John Wesley Wright was Granddad’s 1st cousin, 3x removed. He was born in Letcher County, KY on April 17, 1844. He was the second child born to Joel Ellis Wright and Eliza Agnes Wright, née Bates, who were both second generation immigrants from England. He was a grandson to two of Letcher County's most prominent pioneer families, the Joel Martin Wright and John Wallis Bates families.

Not much is known about his early childhood since opportunities in the hills of Kentucky in the 19th century were scarce, and mountain families had to rely mostly on brawn and primal intuition to survive. John did say that he had attended a few schools in his early childhood, but most of his early education involved a gun for hunting and a hoe for gardening.

            In 1862, when John was just shy of 17 years old , he joined the Civil War as a Confederate solider. He trained at Fort Smith, Arkansas and fought until he was captured in early 1863 during a raid by Ohio regular Union troops in Kentucky. He was then conscripted into the Union Army. When John was asked why he changed sides during the war, he would only shrug and say that they didn’t give him much of a choice. Indeed, on his conscription papers, John and one other man were described as having been replacements for fallen soldiers within the Ohio unit. The alternative of conscription being execution.

  It was known that John was a fierce fighter on the battlefield and it was there that he honed his sharpshooting and killing instinct that made him a reputable man once he came back home to Letcher County. During this time with the Ohio unit, John was shot three times; Once in the stomach in Cynthiana, Kentucky which nearly killed him, once in the triceps of his right arm at the mouth of Boones Creek, Tennessee, and once in the hip during a battle in Tennessee which forever gave him the ‘stiff’ walk that he would characteristically become known for.

            John served for 18 months in the Union Army before being honorably discharged in 1864 in Columbus, Ohio.

            After the Civil War, John traveled for a few years and learned the trade of husbandry and sold horses that he took from Kentucky all throughout the southern states. This gave him a hunger for seeing the world, but the nation was by and large very poor and John found himself hard pressed to find funds. So he found himself like so many men after the Civil war: looking for employment. But John had an ideal and found himself hunting down an uncle of his that was in a circus known as The Robinson Circus.

            This uncle, known as Martin ‘Brother’ Bates, was known as a ‘Kentucky Mountain Giant’. He stood at 7 feet 4 inches and weighed over 400 pounds. Brother Bates was happy to see his favored nephew and took him in and gave him a job in the circus as a sharpshooter. John would ride bare back or saddled on any horse and shoot bottles off of barrels as the horse galloped. John would also do this while standing on the horse or even two horses at full gallop. He even had tricks that made him famous, such as doing a flip off the back of the horse while firing his pistols.

His time with the Robinson Circus took him to many countries around the world and satiated his desire to travel and it took him to England where he got to perform in front of Queen Victoria and even met her in person.

     John eventually found his way back to the mountains of southeast Kentucky in 1865 and into the arms of his first wife, Mattie Humphrey. With Mattie, John fathered 3 children and established himself in Wise, Virginia where he would live out most of the rest of his days. John, however, would not find Mattie enough for his wild mannerisms and soon took another wife in 1869. And then another, and another and another and yet one more after that. All told, John had six wives and fathered 31 children (often with multiple wives in the same year). It was quite the joke to the family and to the community at large that John had ‘A wife for every mountain top’. But no one told that to John’s Face.

            Because of John’s restless libido, his blood has been spread all over the south east of the United States and many claim him in their lineage and rightly do so.  John wasn’t ashamed of his polygamy and he was a staunch protector of every one of his children. As he grew in stature throughout Wise County and the Cumberland’s, he grew in wealth and always made sure that all of his children were well taken care of. John always insisted that his Children attend school whenever it was available and told them that “a man couldn’t live by his hands alone” in this world.

John had many battles with miscreants who dared to tread on his territory in the Cumberland Mountains, including Doc Taylor and the Ku Klux Klan of which he disliked because of their secrecy. There are even more tales to his feats of justice that always pointed to the notion that John Wright was a fair and just man. And so this reputation inevitably led him to become Sherriff of Wise County Virginia in 1896. This was as much for John to show to his great family and community that he was their protector and a keeper of the peace. The Civil War may have hardened Devil John for this part of his life, for he was ruthless when he needed to be and none was ever know to escape his sights.

     Devil John would continue his rambling killing ways well into his early seventies. He was a known drinker and gambler and loved to make his own brandy, which he deemed the only good thing that an apple was for. But he also was a lover of his wives and children and took good care of his workers who tended his lands. John also was a lukewarm man of the Christian faith. He would often go to church with his first wife when the mood struck him, but he always insisted that his children go to church and not take up his way of life.

            But that all changed in March of 1925 when his first wife, Mattie, passed away. This seemed to change Devil John and he began to go to church more regularly. On a warm morning on July 24th, 1929, Devil John made the decision to shed his former life and became a man of God and was baptized in front of over 2000 people in Fairview, Virginia. Most people came because they loved John, but there were those who came just out of curiosity to see if it would really happen and even enemies of Devil John were in attendance to witness whether or not they could finally breathe a sigh of relief. And change his ways, John did . He retired back to his favorite farm in Wise and watched his children’s families grow . He became fiery about his devotion to the Christian faith and kept true to his word. He retook his Christian name of John Wesley Wright and dropped “Devil” for good. He also dropped his firearms and never fired one again.

            On a cold, snowy day on January the 30th, 1931, less than two years after he changed his life for the better, John Wesley Wright passed away at his home at the age of 87 with his second wife and some of his children by his bedside. The doctor who attended him said it was his heart that failed him. John was buried two days later in Wise, with thousands in attendance, much like his baptism less than two years before. Tears and brandy were spilt at the services that followed as the legend of this man was told by dear friends and family. One testimony was given at his funeral by an unknown man who fought alongside John during the Civil War and knew him all his life :

“He got his man safe if he could. If he could not, he used lead. He was never known after having captured a man to let him get out of his sight. Never did he strike a man or permit anyone of [his] allies to mistreat a man that he had under arrest. He believed in turning them over to the law and letting the law run its course.” (Devil John Wright, pg. 254)