MARSHALL P. WILDER was born in Rindge, in the State of New Hampshire, on the 22d of September, 1798. Our limits do not allow us to enter much into detail with regard to any portion of Mr. Wilder's life, much less that part which is not purely horticultural. His paternal ancestors* were among the early settlers of the beautiful English-like town of Lancaster, Mass.; his grandmother being sister of Samuel Locke, a former President of Harvard University. His father bore the name of Samuel Locke, was of Puritan origin and Puritan principles, and connected a farm with his mercantile pursuits. Marshall P. was the eldest of nine children, and was tenderly loved by his mother, who was a gifted woman, pious like her husband, a great admirer of the beautiful in Nature, and a lover of rural pursuits and of country life. Under the influence of such a home, young Wilder caught the love of Nature and of the pursuits of the farmer. It was here that he learned to revere every thing that was sacred, and to support the institutions of Livingston's Memoirs of Eminent Americans, p. 513. VOL. 1. 9 65 religion. His ardent temperament, and precocity of mind, led his parents to desire their eldest-born to have a liberal education; and, having pursued most of the studies usually taught in common schools, he was sent to New-Ipswich Academy at the age of about twelve years, with a view of preparing him for college. But he found the inside of an academy, and the dead languages, rather too tame to satisfy his genius. He preferred the wild sports of country life, the healthful exercise of the farm, rather than scaling the heights of mathematics. His good parents now gave him his choice, to go to college and prepare for one of the learned professions, to enter the store of his father and become a merchant, or to learn the art of farming upon the old homestead. He preferred the latter; and was, ere long, a youthful farmer, familiar with the various processes of tillage, and with the use of agricultural tools. But, the trade of his father increasing, the young farmer was needed in the store, which he was induced to enter; but how was his pride mortified that he was to be a mere apprentice!— that he must begin at the lowest round, and ascend the mercantile ladder! He soon found, however, that it was not good to rely upon his ancestry or parents for a name and success, but upon himself. He met and conquered the difficulties of his chosen profession, and finally became a partner with his father. In the year 1825, Mr. Wilder sought and entered upon a wider field of mercantile enterprise in the city of Boston. He was then a husband and a father, and, until the decease of his first wife, resided in the city, near to his several places of business, but in 1832 purchased and removed to his present residence in Dorchester. For nearly the whole of his mercantile life in this city, he has been a member of the firm of Parker, Wilder, & Co.; a firm to which he is at present attached. It is a well-known commission-house for the sale of various woollen and other goods manufactured by several of the leading mills of this section of the country. The present warehouse is on Winthrop Square, and is one of the most imposing and best situated in the city. There is also a branch house in New York. Mr. Wilder has been an honorable and successful merchant. He has been too generous and public-spirited to become immensely wealthy; but he has secured a comfortable fortune without resorting to wild speculation, without ever having failed to meet his business obligations. He passed safely through the commercial storms of 1837, 1847, 1857, and 1861. In connection with his business, he has been useful in several moneyed institutions. He has been a director in the Hamilton Bank and the National Insurance Company ever since their organization, or for more than thirty years. For twenty years, he has been a director of the NewEngland Life-insurance Company; and has also been chairman of the Advisory Board of the London and Liverpool Insurance Company. Col. Wilder has held an intimate connection with military life, under a conviction that the existence of military power is the surest safeguard of civil authority. His last command was that of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, at its 219th anniversary. Col. Wilder was never specially fond of political life. Had he loved it as well as he does horticulture, he might have occupied one of the highest places in the gift of the nation. After his removal to his adopted State, he uniformly declined political office until 1837, when he consented, at the solicitation of his neighbors, to represent them in the Legislature of Massachusetts for one year. Ten years from that date, he was again called to civil office, as a member of the Governor's council. The next year, he was chosen a State senator from the county of Norfolk; and, on the organization of the Senate, was elected president of the body, — a place that he filled with eminent ability. The name of Col. Wilder was often mentioned, in 1852, as a suitable candidate for the chief magistracy of the State, by members of the party in power. His views in declining such a use of his name are expressed by him in the following lines: “During the remainder of my days, I wish to prosecute, without interruption, my commercial business; to enjoy, as far as possible, the comforts of rural life and of domestic tranquillity; and to devote such time as I may be able to command to agriculture, horticulture, and kindred arts. These are far more congenial to my taste; and in them I trust I may be able to do more for the welfare of my fellow-citizens, for the prosperity of my beloved country, and for the progress of society.” * For a long course of years, Mr. Wilder has occupied conspicuous places in societies that are devoted to the advancement of agriculture and horticulture. • Communication in Boston Daily Journal, Sept. 7, 1852. As early as 1849, when in the prime of life, he took an active part in the organization of the Norfolk-county Agricultural Society. At the primary meeting, his Excellency Charles Francis Adams, our distinguished minister at the court of St. James, presided, and gave a handsome donation towards founding the society. Mr. Wilder was elected the president of the association. He has been annually re-elected from that day to this. In the autumn of the same year, the first exhibition of the society was held at Dedham. It was a great agricultural day for that period, with its assembly of ten thousand people, with the fine cattle-show, and with the great array of talent that was collected at the dinner-table. The president was the orator of the day, and, for an hour and a quarter, discoursed eloquently upon the noble subject of agriculture, particularly agricultural education. At the festive board were assembled, by his invitation, Webster, Everett, Mann, Quincy, Briggs, and a galaxy of names such as are seldom recorded on similar occasions.* The novelty of the presence of ladies at the tables, at the instance of the president, made the hours pass all the more agreeably; and the custom was soon adopted at similar anniversaries throughout New England. At this period, and during his whole life, Mr. Wilder received many invitations to deliver addresses before various agricultural societies. The Governor of this Commonwealth appointed him Chairman of the Massachusetts Commission for the World's Fair in London, in 1850. As another compliment for his agricultural and horticultural services, he was appointed a commissioner of the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations, in the Crystal Palace in New-York City, in 1853, and was present on that occasion. He was also appointed, by the Royal Pomological Society of Belgium, a government institution, the commissioner for America. In several addresses, Col. Wilder has advocated agricultural education; and, while President of the Senate, procured the passage in that body, by a unanimous vote, of a bill for the establishment of an Agricultural College, which failed in the House. In consequence of this failure, he submitted a bill, which passed into a resolve, authorizing the Executive to appoint a board of five commissioners, who were to examine the subject more Agricultural Transactions of Norfolk County, 1849-51, pp. 121–145. thoroughly, and report to the next Legislature. He was made chairman of this commission, and in connection with Rev. President Hitchcock of Amherst College, another member, drew up a report on the subject of agricultural education; the materials of the report being made up of Dr. Hitchcock's observations in Europe in visiting a large number of agricultural schools and experimental farms. These united efforts were the seed which has chiefly given rise to the Agricultural College that is now established at Amherst, of which Mr. Wilder is the first trustee. At this period, Mr. Wilder was the leading spirit in influencing the different agricultural societies of this State to act in harmony, and in the movement out of which grew the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, of which he was elected president in 1851, and for eleven years a member, by appointment of the Governor's council. In connection with the Board of Agriculture, he suggested a national convention of cultivators, which should endeavor to do for the agriculture of the whole country what the Board were attempting for that of Massachusetts. Similar suggestions came from gentlemen connected with agricultural societies in other States. As a result, the United-States Agricultural Society was organized at Washington, D.C., in 1852; and Col. Wilder was elected its first president, and held the office for six years, or until his resignation of the same. During his presidency, Mr. Wilder addressed the society in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky. The attendance of people was often from seventy to eighty thousand, a day; and the cash receipts of a single exhibition sometimes amounted to nearly forty thousand dollars. Under his administration was instituted the "Great National Field-trial of Reapers and Mowers" at Syracuse, N.Y., the first of the kind in the world, when forty-two machines were - entered for competition, and kept up the exciting contest for a week. At the close of his official duties, the society presented him with its large gold medal of honor, inscribed to Mr. Wilder as "Founder, First President, and Constant Patron;" and with a tea-service of solid silver, with a complimentary inscription. Col. Wilder, as a horticulturist and pomologist, has a world wide reputation. It is in this capacity that he is best known everywhere. Soon after he removed to Boston, or in the year 1829, was organized |