Wright, Laura Maria (1809–1886)

American missionary to the Seneca Indians who, with her husband, developed a written Seneca language . Name variations: Auntie Wright. Born Laura Maria Sheldon on July 10, 1809, in St. Johnsbury, Vermont; died on January 21, 1886, near Iroquois, New York; daughter of Solomon Sheldon and Dorothy (Stevens) Sheldon; granddaughter of pioneer Willard Stevens; educated in local schools and at the Young Ladies' School of St. Johnsbury; married Asher Wright (a cleric), on January 21, 1833 (died 1875).

Laura Maria Wright was born in 1809 in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, the 10th of 12 children. From age seven, she was raised by a married sister in the nearby town of Barnet, which her grandfather, Willard Stevens, had pioneered. As a youngster, she sought contact with the Native American children living nearby and later held prayer meetings for them. At age 17, she spent a year at the nearby Young Ladies' School, improving her education, after which she taught school in the Vermont towns of Barnet and Newbury for several years. In 1833, she married missionary Reverend Asher Wright of Hanover, New Hampshire. The day after their wedding, they began their journey by stagecoach to the Buffalo Creek Reservation in western New York State. During the cold, 15-day trip, Asher taught Laura the Seneca language, and within their first few months in their new home, she became a proficient speaker. This skill enabled her to work closely with the Seneca women and children, an accomplishment denied to her husband due to the strict separation of the sexes in that community.

Living in a two-story log building called the Seneca Mission House at Buffalo Creek, the Wrights traveled on horseback to local Native American settlements, carrying medicine, food, and their Bibles and notebooks. Working to render the Seneca language into written form, the Wrights became fluent speakers of the difficult language and began teaching the Seneca to read. The Wrights also translated hymns, prayers, and scripture into Seneca. An enlarged version of Asher's hymnal, first printed in 1843, was still in use in the 20th century. As part of their literacy work, Laura wrote a bilingual schoolbook that was published in 1836 in Boston. She wrote a speller in 1842 and a bilingual journal between 1841 and 1850, both of which were printed at the mission by means of a printer her husband designed especially to accommodate Seneca phonetics.

Between the years of 1837 and 1845, the Wrights entered into a series of conflicts with local white land developers. Their efforts proved mainly unsuccessful, and the Buffalo Creek Reservation on which many of the Seneca lived was lost. After a treaty was signed in 1842, the Seneca retained only two reservations in that area of New York. Soon, the chiefs were overthrown by a group dominated by the Wrights' students, and the republican Seneca Nation was formed in 1848. Both the move and the rebellion brought hunger, disease, and dependence to the Seneca people. After years of hard-ship amongst the Seneca, the Wrights, with the aid of a wealthy Boston merchant named Philip E. Thomas, were able to take a great many orphaned Seneca children into their newly founded Thomas Asylum for Orphan and Destitute Indian Children. Now known as "Auntie Wright," Laura was revered for honoring an ancient Seneca virtue; before the official founding of the orphanage, she had taken several parentless Seneca children into her home. She also founded the Iroquois Temperance League as the abuse of alcohol had further burdened the Seneca. When Asher Wright died in 1875, Laura moved into the house of Nicholson H. Parker, a long-time Seneca friend. She died there 11 years later, in 1886, of pneumonia. As late as the 1930s, "Auntie Wright" was still remembered with great respect by the elder members of the Seneca community.

sources:

James, Edward T., ed. Notable American Women, 1607–1950. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1971.

McHenry, Robert, ed. Famous American Women. NY: Dover, 1980.

Drew Walker , freelance writer, New York, New York