Captain Wright was the Captain of the guard ship, man-of-war Griffin, and had charge of Napoleon on the island of St. Helena.
He married Jane Leach (sic), one of the young ladies living on the island. While attending a ball on the island given in honour of Napoleon, Captain Wright paid much of his attention to Jane Leach. In turn Jane asked the Captain a favour, she asked him for a lock of his hair. Captain Wright obliged – but said he had one condition and that was that she would do him the honour by cutting the lock herself using his sword - which she did. The lock of Captain Wrights hair was placed in a brooch which several years later was in the possession of Dr. Henry Wright’s widow in Ottawa.
During the Mackenzie rebellion in 1837 and 1838 Captain Wright was the Colonel of the Frontier Regiment. And he was also the Captain of one of the earliest steamers that journeyed the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers. The steamer was the Minacetunk (First Nations translation – spirit of the wave).
According to “Genealogy of the Wright Family” by Charlotte J. Nisbet the following is the genealogy of Captain William and Jane (Leech) Wright and their children.
William Elliott Wright was born on October 12, 1785 at Gravesend, England. In 1817 at St. Helena he married Jane Leech the youngest daughter of Richard Leech, Governor of “the Honorable East India Company’s Stores”
In about 1818 they retired to Lee, Kent, England where their three oldest children were born. They then moved to Chudleigh, Devonshire. In 1833 they moved their family to Canada, where they resided in Toronto for a short time and their youngest child was born. From Toronto they moved to Amherstburg, and remained there for a year while their log home was being built in Corunna.
It was during their time in Amherstburg that Jane contracted cholera and passed away. The Captain was left with his seven children and new house in Corunna. His step-sister Miss Ann Goble spent the rest of her life caring for them.
They named their home in Corunna “Oaklands” for Jane Leech Wright’s old home in St. Helena. The house was on the banks of the St. Clair River and just seven miles south of Sarnia. Here Captain Wright remained until the time of his death on January 20, 1869 – he was 84.
Children:
- Malcolm, born 1819 at Lee, Kent, England
- William Richard, born May 26, 1822 at Lee, England
- Catherine Louisa, born April 25, 1823 at Lee, England
- Elizabeth Jane, born September 26, 1825 at Chudleigh, Devonshire and died on October 5, 1871 at “Oaklands”, Corunna, Ontario (unmarried)
- Sophia Ann, born April 8, 1827 at Chudleigh, Devenshire
- Pulteney Malcolm, born May 6, 1831at Chudleigh, Devenshire
- Mary Margaret, born June 22, 1833 at Toronto, Ontario and died on 17 December 1890 at “Oaklands”, Corunna, Ontario (unmarried)
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