Information Sheet

 

 

R         Wright, Clarence Boyce, 1877-1953.

236                  Diaries, 1912-1926.

                                    Fifteen volumes.

 

MICROFILM

 

 

 

These are diaries of Clarence Boyce Wright, a native of Tuscumbia, Miller County, Mis­souri, and an employee of Anchor Milling Company.  Wright worked in the mill at Tuscumbia and was clerk aboard the company towboat Ruth.  The diary entries note events in Miller County and along the Osage River, weather and river conditions, and the milling company's business.

 

The first child of Green Lee Wright and Emma Boyce Wright, Clarence Boyce Wright was born on 14 November 1877 on Saline Creek near Tuscumbia, Missouri.  He attended the local grade school and completed teachers’ institutes at Spring Garden and Columbia, Missouri.  He taught school near Bagnell, and then took a position in 1905 with the Anchor Milling Company at Tuscumbia.  Beginning in the mill, he went on to become a clerk and pilot of company tow­boats engaged in freighting on the Osage River.  Wright married May Hauen­stein in 1905.  She was the daughter of Philip F. Hauenstein and May Riggins Hauenstein.  Wright’s father-in-law was a boat pilot, stockholder, and officer of the Anchor Milling Com­pany.  The Wrights’ only child, Homer Clay Wright, was born in 1911.

 

C. B. Wright worked as a building contractor after Anchor Milling sold its boat in 1924.  In partnership with D. F. Thompson, he built a brick school at Tuscumbia and the first Miller County Nursing Home.  He was quite active in the community, teaching Sunday School, serving on the school board, and promoting the winter lyceum and summer Chautauqua pro­grams.  Wright’s health failed in 1947, and he spent the remainder of his life confined to his bed.  He im­proved the time by writing about his life on the river and in Miller County.  Al­though he wrote extensively, his work was never published.  Homer Clay Wright edited and published excerpts of his father’s dia­ries in series for the Miller County Autogram-Sentinel and the Eldon Advertiser.

 

Wright’s diaries include daily entries beginning on 1 March 1912.  Each notation in­cludes meteorological observations and remarks on Osage River stages and conditions.  He also re­marked on business of the Anchor Miller Company, including numerous trips aboard the towboat Ruth and the construction and launching of the steamboat Homer C. Wright at Tuscumbia in 1919.  The boat was named for C. B. Wright’s son.  Of particular interest are the annual summa­ries entered on the “Memoranda” pages at the end of each volume.  In them, Wright summarized the year’s events.  He touched on national affairs, natural phenomena, and changes in the Miller County community.  Wright’s diaries complement records of the Anchor Milling Company at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection’s branches in Columbia (collection C3351) and Rolla (R110).

 

 

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