Lucinda Wright Grave

This grave on a remote stretch of the Green River Desert segment on the Sublette Cutoff was long a mystery. Lucinda (Watt) Birchfield Wright was born in Kentucky where she married James Birchfield. They moved to Illinois where Lucinda had three children. Birchfield apparently died in the winter of 1835/1836 and Lucinda then married Thomas Huston Wright. The two of them had four more children. In 1853, the Wrights along with their children, some with families of their own, set out for Oregon.

Lucinda Birchfield Wright, then 47, died on the Sublette Cutoff on 25 June 1853. The cause of death was not recorded. Lucinda’s nephew wrote: "Uncle Huston’s wife died on the Green River desert and was buried at the side of the road. I shall never forget how desolate we felt as we hitched up the oxen and pulled out, leaving the freshly broken earth by the side of the Old Oregon Trail as the only visible sign that one of our number had finished the journey, while we must still travel on. There were four families of us that stopped to bury my aunt, in a blanket in a shallow grave, with a few feet of earth and the wide sky over her."

A wooden headboard which is believed to have been the original gravestone was found on the site In 1961. It is now on display at the Museum of the Mountain Man in Pinedale, Wyoming.

Ownership
Public (BLM)

Directions
Lincoln County, Wyoming. T26N/R112W

Approximately 15 miles east of La Barge, Wyoming. A visit to this site should not be attempted except in a 4WD over dry roads. Even then, extreme caution is urged. Check locally for directions and road conditions.

National Park Service Comprehensive Management Plan
The site has been fenced and marked by the Oregon-California Trails Association. There is no known threat to this site. It is not listed on the National Register.

Additional Information

Duffin, Reg. "The Grave of Lucinda Wright" Annals of Wyoming (Spring 1998