He studied classics and mathematics at Yale,[1] and in October 1835 moved to Natchez, Mississippi to tutor a plantation owner's family.

His employer's business failed two years later, and he moved to Texas, working as a land surveyor and teacher.

[3][4] In 1849, he joined an army expedition (with Gray's help)[2] through Texas, botanising from Galveston to San Antonio and then on to El Paso.

[8] This was possible because at the start of the American Civil War, he was in Cuba and Gray kept him there until 1864 to keep Wright safe and his ongoing botanical work intact.

[1] George Engelmann named a small cactus after him, Wright's fishhook (Sclerocactus uncinatus var.

[5] He is also commemorated in the name of the American grey flycatcher (Empidonax wrightii ) found near El Paso.