Susanna Wright (August 4, 1697 – December 1, 1784) was an 18th-century colonial English American poet, pundit, botanist, business owner, and legal scholar who was influential in the political economy of the Province of Pennsylvania, one of the Thirteen Colonies that ultimately engaged in the American Revolution and founded the United States.
Around 1724, her father began exploring the Conejohela Valley, and he, Susanna, John and James, along with two other Quaker families settled in an area known as "Shawanna town on Susquehanna" in 1726.
Wright was well educated and, in addition to her native English, knew Latin, French, and Italian, and displayed wide-ranging scientific, agricultural, and literary interests typical of 18th century Enlightenment culture.
[4] In the 1750s, Wright moved into a mansion named Bellmont (since demolished), having been bequeathed a life interest in it by one of her father's partners in the ferry venture, Samuel Blunston.
Known for her good judgment and integrity, she became a prothonotary or principal clerk of the court, in which capacity she drew up legal documents such as land deeds, indentures, and wills for her less-literate neighbors.
[8] Through letter writing, Wright cultivated connections among the literary, political, and scientific elites of the eastern seaboard.
Franklin sought out her help in outfitting the Braddock Expedition of 1753 and in dealing with the Paxton Boys troubles of 1763–1764, and he remained a regular correspondent of hers, sending her such presents as a thermometer from London.
[8]: 65 Wright was part of an informal but influential group of Mid-Atlantic women and men writers; female members included the poet and pundit Hannah Griffitts, who considered her a mentor, and Milcah Martha Moore, the writers Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson and Anna Young Smith, and the historian and diarist Deborah Norris Logan.
[8]: 64 Wright's poems range from occasional verses to mystical poetry and meditations on such enduring themes as justice, time, death, immortality, friendship, family, and marriage.