Si0gn^l}ititl ^Iicttlres nf' §isttttgitis!ixi[ |iinetic;nt gariicuUurisls. 



MARSHALL PINCKNEY WILDER, of Doeoiiester, Mass. 



Few men enjoy a more desirable and extensive fame than tlie subject of this narrative. 

 For a long course of years, he has been favorably known on both sides of the Atlantic, 

 on account of his zealous and persevering efforts to promote pomology and the rural 

 arts. His indefatigable labors, aside from his mercantile pursuits, have contributed 

 largely for the advancement of American horticulture aud agriculture. For many of 

 the facts in this article, we acknowledge our indebtedness to biogi-aphical sketches, 

 recently published in the American Portrait Gallery, and in the Merchants' Magazine. 



Marshall Pinckney Wilder was born September 22, 1798, in Rindge, N. 11., a 

 town which has given many worthy citizens to the republic, and many devoted disci- 

 ples to the church. Among these may be noticed Rev. Edward Patson, D. D., of 

 Portland, Me., whose praise is in all our churches; Hon. Addison Gardner, of Roch- 

 ester, late Lieutenant Governor, and at present Judge of the Supreme Court; and Hon. 

 George P. Barker, recently Attorney General, of New York; all nurtured in the same 

 district school with Mr. Wilder ; all consecrated at the same baptismal fount. This 

 town is situated in Cheshire County, twenty miles south-east of Keene. 



He was the eldest of ten children. His father, Samuel Loch Wilder, Esq., who 

 derived his christian name from an uncle, one of the Presidents of Harvard College, 

 was a worthy merchant and farmer, who, in boyhood, moved to that place from Lan- 

 caster, Mass.,* and who has there been honored with many municipal aud State offices, 

 and still hves in a green old age. His paternal ancestors performed valuable services 

 in the suppression of Shay's insurrection, in the Lidian and Revolutionary wars, and in 

 the formation of the American government. "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." 



His mother was Mrs. Anna Siierwin Wilder, a lady of good natural endowments, 

 nervous temperment, lively imagination, quick sensibility, and devoted piety. She was 

 passionately fond of rural life ; and early took him with her into the garden to dress 

 and keep it. There she infused into him the spirit, and nurtured in him the taste which 

 has subsequently honored her memory and distinguished her first-born. Nor did she 

 neglect his intellectual, moral, and religious culture. In all these, she was a help 

 meet to her husband. 



Having given their son the advantages of the district school, his parents sent him, at 

 the age of twelve years, to the Academy in New Ipswich, in the hope that he might 

 seek a public education, and prepare for one of the learned professions. But he pre 

 ferred more active life ; and after a period spent in this institution, and under a classical 

 teacher at home, a period during which he nearly completed his preparation for admis- 

 sion to college, they gave him his choice to continue his studies, to enter the store with 

 his father, or to labor on the farm. 



these three pursuits, he at once relinquished the idea of professional life 



* Book of the Lockes, pp. 81, 99, 19S. t Vol. ii, p. 45. 



