Lydia Wright and William Merriam

At last, I get to talk about my favourite family on my tree so far, the Wrights. Sally Wright Merriam, about whom I have already written, was the mother of Melvin J. Hart, my civil war veteran paternal great grandfather. Her parents, and my three times great grandparents, were William Merriam and Lydia Wright.

William was born in Meriden, which was part of  Wallingford, Connecticut, on June 8, 1768, the son of William Merriam and Mary Austin.  He appears to have been the youngest of seven children, the others being Phoebe, Amasa, Asaph, Chloe, Esther and Joel. Lydia was daughter of Captain Charles Wright, who fought in the Revolutionary War, and Ruth Smith. Lydia was born on March 12, 1772  likely in Winsted, Connecticut, and was the third eldest in a family of twelve children, the others being Tyrannus, Sarah, Charles Jr., Stephen S., Tyrannus Augustus, Ruth, Erastus, Erastus, Chester, Nathan M., and Matthew Miles. (At least two of the children had died in infancy—the first Tyrannus and the first Erastus).

Lydia and William were married on August 8, 1793 in Winchester, Litchfield, Connecticut. William’s occupation was that of a joiner, and he purchased “the farm on Wallen’s Hill”, “near the schoolhouse”, in Winsted the year of their marriage, which he sold to Samuel and Moses Camp in 1797. William and Lydia continued to reside in Winsted, until they moved with Lydia’s extended family, including her father Charles, her uncle Freedom, and most of her siblings, to the “Black River Country” of upstate New York. They brought their first four children, William, Sally Wright, Sophronia and Lorenzo, ages two to eight, with them when they set out from Colebrook, Connecticut on March 1, 1802. It took the travellers four weeks to arrive at their destination with a sled drawn by two ox teams. Their last three children, Louisa, Lydia and Joel, were born in New York.

It appears that William died in 1834, and that Lydia passed away in August 1839. I have not been able to find a reference as to where they were buried. Next time, I will discuss Lydia’s father, Captain Charles Wright, one of my favourite ancestors.