Wright, Sela Goodrich, 1816-1906.

Sela Wright was born in Oberlin, Ohio (July 21, 1816), the son of John and Betsy (Goodrich) Wright, and was educated at Medina Academy and Oberlin College (1841). He joined the newly organized Western Evangelical Missionary Society which later merged with the Union Missionary Society of New York and became the American Missionary Association. He was ordained as a Congregational clergyman at the Red Lake Mission, Minnesota (1843) and served there as a missionary to the Ojibwe Indian band until 1862. During the 1862-1867 period, he worked for the American Missionary Association in the southern states. From 1867 until 1891, Wright served at the Leech Lake Ojibwe Mission. He married Emeline Farnsworth on June 8, 1846, and died in Oberlin, Ohio on July 9, 1906. More biographical information is located in the collection.

From the guide to the Some reminiscences of the early Oberlin missionaries and their work in north-western Minnesota, 1890., (Minnesota Historical Society)