A Wrong Wright?
The descendants of Anne Washington (ca 1661-ante 1698), daughter of the elder immigrant, Col. John Washington (ca 1634-1677) and first wife of Maj. Francis Wright (ca 1659-1713) of Westmoreland County, received scant notice in published genealogy until Charles Arthur Hoppin wrote about them in Tyler’s Quarterly (1919-1923) and finally published his massive three-volume Washington Ancestry… in 1932.
Hoppin proved beyond question that Anne Washington had a son John Wright (ca 1682-ca 1730) of Prince William County, whose wife was named Dorothy. Although Hoppin hypothesized a surname Awbrey for her, this has since been disproved. (Parenthetically, Hoppin also attributed to Anne Washington a daughter Anne Wright, wife of Gerrard Davis, although this lady actually was the daughter of Francis Wright’s second wife; the husband, Gerrard Davis, can be proved to have been born after 1706.)
Hoppin also gave unquestionable proof that John Wright and Dorothy …. had an “eldest” son Francis Wright (ca 1703-1742) of Prince William County, as well as extremely persuasive circumstantial evidence that John Wright (ca 1705-1792) of Fauquier County was also a son. It seems unlikely that this relationship can ever be questioned.
The second great figure in the study of this Wright family is Anne Reed Ritchie, whose three publications (1973, 1979, and 1982) greatly amplified our knowledge of the Wright descendants. One of Mrs. Ritchie’s greatest contributions, however, was to identify the wife of this last John Wright (ca 1705-1792) as Elizabeth Bronaugh, (ca 1705-1789), widow of Waugh Darnall (and not Darnall’s daughter, as Hoppin had misstated.) Mrs. Ritchie’s research is all the more remarkable, since she worked from her home in a small town in Oregon with only the most limited access to the genealogical literature, to libraries and record repositories.
John Wright (ca 1705-1792) and Elizabeth had six children, including a son John Wright (ca 1731:32-1789) who moved to Surry County, North Carolina, and had eighteen children. From him descend most of the Washington Family Descendants’ Wright members. There seems to be ample evidence to accept this line of descent.
A question, however, has arisen concerning the apparently oldest son of John Wright (ca 1705-1792) and Elizabeth Bronaugh, named William Wright (born ca 1728:29-). A small number of members of the Society claim Washington descent through this William Wright.
Hoppin gives this William Wright two wives, Mary …. and Elizabeth …. He assigned him fourteen children, by assuming that he was the William Wright who died in Fauquier County in 1806 and whose estate was divided among fourteen heirs.
Mrs. Ritchie discovered the DAR application of Mrs. Eloise Wilma Ramsay Maynard, which included a photocopy of an account book in which William Wright, Jr., son of the William Wright who died in 1806, recorded that his father had been born in 1740 in York Co., Virginia and had married Elizabeth Lloyd.
In 2001 it developed that Robert N. Grant, a lawyer in Menlo Park, California, had studied the Wright family in great depth and detail, and had demonstrated that we were dealing with two William Wrights. He discovered ample evidence that William Wright (ca 1728:29-), son of John Wright (ca 1705-1792 and Elizabeth Bronough, had married by 1751 a well-identified Mary Grant, daughter of William Grant, Jr., of King George Co., and was living as an adult on his own property in Prince William (later Fauquier) County. Clearly he was a different and older man than the William Wright who was born in 1740 and died in 1806.
Mr. Grant’s research also shows that William Wright (ca 1728:29-) and Mary Grant, his wife, seem to have left Fauquier County in the 1760’s and moved to Bedford County, in southwest Virginia, to that portion of Bedford, which was soon cut off as Franklin County, where his descendants have multiplied.
Mr. Grant’s research is so detailed and impressive that it is tempting to accept at once his conclusion about two William Wrights and his hypothesis that “our” William Wright (ca 1729:30-) moved to Franklin County. Yet we are sensitive to the fact that the Society, accepting all previous research, has apparently always been in error about this line, and “once bitten, twice shy.”
If Mr. Grant is correct in showing that William Wright (ca 1728:29-), son of John Wright (ca 1705-1792) and Elizabeth Bronaugh, is not the William Wright who died in 1806 in Fauquier County leaving fourteen children, the Washington Family Descendants must decline to accept further membership applications based on descent from any of the fourteen children of this estate division.
If Mr. Grant is correct in showing that William Wright (ca 1728:29-) moved to Franklin County and left a family there, the Washington Family Descendants must accept membership applications from proven descendants of that family.
The Society’s Registrar and Genealogist would like, therefore, to solicit comments and further information about this matter from members of the Society and particularly those who descend from William Wright. We would hope that with everyone concerned working together we could reach a policy decision for the Society on this matter within the next year or so.