Year: 1867

April 16. Wilbur Wright born on a farm near Millville, eight miles east of New Castle, in Henry Country, Ind.

He was the son of the Rev. Milton Wright, a minister and late bishop of the United Brethren Church in Christ, and Susan Catherine Koerner. Besides his younger brother, Orville, and his sister, Katharine, there were two older brothers, Reuchlin (born March 17, 1861, in Grant County, near Fairmont, Ind.), and Lorin (born November 18, 1862, in Fayette County, Ind.); two other children, twins, died in infancy.

Bishop Wright was born November 17, 1828, in Rush County, Ind. He attended country schools there and for a short time was a student at Hartsville College, Ind. In 1853 he received a license to preach from the White River Conference of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ and was ordained August 1856 at Abbington, Ind. He was the principal of a denominational school in Oregon from 1857 to 1859.

On November 24, 1859, he married Susan Catherine Koerner, daughter of John G. Koerner, wagon and carriage maker. She attended Hartsville College for a time and was especially successful in mathematical studies.

Between 1859 and 1869 Milton Wright was engaged for a short time in teaching and afterward in preaching. In 1869 he was made editor of the Religious Telescope, published in Dayton, Ohio, continuing in that capacity for eight years. He was elected bishop on May 10, 1877, at the 17th general conference of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ at Westfield College, Westfield, Ill. In 1878 he moved from Dayton to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In 1881 he moved to Richmond, Ind., where, in conjunction with his work as a presiding elder, he edited the Richmond Star. In 1884 he again made Dayton his home, remaining there after his retirement in 1905 and until his death in 1917.