Hines, H. K. "An Illustrated History of the State of Oregon." Chicago: Lewis
Pub. Co. 1893.  p. 1285.
 
JOSEPH A. WRIGHT

     a prominent and successful merchant of Sparta, Union county, Oregon, was
born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, October 23, 1855, and is the second son of a
family of three children born to ex-Governor Joseph A. Wright, of Indiana, who
was a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1810, and came to Indiana at an early day.
He was married in Bourbon county, Kentucky, to Miss Harriet B. Burbridge. Mr.
Wright was elected twice as Governor of Indiana, and in Buchanan's
administration he was appointed United States Minister to the court of Prussia,
and was returned under Lincoln's administration, and he died in that city in
1867.
     Our subject was educated in New York and Massachusetts. He is a graduate of
Yonker's Military Institute of New York, a graduate of Wilbraham Academy, of
Massachusetts, also a graduate of the Wesleyan University, at Middleton,
Connecticut, in 1879. He then entered the National Park Bank, in New York city,
and worked there two years. He was then employed in the West Indies
Manufacturing Company of New York, as secretary and treasurer; holding his
position until 1883, when he came to Oregon to take charge of a mining company
in Baker county, and has since engaged in the mining business, being interested
in some very prominent mines. In addition he has engaged in the mercantile
business at Sparta, Union county, with Mr. E. E. Clough as a partner in both his
mining and merchandising enterprises.
     In 1890 Mr. Wright was elected to represent Union county in the State
Legislature, on the Republican ticket, and was re-elected in 1892, on the same
ticket, to fill the same office. He has a great many friends in Union county,
where he has become one of its representative men. Mr. Wright is a Republican,
and has been ever since he was old enough to vote, the principles of the party
being instilled into his mind by his distinguished father who embraced the
teaching of the new party upon the outbreak of the war. Previous to that he had
been a Democrat.

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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in June 2008 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.