David Wight

Biography

David Wight combined farming with the written business of local government at Sturbridge, in southern Massachusetts near the Connecticut border. He served as town clerk, justice of the peace and representative in the General Court. The town history remembered him drafting documents as readily as he worked his land—a useful description of the two kinds of work that shaped his adult life.

Born on May 19, 1761, David received fifty-eight acres of uncleared Sturbridge land from his father when he came of age. He began preparing it for cultivation and made his home south of the Quinebaug River.

A family account links his marriage to a journey. Returning from Medway, southwest of Boston in Massachusetts, and Boston in the spring of 1782, he reportedly met Susanna Harding, who was travelling from Medway to visit friends in Sturbridge. They married at Medway on November 7 that year. The story was preserved in a later town history rather than a contemporary account of the journey.

David and Susanna had twelve recorded children. Three died very young, and the names David, Augusta and Raddai were each used again for later children. Their daughter Marinda was born in 1799.

David died at Sturbridge on October 27, 1813, aged fifty-two. His youngest daughter, Hannah, was still a child. The family continued its connection with the riverside property, and his surviving son David later held several of the same town offices.