24 Facts About Elizur Wright

Elizur Wright III was an American mathematician and abolitionist.

Elizur Wright is sometimes described in the United States as "the father of life insurance", or "the father of insurance regulation", as he campaigned that life insurance companies must keep reserves and provide surrender values.

Elizur Wright was born in South Canaan, Connecticut, to a devout Christian family, who held anti-slavery beliefs and instilled in him a strict moral character.

Elizur Wright was one of 10 children; six were half-siblings by his father's first wife.

Elizur Wright's father was a 1781 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale College, and was known for his mathematical learning and devotion to the Calvinist faith.

In 1810 the family moved to Tallmadge, Ohio, and the younger Elizur Wright worked on the farm and attended an Academy that was conducted by his father.

Elizur Wright's home served often as a refuge for fugitive slaves.

In 1826, the younger Elizur Wright graduated from Yale and began to teach: first for two years in Groton, Massachusetts, where he met and married Susan Clark, then at Hudson, Ohio, as a mathematics and natural philosophy professor at Western Reserve College and Preparatory School, the first college in northern Ohio.

Elizur Wright contracted tuberculosis, took a leave of absence, and died within six months.

Elizur Wright became the national secretary of the organization for five years.

Elizur Wright edited a large number of publications, including Human Rights, The Emancipator and the Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine.

Elizur Wright's continued opposition to slavery incurred the enmity of its advocates, his house was once besieged by a mob, and an attempt was made to kidnap him and convey him to North Carolina.

Elizur Wright became involved with the newly created Liberty Party and began to separate from the evangelists and the religious anti-slavery movements, believing that government intervention was the way to abolition.

Elizur Wright was a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee, an organization that assisted fugitive slaves.

Elizur Wright was arrested and charged for aiding in the 1851 escape of Shadrach Minkins, the first black man to be seized in New England under the Fugitive Slave Act.

Elizur Wright was indicted and tried for libel in consequence of his severe words for the liquor interests while publishing the Chronotype.

Elizur Wright patented the last two, and manufactured them for a short time.

At age 40, Elizur Wright visited the Royal Exchange in London to investigate the life insurance industry.

Elizur Wright recognized that these life insurance policy owners were too old to work and could no longer afford their premium payments but were not yet dead to collect the benefit.

Elizur Wright recognized and wrote about the fact that life insurance policy owners were not able to obtain as much as half of the value that should be in these policies in his book Politics and Mysteries of Life Insurance.

Elizur Wright realized how easy it was to for insurance carriers to cheat, so he devised formulas for calculating the reserves and created statutory capital requirements for the industry.

Elizur Wright served as an insurance commissioner for the State of Massachusetts from 1858 to 1866.

Elizur Wright initiated and promoted plans for making Middlesex Fells, an area north of Boston bordering Malden and Melrose, into a public park; although he did not succeed during his lifetime, the plan was carried out later and Middlesex Fells is Middlesex Fells Reservation to this day.

Elizur Wright served as an officer of the National Liberal League.