BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MARSHALL P. WILDER. v jj 



a representative from the town of Dorchester. In 1 849 he was elected a member of the 

 Council of Governor Briggs, and the following year a member of the Senate and its 

 president. 



In January, 1868, Colonel Wilder was solicited to take the presidency of the New 

 England Historic Genealogical Society, and was unanimously elected to the position, which 

 he has since held with distinguished ability, delivering the annual addresses. Through his 

 personal influence more than fifty thousand dollars have been raised to procure a new 

 building for the use of the society, and to establish a fund for the support of a librarian. 

 By his energy and untiring devotion to the interests ol the society, he has infused new life 

 and vigor into its efforts for the public good, and given it a reputation and an influence 

 which it never had before. It is safe to say that no one else could have raised it to its 

 present prosperous condition, or given it its extended influence and character in the 

 community. 



The Hon. Paul A. Chadbourne, late president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, 

 in a recent memoir of Colonel Wilder says that: &quot;The interest which Colonel Wilder has 

 always manifested in the progress of education, as well as the value and felicitious style of 

 his numerous writings, would lead one to infer at once that his varied knowledge and 

 culture are the results of college education. But he is only another illustrious example 

 of the men who, with only small indebtedness to schools, have proved to the world that 

 real men can make themselves known as such without the aid of college, as we have 

 abundantly learned that the college can never make a man of one who has not in him the 

 elements of noble manhood before he enters its halls.&quot; His writings, public speeches, 

 and addresses now amount to very nearly a hundred in number, and they have shown such 

 marked ability that Dartmouth College, as a testimonial of his services in science and 

 literature, conferred on him, in 1877, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 



Colonel Wilder has been peculiarly blessed and happy in his domestic relations. 

 What man could have accomplished so much who had not been? In 1820 he married 

 Miss Tryphosa Jewett, of Rindge, a lady of great personal attractions. She died July 21, 

 1831, leaving four children. On the 29th of August, 1833, he married Miss Abigail 

 Baker, of Franklin, Mass., a lady of many accomplishments and marked piety, who died, 

 April 4, 1854, leaving five children. On the 18th of September, 1855, he married her 

 sister, Miss Julia Baker, an accomplished lady, by whom he has two sons. 



Colonel Wilder is a prominent public benefactor. If he had done nothing else but 

 to introduce the Beurre d Anjou pear and great numbers of other new fruits and flowers, 

 and to multiply varieties by hybridization, he would have laid the community under great 

 obligations to him; but his range of activity has been far wider. A large part of the 

 beauty, the cultured taste, and the luxuriance in landscape gardening, which cluster around 

 and adorn the thousands of small homes about Boston, through a constantly widening 

 radius, is due directly or indirectly, to his influence and inspiration. And now, at the age 

 of eighty-four, from the calm retreat of his happy home, he can look back on a long life 

 well spent, and out upon a region smiling with loveliness, with a consciousness that he is 

 surrounded by a host of admiring and devoted friends, who can realize and appreciate 

 the results of his labors, and the powerful impetus which his personal presence gave to the 

 spirit of improvement, thirty, forty, fifty years ago. 



