Elizur Wright III (12 February 1804 – 22 November 1885) was an American mathematician and abolitionist. He is sometimes described in the United States as "the father of life insurance", or "the father of insurance regulation", as he campaigned that life insurance companies must keep reserves and provide surrender values. Wright served as an insurance commissioner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Early life Wright was born in South Canaan, Connecticut, to a devout Christian family, who held anti-slavery beliefs and instilled in him a strict moral character. He was the first son of Elizur Wright (1762-1845), whose father was also named Elizur Wright, and his second wife Clarissa Richards (1771–1843). Wright was one of 10 children; six were half-siblings by his father's first wife. His father was a 1781 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale College, and was known for his mathematical learning and devotion to the Calvinist faith. In 1810 the family moved to Tallmadge, Ohio, and the younger Elizur worked on the farm and attended an Academy that was conducted by his father. The famous abolitionist John Brown attended the Academy in Tallmadge with Elizur. His home served often as a refuge for fugitive slaves. In 1826, the younger Wright graduated from Yale and began to teach: first for two years in Groton, Massachusetts, where he met and married Susan Clark, then at Hudson, Ohio, as a mathematics and natural philosophy (science) professor at Western Reserve College and Preparatory School (1829-1833), the first college in northern Ohio. It was during this time that Wright encountered the writings of William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison's small book, Thoughts on African Colonization, persuaded Wright that slavery should immediately be abolished, and that the American Colonization Society's effort to transport free blacks to an African colony was both unethical and impractical. Garrison's pamphlet and his new newspaper, The Liberator, had other influence on Western Reserve College. In 1832, College pastor and professor of sacred literature (Bible) Beriah Green preached four abolitionist sermons clearly inspired by Garrison. The uproar this created, which was followed nationally, led to Green's resignation. Under pressure from conservative trustees, he left to become president of the Oneida Institute, where as a condition of his acceptance of the post, he was free to preach "immediatism", immediate abolition. The Oneida Institute focused on preparing future abolitionists, which Green felt was a moral and religious obligation. The school's most distinguished professor, President