Biography of M. D. Wright

M. D. Wright, a prominent Elk City merchant, was born on November 12, 1832, in Indiana. He embarked on a diverse and adventurous career, including a stint in the Australian gold rush and service as a First Lieutenant in the Union Army. After returning home in 1857, he pursued a successful mercantile career, served as postmaster for thirteen years, and became a respected community leader. Wright married Lydia A. Fosdick in 1858, and they had eight children, contributing to his legacy in the community.

M. D. WRIGHT—M. D. Wright, retired merchant and honored citizen of Elk City, was born in Fayette county, Indiana, November 12th, 1832, and is a son of Jonathan and Susanna B. (Jones) Wright, natives of Maryland. The father was, by occupation, a miller and plied his vocation in Pennsylvania until about the time of the war of 1812, when he removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, and embarked in the mercantile business. After the war he traded for wild lands in Fayette Co., Ind., and subsequently moved to Richmond, Ind., where he continued to reside until his death at the age of seventy-nine years. Our subject lost his mother the day of his birth, she being then forty years old. The parents were devoted adherents of the Quaker faith. Their family consisted of eight children—three now living, M. D., our subject; Thaddeus, of Minneapolis, Minn.; and Martha, widow of Paul Barnard, who resides with her brother in Elk City.

M. D. Wright has had a somewhat remarkable career, in his earlier days partaking much of adventure. He began life at sixteen years of age as a clerk in a country store, but soon went to Cincinnati, where he spent three and a half years in a wholesale establishment. He then went east, where, for the next two years, he was similarly engaged in Philadelphia and New York. The Australian gold fields were, at that time, creating great excitement and he concluded to try his fortune in those regions. Embarking on the sailing vessel “Rockland” he made the trip in one hundred twenty days, going via Rio Janeiro and the Cape of Good Hope. He reached the Australian mines in May of 1851, and, for the following year, had varying success. He, however, did not fancy the hard life of the gold miner and engaged with a firm to act as clerk in their store in New South Wales. Here he spent fifteen months more pleasantly, but by this time he was ready to again return to civilization in the states, but was loath to do so empty handed, and he determined to take a drove of horses to Sydney and dispose of them, if possible, at a profit. This enterprise, for various reasons, proved a failure, financially. From Sydney he embarked on a small trading vessel, trading among the South Sea Islands, finally landed on the Samoan Islands, where he remained six months. He shipped on a man-of-war and cruised in the Caribbean Sea. The vessel put in at Valparaiso, where, on account of sickness, he was discharged. A four-months’ whaling voyage followed, filled with exciting adventures with these great saurians of the deep. Resolved again to return home, he, after a most tempestuous voyage around the Horn, attended with desperate scurvy sickness, which attacked everyone on board but the captain and himself, found the quiet home of his boyhood, amid the blessings of civilization, and where he was ready to repeat with the sweet singer, John Howard Payne,

“To us, in despite of the absence of years,
“How sweet the remembrance of home still appears;
“From allurements abroad which but flatter the eye,
“The unsatisfied heart turns and says with a sigh,
“Home, home, sweet, sweet home,
“Be it ever so humble, There’s no place like home!”

Mr. Wright arrived home in the spring of 1857. In company with a brother, he now entered on a mercantile career, which he pursued until his enlistment in the Union army in 1864, becoming First Lieutenant in Co. “D,” 146th Ind. Vol. Inf. He served a year, his regiment being used chiefly to oppose the noted cavalry commander, Gen. Mosby, and with whom they had many exciting skirmishes. His company was mustered out at Harper’s Ferry in May of 1865.

Mr. Wright now took on another occupation, engaging in the sedate occupation of the schoolmaster, quite a remove from the exciting experiences of travel and war. This experience was in Benton county, Indiana, and preceded his overland trip to Kansas, in 1870. He came to Elk City and, trading his outfit for a cabin and lot, began a mercantile business. He continued here with moderate success until 1890, and then spent three years in Oklahoma in the same business, since which time he has remained in Elk City managing his real estate holdings.

Mr. Wright was, for thirteen years, postmaster of the village and, in the early days, was the moving spirit of the town. He has always exerted a potent influence in the affairs of the community and holds the respect of its citizens in a marked degree. He has reared a family of children, who are respected members of the different communities in which they reside, and is rounding out a long and useful career in the enjoyment of the fruits of earlier labors, amid the uniform esteem of old friends and neighbors.

Marriage was contracted by our subject in Indiana in 1858. His wife, who is still his companion on life’s journey, was Miss Lydia A., daughter of William and Miriam (Wickersham) Fosdick. Her eight children are: Kate B., Mrs. J. M. Smythe; Jessie, married C. J. Hafey, and died at the age of forty years; Jennie, Mrs. E. E. Masterman; Lizzie, married C. O. Chandler and is now deceased; Mary, wife of Charles Stafford; Irene, deceased at eight; Miss Nellie, a stenographer at Medicine Lodge, Kansas; and Cora, Mrs. Richard Power, of British Columbia.