Sometimes it’s best not to overthink how some places in Warren County got their names.

Wrightsville is one such name.

It’s named after Joshua Wright who came to the area from near Rochester, N.Y., just one year after what we now know as Warren County was formally established.

Schenck’s History of Warren County says Wright’s house stood “near the site of the present saw-mill.” But that text was written in 1888 so it’s not entirely clear where that location is but Schenck does note that there were just two houses “on the ground now covered by the village.”

“From the time of his arrival here until his death he operated the grist-mill, and also ran the saw-mill until it burned a year or two after he came, whereupon his sons, Lester and Jude, rebuilt and operated it for many years,” Schenck concluded.

Wright died at the age of 70 in 1842.

He must have lived his pre-Wrightsville life as a bit of a traveler as his son Lester was born in Massachusetts before the move to New York and then here when he was 16.

“They reached here on the 6th of July (1821). At that time there was hardly an acre of tillable land in one spot in the entire township of Freehold,” Schenck wrote. Trees had been extensively felled, but the farmers had been more industrious to reap the profits of lumbering than of clearing the land. … The few roads were extremely primitive and rough, being cut out barely enough to permit the passage of teams.”

But timber brought money to the area — at one time there were seven stores in operation there.

“Just previous to the last war (Civil War)was perhaps its most thrifty period,” Schenck concluded. “As long as lumber was abundant it was one of the leading villages of the county. As many as 2,000,000 boards have gone over the dam there in a season.”