Nathaniel Wright was born Jan. 28, 1789, in the east parish of Hanover, N. H. The family residence was on the highlands adjoining the western base of Moose mountain, over which his father's farm extended. From some of the fields can be seen, spread out in the distance, nearly half the state of Vermont, rising in regular gradation from the Connecticut river, with every variety of cottage, field, woodland, and hill, to the summits of the Green Mountains, Killington Peak, and Camel's Rump, in the distant horizon. His parents, Nathaniel Wright and Mary Page, were originally from Coventry in the state of Connecticut. The name of his paternal grandfather was the same with that of his father; but we are not able to trace back the genealogy further. They were all farmers by occupation. His father was one of the first settlers of Hanover, and took possession of his farm there, while it was a perfect wilderness, the occupancy of which he had to contest with wild beasts. The sylvan adventures of that period were, no doubt, the topic of many a fireside tale of his childhood. His mother was sister of the father of Harlan Page, distinguished for his active piety, and of tract-distribution memory.
Mr. Wright began fitting for college in 1806. The larger part of his preparatory studies were with the Rev. Eden Burroughs, D. D., the parish minister, long one of the Trustees of Dartmouth College, and celebrated as the father of the notorious Stephen Burroughs, who died in Canada, a Catholic priest. He entered the Freshman class of Dartmouth College at the commencement of 1807, and graduated in 1811. After graduating, he spent three years or more in teaching, being part of that time in charge of the Portland Academy, Maine, and part of the time in charge of a select class of boys in the same place; and began there the study of law. He then spent a year as private tutor in a family in Virginia, reading law in the mean time, and was admitted to the bar in that state. In July, 1817, he went to Cincinnati, where, after spending some time in an office to familiarize himself with local practice, he was admitted to the bar in November, 1817, and commenced the practice in 1818. For a few years, he practised in the Federal Courts, and in different parts of the state; but finding the city practice the most profitable, as well as most pleasant, he soon confined himself to that, and continued it with so much labor and assiduity, that, in 1839 and 1840, he found his health giving way under the effects of it, and in the latter year, withdrew from the practice. Of his success in the practice, he has had no reason to complain. And in talents and legal acquirements, he has ranked with the first in the state.
He has been solicited at different times to become a candidate for Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and for Member of Congress; but has uniformly refused all nominations for political office, preferring a private life to all others.
In April, 1820, he married Caroline Augusta Thew, a niece of the Hon. Jacob Burnet of Cincinnati. Her mother was a daughter of Dr. William Burnet of Newark, N. J., a surgeon in the army in the Revolutionary war, and a man of distinction in that state. Her parents being both dead, she went from Newark to Cincinnati with Judge Burnet's family, in 1815.
The children of these parents are eight in number: Mary Thew, Caroline Augusta, Daniel Thew, Eliza Burnet, Augusta Caroline, Louisa, Nathaniel, and William Burnet. Of these, Caroline Augusta and Augusta Caroline died, the former at five, the latter at three years of age.
Mr. Wright has published nothing, that can properly be called a book; yet many of his writings have appeared in public print in various forms. His name appears at the head of some important arguments in the Law Reports of Ohio, during the period of his practice; and some of his occasional addresses have been printed. In early life he was a lover of poetry, and not unfrequently attempted to honor the Muses; and this he did always with applause.
When Mr. Wright went to Cincinnati, then having five or six thousand inhabitants, he sat down patiently with the young at the foot of the bar, went on through a generation of the profession, till he stood at its head; and saw the city grown up to a population of 80,000, himself standing among a few old respectable inhabitants, easy in circumstances, with a very happy family around him, and highly respected by the community.—The late Rev. Chester Wright, a graduate at Middlebury College in 1805, and of Montpelier, Vt., was his half-brother.
HON. WILLIAM D. WILLIAMSON OF BANGOR, ME.
William Durkee Williamson is supposed to be a descendant, in the sixth generation, of one who was among the earliest settlers in the Plymouth Colony. For as the Annalist tells us,[33] when Gov. Winslow went to make his first treaty with Massasoit, March 22, 1621, he was preceded by "Captain Standish and Mr. Williamson," and attended by a file of "musketeers." Nothing farther appears, in the printed narratives of those times, concerning the man last mentioned; nor is there any positive knowledge of his immediate posterity; though it is a report of tradition, that one of his name had command of a company in King Philip's war, in 1675-6, who might have been his son. But, however this may have been, certain it is, that men of his name in succeeding generations have exhibited a predilection for military tactics; and that in Major Benjamin Church's fifth expedition eastward, 1704, Captain Caleb Williamson commanded a company of volunteers from Plymouth Colony. He had one brother, whose name was George, and the place of their residence was Harwich, in the county of Barnstable. It is said there was another of the family, or kindred, perhaps a brother, by the name of Samuel, who settled at Hartford in Connecticut, but as he left no son, his name at his death sank into oblivion.
George Williamson, above named, married, at Harwich, the daughter of a Mr. Crisp; and they had two sons, George and Caleb, and five daughters. The elder son was murdered by a highwayman, and left no child; the younger, born at that place, 1716, married Sarah Ransom, and settled at Middleborough in the county of Plymouth; whose children were six sons and three daughters. Though five of the sons were married, only two of them, Caleb and George, left issue. The latter, being the fifth son, born in 1754, who was the father of the subject of this sketch, removed with his father's family at the commencement of the Revolutionary war, to Canterbury, Ct., and married Mary Foster of that place, a niece of Rev. Jacob Foster, formerly a minister of Berwick, Me. Their children were four sons and four daughters. The sons are William D., the subject of this sketch; George, a farmer at Pittston; and Joseph, a lawyer at Belfast, a graduate at Vermont University, and President of the Senate, in the Legislature of Maine. Their father was a soldier in the Revolution, and a captain of artillery, some years after the peace. In 1793, he removed from Canterbury, where his sons were born, to Amherst, Ms., and finally died at Bangor, in 1822, aged 68 years.