Ohio County, West Virginia Biography of JOHN E. WRIGHT This file was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 465 Ohio JOHN E. WRIGHT was born at Wheeling, December 19, 1862, his father, the late John Wright, having been one of the twenty-three men who in 1852 organized the LaBelle Iron Works, long one of the leading industrial concerns of the Wheeling District, he having been a practical man in the business and having had charge of motive power, as superintendent, from the time of the erecting and equipping of the original plant. He retired from active service in 1876, but retained his financial interests in the business until his death in 1907, at the venerable age of eighty-five years. John Wright was born at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and came to Wheeling in 1852, at the time of the organiza- tion of the LaBelle Iron Works. He was an expert iron man, he having learned his trade in one of the largest of the old-time iron mills in Pittsburgh. He was also a director of the Jefferson Iron Works at Steubenville, Ohio, and was active in political affairs, first as a whig and later as a republican, though he had no ambition for public office. His wife, whose maiden name was Eleanor Madden, was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, and their companionship of more than fifty years was severed by her death in 1903. They became the parents of seven children: Anna Virginia, widow of F. J. Hugens, resides at Wheeling; Miss Eliza- beth died in 1921; Eleanor G. is the wife of C. A. Robinson. of Wheeling; William F. died at the age of twenty-three years; John E., of this review, was the next in order of birth; Margaret is the wife of C. L. Taylor, of Los Angeles, California; and Carie M. is the wife of Thomas Stewart, of Wheeling. John E. Wright gained his early education in the public schools and as a youth he became a skilled operator of a nail machine in the plant of the LaBelle Iron Works. Later he was made paymaster in the office of the concern, and he continued his advancement through various grades until ho became president of the company in 1898. He thus con- tinued until 1903, when he sold his interest in the business. In the following year he engaged in independent business as a broker and contractor, devoting five years to the iron and steel brokerage business and to contracting in public work. While president of the LaBelle Iron Works he pur- chased the Jefferson Iron Works at Steubenville, Ohio, re- built the plant and made the business a success, the same being still a subsidiary of the LaBelle Iron Works. Mr. Wright wedded Miss Bessie Baron, daughter of Abraham Baron, and her death occurred nineteen years later, in 1914. She is survived by two children: Mary Eleanor is the wife of David W. Sloan, of Baltimore, Mary- land; and John E., Jr., is superintendent of a plant at Elm Grove, a suburb of Wheeling.