William T. Wright was born in Porter county, Indiana, on September 16, 1837, being the son of Joseph Y. and Tabitha (Evans) Wright, natives of Pennsylvania and Virginia respectively. The father died in 1850, aged sixty. He was a wealthy farmer and had served as captain of heavy artillery in the war of 1812. The mother died in 1892, aged eighty, and is buried in Indiana. Our subject was reared in La Porte county, Indiana, until twenty-five, gained a good education in Valparaiso College and in 1864 went to California, where he remained until 1880. He taught school, operated a nursery and did various labors, and in 1880 he came to the Potlatch country. He took a government right on his present place and did well until 1893, when he went down with the crash, but he saved sixty acres of good soil which is tilled, and that, with his bee industry, makes a profitable business. Mr. Wright has the following brothers and sisters: Jonathan, Moses, Gideon, Harriet Stone, Sarah Stone, Carrie.

On July 2, 1868, in Cortland, California, Mr. Wright married Miss Emma, daughter of Charles U. and Margery (Crawford) Talmage. The mother died in Cortland and the father lives there now. Mrs. Wright was born in Joliet. Illinois, on December 19, 1845. She has one brother and five sisters, Samuel, Harriet Northup, Henrietta Porter, Mary, Lottie, Annie. Five chldren have been born to this couple, Myrtie, wife of Tames Kuykendall, a miner in Montana; C. Herschel, a stockman in Northwest Territory, Canada; Dean, with H. Trimble, in Lewiston; Pauline, wife of E. Harrison, in Frasier, Idaho; Lillian, at home. Mr. Wright is a member of the I. O. O. F., Leland, No. 90, and he and his wife are members of the Methodist church. He is a stanch Democrat and has taken an active part in politics. He has been school trustee for many years and is now serving as justice of the peace, having been the same in California.