McNAIRY COUNTY, TN - BIOGRAPHIES - Benjamin Wright
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		McNairy County Independent January 25, 1924

			  Benjamin Wright

  One of the earliest settlers in the county was Major Benjamin
Wright, the father of Marcus J., and John V. Wright.  He was born
in Georgia, in 1784, and his father was Captain of a company in the
Revolutionary war.  He was a great military man in his day, being
appointed by President Madison a lieutenant in the United States
army and was afterwards attached to the 39th Regiment of Infantry,
stationed at Knoxville.  This regiment was commanded by Col.
Williams.  He did valiant service in the War of 1812.  He was with
General Jackson in the Indian campaigns, and was in the battle of
Horse Shoe Bend.  Gen. Sam Houston was in that campaign and in that
battle.  The bravery displayed by the subject of this sketch at
this battle won the admiration of Gens. Jackson and Houston.
  Major Wright, as he was later called, volunteered for service in the war
of Texas for independence, and was with Gen. Sam Houston.  He went
all the way to Texas in 1845, answering the call of President Polk
for volunteers in the Mexican War.  He fought valiantly in that
war, and after its close came back to his old home in Purdy.  He
contracted disease in that memorable struggle from which he never
fully recovered.  He died in Purdy January 30, 1860.
  For its historical value, and for the beauty of expression we reproduce
extracts from a tribute of Col. Dew M. Wisdom, to the memory of
this grand old man of McNairy county. It was written in Jackson in
November, 1881. They are: "One incident in Col. Wright's life
stands out vividly on the canvass of memory.  In his old age, long
after the noon of his life had passed, he heard once more the call
of his country, and volunteered as a private in the war with
Mexico.  He served under Scott along the very route the dauntless
Spaniard had gone centuries before, and bore the privations of that
campaign with characteristic fortitude.  I saw him on his return
home, welcomed by the outpouring of every man, woman and child in
Purdy and vicinity.  It was an ovation more heart-felt than ever
greeted the exultant entry of kings.  The speech of welcome was
made by Jas. F. McKinney, Esq., and it was an eloquent tribute to
the brave old man, who, despite his age, and the exemptions that
belong to it, had set the young men of his country a noble example.
and had followed the old flag in perilous ridges of battle beneath
a foreign sky.
   "Broken in the service of his country, the people
elected him again and again to the office of Register, and he
discharged its duties with punctilious fidelity.  No man ever kept
a neater set of books.  They are mute, yet eloquent memorials of
his patient industry, his methodical precision and undisputed
accuracy.  Every page bespeaks the cool collected brain that guided
aright the obedient pen.
   "Col. Wright was a good man by nature, His
generosity was not the outgrowth of the formula of schools or
creeds.  Little children sought his society, and played in trusting
fondness at his feet, or "climbed his knee the envied kiss to
share."  Strong men leaned upon him in hours of adversity, and
found an anchor both sure and steadfast."   When the storm came
they gathered around his  commanding form for protection, as do the
beasts of the field , need the sheltering oak  when the tempest
sweeps the forests, and marks is pathway with havoc and
destruction.  Women, too, were his ardent admirers, because they
knew him to be gallant, truthful, and the soul of honor.  No impure
word ever soiled his lips, or impure thought ever darkened his
counsels.  He was a Chesterfield in mannes and belonged to that old
school of gentlemen that sprang up immediately subsequent to the
Revolutionary period, and of whom it may be truly said,  " we shall
not look upon their likes again. Their devotion to the gentler sex
was perhaps unsurpassed. Jackson and Clay were types of such men,
and notable examples will  be found in every county, even down as
late as the outbreak of our Civil War, and "within the memory of
men now living."
  "Col. Wright was the embodiment of what the poet
calls "social eloquence," and in conversation there sparkles ever
the blaze of whit and flash of intelligence. To young men he was
especially kind, and they were always his warmest friends and most
ardent supporters.  Indeed he exhibited in his daily life a ready
sympathy with all classes.  And both his right and his left hand
were devoted to charitable uses.
  "He lived beyond the period allotted by the Psalmisite frail humanity,
and at the very threshold of octogenarian manhood, "death touched
his tired heart." In the "old graveyard" the polished shaft placed
there by filal hands, marks the spot where his remains repose, and
comingle with their original elements, And on its base, in the
chiseled tracery of the sculptor's  art, is written in fadeless
letters the story of his life.  That shaft rises in full view of
the small village-always to him like Sweet Auburn, the loveliest of
the plain-"the native hearth to his wandering feet, and it
overlooks the little stream whose sunny waves were never brighter
than his golden traits of character, "Such graves as his are
Pilgrims shrines.
   "Shrines to no code or creed confined;
    The Delphian vale; the Palestine,
    The Meccas of the mind."


GEN. MARCUS J. WRIGHT. McNairy County Independent, December 5, 1902

  Gen. Marcus J. Wright, of Washington, D. C. was in our town last Friday
and left Saturday morning for home.  The old McNairians will
remember the General as one of Purdy's sons.  Col. J. H. Duke, of
Jackson, spent several hours with him in old Purdy viewing the
scenes of their boyhood days.  No nobler hearted men were ever born
and raised in the county than Mark Wright and John V. Wright, as
they are familiarity known.  They both enjoy positions of
prominence in the government departments at Washington.  The hand
of time is being laid gently on the General, and his appearance
indicates but little of the marks of the years that roll by.