William Wright, a former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, was a veteran politician, having sat in the House of Representatives as a Whig and friend of Henry Clay during the 1840s and in the Senate as a Democrat in the following decade. He had once again returned to the U.S. Senate in 1863 but died at his home in Newark after a long illness before he could complete his term. He was seventy-one years old. New Jersey Governor Ward named his fellow Republican Frederick Frelinghuysen to fill the unexpired term, thus increasing his party's majority in the U.S. Senate. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
"Wright, William," The American Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1866 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1873), 772.
Record Data
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