Source: Book - History of Whiteside County, Illinois - 1877
Edited by: Charles Bent
Morrison, IL 
Reprinted by: Higginson Book Co., Salem, MA

Transcribed by: Denise McLoughlin
Tampico Area Historical Society
www.tampicohistoricalsociety.citymax.com

Page 239-40

CHARLES WRIGHT was born in the town of Ruport, Bennington county, Vermont, April 27, 1806, and was brought up  in his native Green Mountain State. At the age of twenty he crossed over into Washington county, New York, where he remained a year, and at the age of twenty-one settled in Burford, county of Oxford, Canada, West. He resided in Canada from that time until April, 1839, when he came to Whiteside county and settled first near Prophetstown, and in 1840 in Hume.

Mr. Wright married Miss Cynthia Martin at Blenheim, Oxford county, Canada on the 31st of January, 1833. their children were four sons and four daughters: Charlotte P., born July 9, 1834; Alexander H., born June 17, 1836; Charles P., born July 9, 1838; John W., born March 23, 1847; David E., born October 12, 1853; Emily M., born September 18, 1840; Cynthia C., born November 4, 1842, and Sarah E.. born May 20, 1844. Of these, Alexander H. died November 25, 1865, aged twenty-nine years, and Charles P., May 28, 1857, aged twenty, both of consumption; David E., died at the age of six years. Charlotte P. married Abel Cleaveland February 3, 1852; Mr. Cleaveland died August 18, 1855, and Mrs. Cleaveland married Carlos Haven, March 4, 1857; she is now residing at Port Henry, New York. John Westworth Wright married Miss Mary Jane Jones, March 1, 1870; children, Mertie E., born December 7, 1873, and Ralph Collier, born November 13, 1875; Mr. Wright is now an extensive farmer, residing at the old homestead in Hume. Emily M. married James Johnson, March 4, 1857; had one child, Larmia, born October, 1859; Mr. Johnson died in April, 1862; in April 1864, Mrs. Johnson married Gen. M. Fern, and is now living in Prophetstown; children, Mary E. and Charles W. Cynthia C. married George Haven, April 12, 1860; Mr. Haven was a native of Essex county, New York, and came to Whiteside in 1854, and was a farmer and stock grower; he died October 30, 1875, of typhoid fever, at the age of forty-two years; there is one child, Nellie, by this marriage. Sarah E. married Wallace Johnson,; children, Edwin H., Grace E. and Charlotte P. Mr. Wright's first wife died January 24, 1855. He afterwards married Miss Nancy A. Brydia, who still resides at the homestead in Hume. During his early days Mr. Wright was a school teacher, and then he became a farmer which occupation he followed until his death, which occurred September 25, 1875, having very nearly arrived at three score years and ten, the allotted age of man. He occupied a number of public positins during his lifetime, the duties of which he discharged with credit to himself, and with general satisfaction to the public. In 1852 he was elected Sheriff of the county; for nine succussive years was Supervisor for the township of Hume, and for seven years Deputy Revenue Assessor in this District. As a man, his actions were guided by the golden rule; as a neighbor and friend he was kind and generous, and in the discharge of the rare quality of charity was wont to quote the Scripture passage, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." He was the center of the social circle into which he was thrown, having an inexhaustible fund of anecdotes, and a faculty of relating every incident in that peculiarly happy manner that renders so indispensable to a social gather.