payment by the state banks made his position one of great importance. In preparation for the special session of Congress called for September, he contributed to the St. Lawrence Republican seven articles, beginning June 20, 1837, urging the complete divorce of federal finance from the banks and stricter regulation of banking by the states. At the special session he introduced the administration's relief bills, which were adopted, and a bill for the establishment of an independent treasury system, the plan for which he elaborated January 31, 1838. He continued to head the fight for the independent treasury until the bill was passed in 1840.

After Tyler's accession in 1841, relegated to the committees on commerce and claims, Wright urged a tax-and-pay policy; he continued to oppose distribution of the proceeds of the sale of public lands and increase in the tariff. Yet seeing no chance of any other revenue bill passing Congress he reluctantly voted for the high-tariff act of 1842, which automatically ended distribution while raising duties. Declining Tyler's offer of appointment to the Supreme Court in 1844, he campaigned for Van Buren's nomination, refusing to be considered himself for the presidential nomination and declining, when nominated, to be a candidate for the vice-presidency. Reluctant to leave the Senate, he nevertheless resigned through party loyalty, entered the contest for the governorship of New York, and carried the state for Polk. He was offered the secretaryship of the treasury as a reward, but declined.

During his governorship his sturdy support of the policy incorporated in the "stop and tax" law of 1842 led him to veto a bill for canal extension, thus alienating the conservatives. His suppression of violence during the anti-rent disturbances when, though he sympathized with the tenants' grievances and advocated their redress by law, he called out the militia and prosecuted the ring-leaders--caused bitter feeling in the anti-rent districts; his advocacy in 1846 of a tax on income from rents, short-term leases, and no distress for rent, alienated the landlords; his banking policies lost him the banking interests. Thus, although in 1846 he was renominated for the governorship, he failed of reelection. His followers ascribed his defeat to the influence of the "Hunkers" or conservatives within the party, coupled with the coolness of the national administration.

Before his retirement to private life, however, Wright had the satisfaction of seeing the fight against privilege in New York reach lasting success when the reforms he had advocated in the rent system and a provision for a popular check on appropriations for public works were put into effect through the new constitution of 1846. In that same year his tariff policy triumphed, when the revenue tariff enacted by Congress followed closely outlines drawn by him in two speeches of 1844 (Senate, April 19 and 23; Watertown, New York, August 20), and the independent treasury became permanent. Successful with these old issues, he returned to friendly Canton where he attended the Presbyterian church, cultivated his thirty acres, died, and was buried. Many found honesty his outstanding characteristic; Benton simplicity; Van Buren, "perfect disinterestedness." His death precipitated the "Barnburner" revolt just when a growing community of interest between the northern radicals and the "free, grain-growing states" of the Northwest pointed to a new party on the issue of slavery in the territories, and Wright, who though not art abolitionist had opposed Calhoun's treaty for the annexation of Texas because it insisted upon the protection of slavery there and had upheld the Wilmot Proviso, was being talked of for the presidency.

[Manuscript sources include personal letters in the possession of St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York, and H. F. Landon, Esq., Watertown, New York; correspondence with Flagg, Hoffman, and Tilden in New York Public Library, Ransom Cooke and Erastus Corning in New York Stat Library; Van Buren, Marcy, and Polk papers, Library of Congress Printed sources include "Calhoun Correspondence," Annual Report American Historical Association ... 1899, volume II (1900) and 1929 (1930); "The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren," Ibid., I9I8, volume II (1920); Thomas Hart Benton, Thirty Years' View (1854); C. Z. Lincoln, State of New York: Messages from the Governors (1909), volume IV; letters and speeches in R. H. Gillet, The Life and Times of Silas Wright (2 volumes, 1874). Other important biographies are J. D. Hammond, Life and Times of Silas Wright (1848), repr. as volume III of his History of Political Parties in the State of New York (3 volumes, 1852), and J. S. Jenkins, The Life of Silas Wright (1847). W. E. Chancellor, A Life of Silas Wright (1913) was a campaign document for Governor Sulzer. For genealogy see Curtis Wright, Genealogical and Biographical Notices of the Descendants of Sir John Wright (1915). See also David Murray, "The Antirent Episode in the State of New York," Annual Report American Historical Association ... I896, volume I (1897); E. I. McCormac, James K. Polk (1922); WE. Smith, the Francis Preston Blair Family in Politics (2 volumes, 1933); D.R. Fox, The Decline of Aristocracy in the Politics of New York (1919); H. D. A. Donovan, The Barnburners . . . 1830-1852 (1925), which has a critical bibliog.; Gates Curtis, Our Country and Its People: A Memorial Record of St. Lawrence County, New York (1894); H.F. Landon, The North Country: A History (1932), volume I; D. S. Alexander, A Pol. History of the State of New York, volumes I, II (1906); F. J. Turner, The U. S.: 1830-50 (1935); Albany Evening Atlas; August 28, 1847. Wright figures in a novel, The Light in the Clearing (1917), by Irving Bacheller, a fellow countryman of the "North Border." Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe].

M. S.


WRIGHT, Theodore Sedgwick, 1797-1847, African American, New York, abolitionist leader, orator.  American Missionary Association (AMA).  Manager, 1834-1840, and Member of the Executive Committee, 1834-1840, of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).  Executive Committee of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1843-1847. 

(Dumond, 1961, p. 330; Mabee, 1970, pp. 29, 51, 58, 59, 61, 62, 91, 105-106, 115, 129, 130, 150, 188, 226, 276, 285; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 47, 166, 305-306; Sorin, 1971, pp. 81-85, 90-92, 97; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 24, p. 62; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 12, p. 320).



Source: Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.