Mystery Monday: Still No Mr. Wright

If a Mr. Wright is the father of Mary, wife of Moses Nichols of New Windsor, Orange County, New York, he has yet to step up and be recognized. I wrote about my search for her father recently in Finding Mr. Wright. There I detailed my research to date ending with the possibility that her father could be David Wright of New Windsor listed as a patriot by the DAR. According to the online index to DAR ancestors, David Wright died in New Windsor in 1833. He was one of four David Wrights heading households in Orange County, New York, in the 1830 U.S. census, but no probate records have been located for him in that county. The deed indexes for the county yielded nothing overly promising, but there were a few possibilities.

Two deeds from the 1830s were different. One listed David Wright as a grantor with no wife named (51: 566.) It was the David Wright of Newburgh, a different person. John Wright as executor was grantor of another deed, but he was executor for James McLaughlin late of Wallkill (52: 182.)

The four sons of Moses and Mary Nichols were minors when their parents died. After they reached twenty-one there were at least two deeds each as a grantor. The two deeds for third son, Charles, were both for land previously owned by Moses Nichols (64: 329; 66: 219.) The hope they would be selling land inherited from their maternal grandfather was not fulfilled. Charles Nichols is of New Windsor in his deeds, apparently predating his move with brother Robert J. Nichols to Georgetown, Kentucky.

The transcription of the cemetery where Moses Nichols and his first wife Jane were buried does not include his second wife or David Wright. (Inscriptions on Gravestones in New Windsor Cemetery) New Windsor Town records, transcribed online, include a reference to the demise of Moses Nichols, but have no such information on David Wright. I do not know of a marriage record for Moses and Mary Nichols. While he served in the American Revolution, there is apparently no pension record.

I see no obvious resource at present for information on David Wright. Could he have moved between the 1830 census and his death? Did he not own property? His son Benjamin predeceased him according to the DAR index, but what about his son John? Were there other children? Newspapers and court records could be the next best places to look.