His parents could not afford to send him to school, so he worked on the family farm until he was 17 years old and could support his own education.
Trained in medicine, Alfred Wright often needed to tend Choctaw patients who lived some distance from the mission.
When Alfred was at the mission, he was often busy either preparing sermons or translating religious texts from English to the Choctaw language.
Attacks of illness increased in frequency and intensity as he grew older, but he maintained a hectic pace as much as possible.
The family owned a small farm and had eleven children, so could not afford to send Alfred to school.
After graduating from Williams College in September, 1812, he was employed as a preceptor of an academy at Hadley, Massachusetts until November, 1813, when he enrolled at Andover Seminary.
[1] All mission operations ceased in 1831, as the inhabitants of the Choctaw Nation were required to move to their newly designated land in Indian Territory (present-day Southeastern Oklahoma).
By then, Harriet realized that this mode was failing to reach enough Choctaw children who needed and wanted to pursue an education.
She persuaded Alfred that Wheelock should become a boarding school, because many of the potential students lived at such a distance that it was impractical to attend daily classes on foot.
Instead of paying tuition, the children performed many of the chores need to operate the school: cooking, cleaning, providing firewood, etc.
Class time was devoted to learning English, arithmetic, reading, writing and studying the Bible.
The floor and belfry were made from cypress wood and the roof was covered with sun-cured oak shakes.
Wright carved a slogan, "Jehovah Jireh" (meaning "the Lord will provide") into the gable of the church.
Alfred Wright's attacks of illness increased in frequency and intensity as he grew older, yet he persisted in maintaining a hectic pace.
He spent as much time as he could translating religious documents from English into the Choctaw language until he died on March 31, 1853, and was buried very near Wheelock church.