biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1770–1842)
|
| biography:
| Civil engineer, born in Wethersfield, Connecticut, USA. Trained as a lawyer and surveyor, he became chief engineer on the construction of the Erie Canal (1817–25), the first major engineering project in America. He went on to build the original St Lawrence Ship Canal and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (1825–31), then turned to railway engineering, and was appointed chief engineer of the New York and Erie Railroad. His son, Benjamin Hall Wright, also became a civil engineer, and after his father's death completed several of the schemes on which he had been working. |
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