Moses Wright Nature Area

The History of the Moses Wright Nature Area 

The Moses Wright Nature Area, along with the rest of Worthington's East Granville Road Park, was once the site of a farm first owned by James Wright, a well-known local attorney, Judge and Franklin County treasurer. James Wright was born near what is now Dublin, which at the time was little more than a crossroads. Although isolated in an area only recently settled, James's parents were literate and well read, and James was well educated also, graduating from Princeton University in 1848. James married Elizabeth Davis in 1855, and in 1869 moved his family of eight children to a home in Wotthington, the site of today's East Granville Park. The land originally comprised at least four parcels. 

For many years, the house and land belonged to Wright's highly educated daughter Carrie Wright, who was a graduate of OSU in 1892 (and earned a Master's degree fom the University of Chicago!). In her later years she served as a Latin teacher at Worthington High School. Upon her death in 1938, the land passed to her brother Moses J. Wright (or "Mose"), an attorney living in Washington, D.C., who used the property as his vacation home. Mose, the youngest child of James and Elizabeth Wright, died in 1965, and his heirs sold the land to the city for a park, which they purchased with the help of a grant from HUD in 1969. The park was developed in the early 1970s. 

To develop the land into a park, the City first had to clear away dead trees and underbrush and several buildings. In April 1971, the Worthington News printed Section 825 .25 on Trees and Shrubs, which dealt with the planting or maintenance of nuisance trees. The list of species to be removed included silver maple, box elder, horse chestnut, tree of heaven, birch, catalpa, mulberry, willow, European mount ash, and Chinese elm. The paper noted that the list of nuisance trees was prepared for the City in 1961. 

In June 1972, the Worthington News published the report of the Park Study Committee, which described land use recommendations for the development of the park. Some of the recommendations are to be seen in today's park, which has trails constructed so that only foot traffic can be maintained, a tot lot, and a gravel parking lot large enough for 8 to IO cars. A perimeter wind break consisting of Norway Spruce, White Pine, and Autumn Olive was proposed. The recommendation of flowering and fruiting trees and shrubs included flowering crabapples and Tatarian Honeysuckle. But it also included natives like American Cranberry Bush. 

In 1996, a story in the local paper referred to a contest in the 1970s to find the oldest tree in Franklin County. The two oldest were located in Worthington. The oldest still stands on Proprietors Road; the other now lies dead and decaying at the Southeastern comer of the Moses Wright Nature Area, killed by heavy construction equipment on Greenwich Street, which compromised the root health of the tree.