History of Saginaw County, Michigan; historical, commercial, biographical, profusely illustrated with portraits of early pioneers, rare pictures and scenes of olden times, and portraits of representative citizens of today, [Vol. 2]

BIOGRAPHIES
OF
REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS
AMMI WILLARD WRIGHT
In the history of the mighty industry which made the Saginaw Valley
so noted as the chief point of lumber manufacture, the name of Ammi W.
Wright occupies a most prominent place; and is one the people of Michigan will always honor and revere. He was born at Grafton, Windham
County, Vermont, July 5, 1822, and came of that sturdy New England stock
which took an active part in securing the liberties of the country, and inculcated in their children that love of our free institutions which is a noted
characteristic of the sons of the Green Mountain State. His parents were
Nathan and Polly Sampson Wright, who in the early days of the last century removed to Rockingham, Vermont, where, with his six brothers and three
sisters, Ammi received such education as was afforded by the district school.
From seventeen to twenty years of age he spent in farming, the rigors
of climate and roughness of soil of his native State making rigid economy
and thoroughness of application essential to that measure of success which
he sought; and here he acquired a real love for agriculture, and a manly
admiration for fine horses and stock, which was one of his life-long characteristics. He then exchanged the country for the city, residing for a year
in Boston, where he obtained his first business experience, aided by his own
native talent and wit, amid scenes and activities which started his mind in
new channels of thought and methods of action. Returning to Vermont in
1844, before the era of railroad enterprise which changed the old ways of
doing business, he engaged in the carrying trade between Rutland and
Boston, taking produce from the country to the city and bringing back manufactured goods to the town merchants. This occupation he followed for two
years with success; and then undertook the management of a hotel for
Jeremiah Barton, Bartonsville.
On March 6, 1848, Mr. Wright was married to Miss Harriet Barton, the
oldest daughter of his employer, and took a lease of the hotel. A year later
he removed to Boston and leased the Central Hotel on Brattle Square, but
a few months after concluded to seek his fortune and make a home in the
far distant West. In the summer of 1850 he and his family arrived at Detroit,
then but a small and struggling town whose advantages as the center of a
great and rapidly developing country were but dimly realized, and whose
wonderful resources in lumber, salt, copper, iron, and other raw materials,
were almost wholly unknown. But he was far-seeing and comprehended that
the lumber business was destined to play a large part in the development of
the State and the Nation. He therefore settled in Saginaw in 1851 when the
villages, on either side of the river were connected by a rope ferry, had a
population of only a few hundred, and the entire territory north to the Straits
of Mackinac contained only two thousand persons. Thus it will be seen that
he was a pioneer of the valley which he, by his own active exertion, tended
so largely to develop to its present state of prosperity.
The first year of Mr. Wright's residence in the Saginaw Valley was
devoted to prospecting lands contiguous to the Cass, Flint, and Tittabawassee
Rivers, personally inspecting large tracts of pine, and bravely enduring the