Joseph Hill Wright was born about 1834 in Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina. He attended the University of North Carolina, where he joined the Dialectic Society. A member of Margaret Eliza Cotten's social circle, he often wrote to her or accompanied her to various parties and gatherings both in Raleigh and in Wilmington. At the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted in the Confederate army and was killed in 1862.