The Founding of the Wright School

In 1866, Jonah Dayton Wright married Abigail Barrows.  They had 7 children (Lucy-1867, George-1868, Phebe-1870, Orrin-1871, Frank-1873, Seth-1874, and Lois-1875).  Jonah died in 1879 and Abigail moved with her children to Portland, MI, then in 1895 she moved to Ellsworth [actually Banks Township, Antrim County] with six children (Seth had passed away in 1894).  The children were all of marriageable age by then, but all apparently moved with her.  Part of the reason for her moving to Ellsworth may have been that in 1895 Phebe had given birth to an out-of-wedlock child, Lottie, whom Abigail was raising as her own and this allowed them to start over without the stigma of the out-of-wedlock birth.  Many things happened with the children in the next several years.

• Lucy married a neighbor Simon [Curtis] Feltenbarger in 9/1900 and they settled nearby.  They soon started a family – Clarence (1902), Otto (1905), Mamie (1908, died in 1914).
• George married Elisa Gurrad from Charlevoix in 6/1900.  They moved to Washington State.
• Phebe married a neighbor Archie Wrisley in 2/1898 (more on this below).  Their first daughter Eva was born in December of that same year followed by Charles (1903), George (1907), and John (1910).  Eva eventually married another neighbor, Leonard Herington, around 1919.
• Orrin never married, but always lived on the family farm or nearby.
• Frank remained unmarried until later in life.
• Lois married a neighbor Thomas DeMoulpied, 18 years older than she, sometime between 1910 and 1920.  He had 3 children from a former marriage.

Earlier, the Boss school had been built on the property of William Boss [Sr.] sometime in the 1880’s.  He had moved to Ellsworth from Ohio some years earlier (between 1850 and 1870).  One daughter, Annette, had married Byron Wrisley and one of their children was Archie Wrisley who married Phebe in 1898.  William Boss’ son, also named William, also lived on the Boss farm with his five children.  William Boss [Sr.] had died in 1893, so the school by 1900 was on the property of the son William.

With some of her children marrying off and moving out, Abigail Wright was now living with her remaining unmarried children (Orrin, Frank and Lois), and her young granddaughter Lottie whom she was raising as a daughter.  Phebe and Archie were starting their own family.  (We are not sure if Archie was aware that Lottie was the illegitimate daughter of his wife.)  Lottie was now of school age.  Abigail’s other grandchildren also were approaching school age.  With the Boss school being on the property of an older family (William’s youngest son having been born in 1888), Abigail arranged to purchase the school building and have it moved approximately one mile and placed on the corner of the farm she lived on.  We do not know the exact date of the move, but there are pictures of the Boss school from 1904 so the school was moved sometime between then and 1910 when it appears on the plot plan for the county.  It was renamed the Wright school (after Abigail Wright, the benefactor of the school), and Abigail’s several grandchildren could now attend there.

[Wright School]

Abigail lived until 1920, surrounded by her large family.  Lottie remained at home until her grandmother’s death and married a neighbor, Forest Taylor, shortly thereafter.  Frank, then alone, finally married in 1922 to Cassie [Cincush] Eaton, yet another neighbor, who had 5 children from her first marriage to Indice Eaton.