He came to Chester in the year 1714, was a public speaker among the Quakers, and came recommended by that society in England.

Wright was not long in Chester before he was appointed to the General Assembly, and was also appointed a justice of the peace.

Before he came to the Susquehanna he had been to Conestoga where he preached to the Indians. He eventually traveled up the Susquehanna as far as the Shawanese Run, where the tribe had a village, became acquainted with the locality where he subsequently settled.

Robert Barber, one of the founders of Columbia along with Wright and Samuel Blunston, went in advance of Wright and after the first survey was made in his name he conveyed to John Wright in August, 1726, some 150 acres.

In the year 1729, John Wright was elected to a seat in the General Assembly and reelected in the years 1730 and 1731 without opposition. He was again a candidate in 1732 but, accidentally or otherwise, his name was omitted from some of the ballots and he was defeated by half a dozen votes.

George Stewart, of Donegal, was elected to the General Assembly that same year but died before taking his seat and John Wright was elected without opposition to fill the vacancy. He was reelected for 17 consecutive terms thereafter and on Oct. 15, 1745, was elected Speaker of the General Assembly.

In the year 1730 John Wright secured a patent for a ferry across the Susquehanna River and built a ferry house on the north side of Locust Street, near Front Street. His son, John, Jr., had charge of the western end of the ferry, on the opposite side of the river, where he built a tavern and ferry house.

Married to the former Patience Gibson, the couple were the parents of five children: Susannah, Patience, John, Elizabeth and James. Mrs. Wright died in 1722.

James Wright constructed the Wright's Ferry Mansion, still standing on South Second Street, at the foot of Cherry Street; and in 1788 his son, Samuel, laid out a portion of Columbia on land willed to him by his aunt, Susannah Wright after her death in 1784.