Samuel Wright (1640 - 1664)

Born 1640 in Sudbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Husband of Lydia (Moore) Cutler — married 3 May 1664 in Sudbury, Middlesex County, Massachusetts

Died 21 Aug 1664 at about age 24 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay Colony

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Biography

Samuel Wright was the son of Dorothy Unknown Blanford also known as Widow Wright and an unknown father.^[1][2][3] He arrived by 1639 and his origins are unknown.^[3] It is uncertain if he was born in Sudbury or in England.^[2]

He married Lydia Moore daughter of John on May 3, 1664 in Sudbury ("Samuel and Lidea Moores, May 3, 1664. m.r" Sudbury marriages p 290).^[4][2] They had a child who died at birth at the home of his presumed brother Edward Wright. Attending the birth was his apparent mother widow Dorothy (Unknown) Wright.^[2] The child's death was reviewed in court records.^[5] These facts and their common surname are the only evidence that he was the son of Dorothy (unknown) Wright and brother of Edward Wright. However, there were no other Wright families in Sudbury so he was almost certainly the son of Widow Wright.

He died on August 21, 1664 in Sudbury four months after he had married ("Samuel, Aug. 21, 1664. MR" Sudbury deaths p 331).^[2][4]

Erroneous Genealogies

The first husband of Widow Dorothy Wright of Sudbury and father of Edward and Samuel Wright is *unknown.* She did *not* have a son in Concord. Their family did *not* own a castle in England and she did not have a husband named Francis who owned a castle. From Dawes-Gates Vol 1 p 679:

"There are more mis-statements relative to this family than almost any other of early days, for our DOROTHY is erroneously assigned a husband she never had, a castle in England and a son Edward of Conord' who really sold that castle, but that man was not our EDWARD' who lived only at Sudbury. Through a mis-reading of the early script, EDWARD' is frequently recorded as having married Hannah Axtel2 (Thomas1) instead of HANNAH' UPSON. But what is really worse he is repeatedly shown in print as having three wives instead of but one and as being the composite of three contemporaneous men of that name, himself, the above-mentioned Edward of Concord and an Edward of Boston. Samuel2 (Edward1) is erroneously called son of a Thomas; and our Dorothy is made to marry Noah Brooks of Concord (who really had a wife Dorothy.) instead of marrying our BENJAMIN Moore, as a legal document proves that she did. The facts that Edward Wright of Concord actually owned land at Sudbury (though he never lived there) and that he and our EDWARD' of Sudbury both used for their children, contemporaneously the five names Sarah, Elizabeth, Edward, Martha and Samuel, explains in a degree, but docs not excuse, the published misinformation... Erroneous statements will be found in Pope's Pioneers, p. 516; J. H. Temple's Framinghauh 1887, pp. 754-5; Hubbard Thompson Memorial, L. K. Stewart, 1914, pp. 336-41; Vital Records of Sudbury, p. 157; New England Register XIX, 127; XXII, 143; LIII, 227 {and see 359); W. Barry's Framingham, 1847, p. 449; Hudson's Sudbury, p. 56, etc."^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ Richard Morgan Wright, Edward Wright of Sudbury, Massachusetts, three volumes (Baltimore, Maryland, 2012).
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5} Mary Walton Ferris, Dawes-Gates Ancestral Lines: a memorial volume containing the American ancestry of Rufus R. Dawes (Salem, MA: Higginson Book Company, 1931) Vol 1 The Wright Family p 686 available at Ancestry.com subscription required
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Robert Charles Anderson. The Great Migration Directory: Immigrants to New England, 1620–1640 (Boston, Massachusetts. New England Historic and Genealogical Society. 2015) p 386
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Vital Records of Sudbury, Massachusetts to the Year 1850 (Boston, MA: NEHGS, 1903) Marriages link
5. ↑ A History of Matrimonial Institutions, G. E. Howard, 1904, II, 191; Middlesex Co. Court Files for October, 1664 No. 2533.

• Plummer, John. The English Origin of John¹ Moore of Sudbury, Massachusetts, The American Genealogist (The American Genealogist, Barrington, RI, 1991) Vol. 66, Page 77.