[1] Wright was born in South Canaan, Connecticut,[2] to a devout Christian family, who held anti-slavery beliefs and instilled in him a strict moral character.

In 1832, College pastor and professor of sacred literature (Bible) Beriah Green preached four abolitionist sermons clearly inspired by Garrison.

Under pressure from conservative trustees, he left to become president of the Oneida Institute, where as a condition of his acceptance of the post, he was free to preach "immediatism", immediate abolition.

At this time, the American Anti-Slavery Society espoused the immediate abolition of slavery, and called for an end to racial prejudice and equality for all.

To effect this change, members practiced a policy of "moral suasion," an appeal to people's ethics in an attempt to get them to embrace abolitionism and renounce slavery as sinful.

Wright edited a large number of publications, including Human Rights (1834-1835), The Emancipator and the Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine (1835-1838).

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.

[7] He 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.

[8][9] Between 1853 and 1858, besides editing the Railroad Times, he gave his attention to invention and mechanics, constructing a spike-making machine, a water faucet, and an improvement in pipe coupling.

In the spring of 1852 an insurance broker placed an advertising booklet in his hand wherein Elizur Wright looked it over and perceived quickly enough that no company could undertake to do what this one pretended to and remain solvent.

Elizur 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.

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.