Page:One of a thousand.djvu/689

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

vrii;iit.

K1CI IT. 

6 75 WRIGHT, ANDREW J., son of Josiah anil Sarah (Sherman) Wright, was born in Enfield, Hartford county, Conn., June 8, 1S4J. At eight years of age he went to Springfield and received his early educa- tional training in the public schools of that city, graduating from the high school in 1S60. lie immediately took a clerkship in the Springfield post-office, where he remained until August 15, [862, when he enlisted in company A, 46th regiment, Massachusetts volunteers ; was mustered into service Sep- tember 25, 1SG2, and honorably discharged after one year's service. In 1865 he .is captain in the Massachusetts volunteer militia. Early in 1864 he entered the office <>f the Springfield Fire iV Marine Insurance Company; as book-keeper, and April 9, 1872, was elected treasurer of the company. This office he has since held, and in addi- tion to the duties of this position he takes an active part in the management of the company's fire business. Mr. Wright was married in South Man- chester, Conn., May 22, 1S67, to Mary J., daughter of Charles anil Mary Ingalls (Clough) Case. Of this union are live children : Fr-ed Case, ('.rare Sherman, 1 I any Andrew, Royal Josiah, and Josephine Mary Wright. Mr. Wright has been a member of the Republican city committee ; was a member of the Springfield common council in 1X7(1 and '77 — the latter year its president ; was nominated fur alderman in 1X79. Inn de- clined, and has since repeatedly not only declined that office, but also, in [888, the nomination for mayor .f the city, lie was president of the Republican club — over seven hundred members — during the last presidential campaign. In politics he 1- an enthusiastic and consistent Repub- lican. In 1S77 he was one of the managers of the city hospital. He is a director in the Agawam National Hank, Springfield, and of the Franklin County National Hank, Greenfield : a trustee and member of the finance committee of Hampden Savings Bank ; a director in the Springfield Printing & Binding Company, and member of E. K. Wilcox l'ost 16, G. A. R. WRIGHT, Carroll Davidson, son of Nathan R. and Eliza C. Wright, was born in Dunbarton, Merrimack county, V II., July 25, 1840. The common schools of Washington, N. H , and Reading, Mass., were his first sources of education. He subsequently attended the academies at Washington, Al- stead, and Swanzey, N. H., and Chester Academy, N't. After the preparatory stage that has fitted so many New England young men for a career of future useful- ness, as teacher, both in New Hampshire and Vermont, he studied law, and was ad- mitted to the Cheshire count)' bar at keenr, N. H., in 1865, but did not begin practice (ill August, 1867, owing to ill health — the interim being occupied by an unsuccessful venture in the furniture business in Lynn, Mass. From August, 1S67, until the spring of 1876, Col. Wright was actively engaged in law practice in Boston, Ins specialty being patent law. From June, 1873, till Septem- ber, 1888, he had charge of the Massachu- setts bureau of statistics of labor ; and since January, 1885, has been at the head of the United States bureau of labor, now the department of labor. He was elected to the state Senate in 1872 and '73, and was a presidential elec- tor in 1.S76. He was supervisor for Mas- sachusetts of the United States census for [880, and special agent for the United States census for the factory system in 18S0 and '81. At twenty-two years of age he enlisted as a private in the 14th New Hampshire volunteers, in September, 1862 ; was com- missioned 2d lieutenant in October of the same year, and was made adjutant in De- cember, 1863. December, 1864, he received his commission as colonel, and left the ser- vice by resignation in March, 1865, being compelled to this step by a protracted ill- ness. Colonel Wright's life has been a very busy one. He took the census of the Stale of Massachusetts in the years 1875, '80, and '85 ; was lecturer before the Lowell Institute, Boston, in 1879; and was elected university lecturer for Har- vard, on the factory system, in [881. He is widely known as a lecturer on military, social, and scientific topics. In 1881 he made an extensive tour of study of the factory systems of Europe and America, and embodied the result in a " Report on the Factory System" to the United States Government. In 1883, Tufts Col- legi conferred upon him the honorary degree of A. M. He has compiled and published thirty volumes of statistical works, besides many pamphlets in the same line. He is president of the American Social S( ience Association ; a fellow, and was for many years secretary, of the American