Marshall Pinkney Wilder of Rindge, Cheshire County, New Hampshire from New Hampshire As It Is (1855)

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Topic:   Marshall Pinkney Wilder, of Dorchester, Massachusetts.
Source:  New Hampshire As It Is by Edwin A. Charlton from Part III: A General View of the
	 State of New Hampshire, Tracy and Sanford Publishers, Claremont, N.H., 1855
	
	This distinguished gentleman was born in Rindge, New Hampshire, September 22, 1798. He 
was the eldest child of Samuel Locke Wilder, Esq., a worthy merchant and farmer in that town, and
its representative several years in the legislature of this state. His father moved there, in 
early life, from Lancaster, Massachusetts. His paternal ancestors performed important services 
in the Indian and revolutionary wars, in the suppression of Shays's rebellion, and in the 
organization of the state and national governments. "Of all the ancient Lancaster families," says
the Worcester Magazine, " there is no one that has sustained so many important offices as that of
the Wilders."
	Having given him the advantages of the common school, his parents sent him, at twelve 
years of age, to New Ipswich Academy, and subsequently placed him under the instruction of a 
private teacher, for the study of the classics. When he had nearly completed his preparation for
college, they discovered that his inclination was not for sedentary, but for active life. Partly
for the confirmation of their own opinion, and partly also for the exercise of his sense of 
personal responsibility, they gave him his choice, either to continue his studies and prepare for
one of the learned professions, to enter the store with his father and fit himself for 
mercantile pursuits, or to go on to the farm with the workmen and become an agriculturist.
	At first he chose the latter; but Providence soon called him from the farm to the store,
where he served an apprenticeship till he reached his majority. Then he was admitted into the 
firm, called S. L. Wilder & Son. In this connection he transacted a large and lucrative business
for several years, and, in addition, discharged the duties of postmaster in that place. 
	His first marriage was December 31, 1820, to Miss Tryphosa Jewett, of that town, by whom 
he had six children; and his second August 29, 1833, to Miss Abby Baker, of Franklin, 
Massachusetts, by whom he also had six children. Of his offspring, seven still survive, and five
are not, for God has taken them, together with his two wedded companions. 
	In 1816, when he was only eighteen years of age, he exhibited a partiality for military 
tactics, and received an appointment in the staff of the twelfth regiment of New Hampshire 
militia, in connection with which he remained till 1820, when he took command of the Rindge 
Light Infantry, a new independent company, raised and equipped mainly by his exertions. After two
years he was promoted to the office of lieutenant colonel, and the next year to that of colonel
of the regiment; but he resigned the office the succeeding spring, on account of his removal to 
Boston, being then in the line of rapid promotion to the highest military honors. 
	Upon the transfer of Mr. Wilder's family and trade to Boston in 1825, he engaged in the 
West India goods business as a wholesale merchant, and subsequently as an importer; but in 1827 
he entered a large commission house in which he still continues. The firm is at present called 
Parker, Wilder, & Co., and sustains the reputation of one of the most active and reliable houses 
in New England. It owns and transacts the business of a large number of cotton and woollen mills.
	He and his senior partner, Isaac Parker, Esq., brother of Hon. Joel Parker, late chief 
justice of this state, rank among the merchant princes of Boston. They sustain official relations
to several monetary institutions of that city. 
	Upon the death of Mr. Wilder's first wife, he sought the retirement of the country, and 
moved into his present residence in June, 1832. It is the first house in Dorchester on the road
from Roxbury to Milton Hill. It is called is "Hawthorn Grove," standing back from the street, 
and surrounded with shades and hedges in variety. All its buildings are convenient and tasteful.
On either side, and in the rear of the house, are gardens and nurseries. His conservatories rank
among the best in the country. Amateurs pronounce his collection of trees and plants the best 
that can be found. His library contains the most rare and valuable works on his favorite art. 
	He usually devotes the morning and evening to study; the rest of the day to the 
superintendence of his workmen at home, and to his mercantile business in Boston. This plan, 
long continued, has enabled him to make large and various literary acquisitions.
	He was one of the early members of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, of which he
was elected president in 1840. He had previously submitted to that body a resolution, which 
separated from it the Mount Auburn Cemetery Association, and which secured the annual payment, 
by the latter to the former, of one quarter of the receipts from the sale of lots, in 
consideration of the society's relinquishment of its claim to those consecrated grounds. This 
arrangement has proved, in a high degree, beneficial to both organizations. It has enabled the 
association to adorn its grounds, and to erect its beautiful temple and observatory, and also 
the society to offer more liberal premiums, to make numerous and important additions to its 
library, and to construct its commodious hall in School Street in Boston.
	During Mr. Wilder's presidency of that society, it greatly increased its funds and its 
number of members. At the laying of its corner stone, and the dedication of its hall, he 
delivered appropriate addresses, reported in its Transactions and in the periodicals of that day.
Under his energetic and wise administration, its triennial festivals rose to the highest rank 
among the gala days in Massachusetts. They assembled the refined and fashionable of both sexes,
from city and country, who crowded the old Cradle of liberty to its utmost capacity. On these 
occasions Faneuil Hall was tastefully decorated, and its tables were crowned with flowers and 
fruits in abundance and in variety. Mr. Wilder's sentiments and speeches at these festivals, 
together with the responses of the distinguished cultivators and of the chief masters of 
eloquence, fill a large space in the society's Transactions. 
	In 1848, when he resigned the office, the Society acknowledged its obligations to him in
a vote of thanks, accompanied with magnificent pieces of silver plate, and inscribed with his 
name and in testimony of his is "zeal and success in the cause of horticulture and floriculture."
During this period of eight years he also did much for the promotion of pomology, by large annual
importations of fruit trees, by the growth of seedlings, and by his encouragement of nurserymen
throughout the country.
	On the termination of his official relation to that society, he headed a circular for a
national organization for a kindred purpose. This is now known as the American Pomological 
Society, and Mr. Wilder was elected its first president--an office which he now fills. 
	At the biennial meeting of this association in 1852, he delivered, by appointment, a 
eulogy on the life and character of Andrew Jackson Downing, Esq., who perished by the 
conflagration of the steamer Henry Clay on the Hudson. He closed with these graphic words: 
"Downing is dead! But the principles of artistic beauty and propriety, of rural economy and 
domestic comfort, which he revealed, await a more full and perfect development; and as they 
advance towards a more glorious consummation, grateful millions will honor and cherish his name.
His memory shall live forever."
	At the late meeting of this society in Boston, he delivered a scientific and yet 
practical address on pomology,* which called forth the strong and unqualified commendation of its
members. Its session of three days closed with a levee, which he gave at the Revere House, and 
with a vote of thanks for his "able lecture," for his sumptuous entertainment, and for the 
dignity and fidelity with which he had presided over their deliberations.
	Mr. Wilder's knowledge of horticulture well qualified him for a leader in enterprises for
the promotion of agriculture. He commenced his operations in this department in his own county of
Norfolk, Massachusetts, where he joined in a call for a convention, that organized an 
agricultural society, of which he was elected and still continues president. At its first 
exhibition in Dedham, September 26, 1849, he delivered an address on agricultural education. He 
was followed by Governors Briggs, Lincold, Reed, and Hill, by Hon. Daniel Webster, Edward 
Everett, Robert C. Winthrop, Horace Mann, Charles F. Adams, Josiah Quincy, and others, in a 
strain of kindred eloquence.
	Then and there commenced a new era in the history of American agriculture. Kindred 
associations sprang up in other sections, and the cause was subsequently advocated by him in 
lectures before the agricultural societies in Berkshire, Bristol, and Hampshire counties, and 
before the agricultural society in this state.
	Before the latter of these bodies, he closed with this beautiful apostrophe: "My country,
let the eagle of thy liberty, which so lately stood upon the cliff of thine Atlantic coast, but 
which stands to-day upon the lofty height of thy rocky mounts, stretch her broad wings from shore

to shore, and continue to shelter the happy millions of thy sons. And from those wings, from year
to year, may her young eaglets fly to other lands, till the reign of universal freedom shall 
introduce a universal jubilee. My country, MY COUNTRY! glorious prospects are before thee-union,
wealth, and power; intelligence, virtue, and immortal renown!"
	In 1850 Mr. Wilder was elected from his county to the Senate of the commonwealth, a body 
of which he was chosen president, and during its session submitted a plan, which was cordially 
adopted, for a board of commissioners to examine and report to the next legislature on the 
condition and the means of promoting agriculture in that state. Of this commission he was 
chairman, and, with Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, of Amherst College, submitted an elaborate and 
invaluable report. From this body arose the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture as a 
distinct and permanent department of the government-a board of which he is still an acting 
member, which has its secretary and commodious rooms in the capitol, and which promises to do 
for agriculture what the board of education has accomplished for the system of instruction in 
that commonwealth 
	Mr. Wilder next undertook the formation of a kindred national society. In the spring of 
1851 he headed a call for a convention of delegates of state agricultural societies at 
Washington, District of Columbia, June 24, to concert measures for their mutual advantage, and 
for the promotion of American agriculture. This convention was fully attended by gentlemen from 
all parts of the country, and by members of Congress. It organized the United States Agricultural
Society, which elected him for its president-an office which he still holds.
	It held its first exhibition, which was confined to that noble animal the horse, in 
Springfield, Massachusetts. It was attended by twenty thousand people, and many thousand dollars
were awarded in premiums. Never before were so many rare specimens of the different breeds of 
that noble animal brought together. The sight of them, mounted or driven in the vast 
amphitheatre, was truly a sublime spectacle. 
	The second exhibition of this society was held in Springfield, Ohio, and confined to neat
cattle. In this department it was a scene of equal interest with the former. Many thousands of 
dollars were distributed in premiums. The speeches of Mr. Wilder, on each of these occasions, 
are fully and faithfully reported in the society's Transactions.
	In the autumn of 1849 an association was formed in Boston, called the Sons of New 
Hampshire. It consists of the many hundreds of emigrants from that state in and around that 
commercial metropolis of New England. Of this body Daniel Webster was the first president, and 
the subject of this narrative the second. At its first festival, Mr. Wilder renders this grateful
tribute to their native state: "She has raised men, great men; and had she performed no other 
service, this alone were sufficient to associate her name with that of Sparta and of Athens in 
the history of mankind. Her Stark was a modern Leonidas, and among her orators [pointing to Mr.
Webster] none would hesitate to point out a Demosthenes." (Great applause.)
	The death of Mr. Webster he noticed on four different public occasions. On the first of 
these, when he met the New Hampshire legislature and executive at the Fitchburg Depot, at the
head of the Sons of New Hampshire, to receive them as their guests, on the occasion of his 
obsequies, he said, "The loss to us, to the country, and to the world is irreparable. The whole 
nation mourns." On the second of these occasions he closed with this apostrophe: "Sainted 
patriot! there, in those celestial fields, where the sickle of the great reaper shall no more 
cut down the wise and the good, we hope at last to meet thee there, in those pure realms where
the rainbow never fades, where thy brilliant star shall shine with pure effulgence, and where 
the high and glorious aspirations of thy soul shall be forever realized." The third was when he
was elected to fill the place of Mr. Webster as president of the association, and the fourth was 
at the second festival of that voluntary society.
	Mr. Wilder is yet in the vigor of his manhood, and on the flood tide of success. He has,
we are informed, works in the course of preparation on his favorite arts, which promise to be of
great value to the world. His numerous speeches and addresses, if collected and published in a 
uniform edition, would make a handsome and valuable royal octavo volume. None have contributed
more to promote American horticulture and agriculture. His affable, yet dignified manners, his
appropriateness on all occasions, and his long and valuable services render him a favorite with
the common people, and also with the elite of society. Long may he live to serve his generation 
and his Creator. 

* Transactions for 1864.