Francis Mastin Wright was a Republican politician in the U.S. State

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 of Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

 who was Ohio State Auditor

Ohio State Auditor

The Ohio State Auditor is responsible for auditing all the public offices of the state of Ohio. The auditor is elected to a four-year term. The current Auditor is Dave Yost....

 (1856–1860).

Francis Wright was born in Frederick County, Virginia

Frederick County, Virginia

Frederick County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is included in the Winchester, Virginia-West Virginia Metropolitan Statistical Area. It was formed in 1743 by the splitting of Orange County. For ten years it was the home of George Washington. As of 2010, the population was...

, and ended up in Clark County, Ohio

Clark County, Ohio

As of the census of 2000, there were 144,742 people, 56,648 households, and 39,370 families residing in the county. The population density was 362 people per square mile . There were 61,056 housing units at an average density of 153 per square mile...

, where he was educated in the country schools. He was a merchant in Springfield, Ohio

Springfield, Ohio

Springfield is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Clark County. The municipality is located in southwestern Ohio and is situated on the Mad River, Buck Creek and Beaver Creek, approximately west of Columbus and northeast of Dayton. Springfield is home to Wittenberg...

 and later Urbana, Ohio

Urbana, Ohio

Urbana is a city in and the county seat of Champaign County, Ohio, United States, west of Columbus. Urbana was laid out in 1805, and for a time in 1812 was the headquarters of the Northwestern army. Urbana was named after the town of Urbanna, Virginia. It is the burial-place of the Indian fighter...

. He was elected as a Whig for County Auditor of Champaign County

Champaign County, Ohio

As of the census of 2000, there were 38,890 people, 14,952 households, and 10,870 families residing in the county. The population density was 91 people per square mile . There were 15,890 housing units at an average density of 37 per square mile...

.

In 1855, as a Republican, he defeated incumbent Democrat William Duane Morgan

William Duane Morgan

William Duane Morgan was a newspaper editor and Democratic politician. He owned papers in the U. S. States of Pennsylvania and later Ohio. He was also Ohio State Auditor 1852-1856....

 for Ohio State Auditor, but declined a second term. He returned to Urbana in 1860, and was appointed Internal Revenue Collector by President Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

. He resigned in 1867 and died at Urbana January 16, 1869.