Martha Wright

Given Name
Martha
Surname
Wright
Maiden Name
Coffin
Birth Date
December 25, 1806
Birth Note
Boston, Suffolk County, MA
Death Date
January 4, 1875
Death Note
Boston, Suffolk County, MA
Spouse(s)
David Wright
Marriage Date
November 18, 1829
Child(ren)
William Pelham Wright
Eliza Osborne
Francis Wright
Ellen Garrison
Biographical Information
Possibly found in 18330718BJS_WHS1. She did visit her mother in Philadelphia that year. "Feminist, Abolitionist. An organizer of the world's first convention for women's rights, an event held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, Wright was also an ardent abolitionist and participant in the Underground Railroad. Born Martha Coffin, she was the youngest child of Thomas Coffin, a Nantucket sea captain turned merchant, and the former Anna Folger. Soon after her birth the Coffins moved from Boston to Philadelphia, where she was educated in the Quaker tradition. When her father died encumbered by debts in 1815, her mother paid off his creditors and successfully supported her family by running a boardinghouse and small shop. Mrs. Coffin's extraordinary strength and independence became a source of inspiration to Martha and her elder sister, who later became known as Lucretia Mott. In 1824 Martha married a Kentuckian, Peter Pelham, and moved to a frontier fort at Tampa Bay, Florida. Within two years she was left a widow with an infant daughter, however. She subsequently taught drawing and writing at a Quaker school in upstate New York, and there met and married a young law student, David Wright. In time the couple settled in Auburn and had six children, and she was noticeably pregnant when Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony met in her home to plan the landmark convention in nearby Seneca Falls, a fact reflected in the bronze statue of Wright at the Women's Rights National Historic Park. During the years prior to the Civil War she also presided over numerous anti-slavery meetings, and she had been in attendance at the founding of the American Anti-slavery Society in 1833. A close friend of Harriet Tubman, she harbored fugitive slaves in her home, and after the war was instrumental in creating the American Equal Rights Association, which attempted to consolidate support for enfranchising both blacks and women. She sided with Stanton and Anthony, however, when the issue became divisive. A woman of great wit and vitality, in December 1874 she fatally contracted typhoid pneumonia while visiting relatives in Boston, and her death at age 68 stunned those who knew her. She was buried in her son-in-law's family plot, where her daughter Eliza Wright Osborne, also a noted suffragist, and her grandson, prison reformer Thomas Mott Osborne, were later interred." Martha's first husband was Peter Pelham. They married in 1824, but Pelham died in 1826. Together they had one daughter. Martha's second marriage was to David Wright. They had six children: Eliza "Lidy" Wright (1830 – 1911), Matthew Tallman Wright (1832 – 1854), Ellen Wright Garrison (1840 – 1931), William Pelham Wright (1842 – 1902), Francis "Frank" Wright (1844 – 1903), and Charles Edward Wright (1848 – 1849). "The Wrights lived on Genesee Street (in Auburn, NY), around the corner from the Sewards. Martha’s husband, David, was a lawyer who had worked in 1846 as a partner with William Henry Seward on one of his most famous cases, defending William Freeman, an African American accused of murder, on a plea of insanity. Beginning in 1827, Martha Wright, raised a Quaker, taught at the Aurora school attended earlier by Frances Seward and Lazette Worden, and the three women shared a strong commitment to abolitionism and women’s rights. "
Citation(s) for Biographical Information:
Find a Grave. Last modified February 25, 2014. Accessed on February 25, 2014.
Citation(s) for Birth Information:
Find a Grave. Last modified February 25, 2014. Accessed on February 25, 2014.
Citation(s) for Death Information:
Find a Grave. Last modified February 25, 2014. Accessed on February 25, 2014.