54 BANQUET TO THE 



know not; but if her prescience pictured to her 

 mind what he was really and actually to become, she 

 must have felt a truer and loftier pride than she could 

 have experienced in the belief that he would attain, 

 by the crooked ways now too often jDractised, to the 

 chief magistracy of this great nation. 



Sixteen years ago I was appointed, by the New 

 England Historic Genealogical Society, chairman of 

 a committee to nominate a president for that associa- 

 tion, a vacancy having just occurred by the death of 

 the lamented Governor Andrew. It was important 

 that the occupant of the chair of that great Society, 

 then numbering not less than eight hundred mem- 

 bers (men of high standing and character in all the 

 New England States, and indeed in other States of 

 the Union and in other countries), should possess 

 eminent and peculiar qualifications. In looking 

 through our large membership, our attention was 

 soon directed to the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder. We 

 traced his career from his boyhood onward, in the 

 school, the academy ; his brief apprenticeship on 

 his father's farm and in liis father's store ; in the 

 establishment of a business for himself ; his re- 

 moval to the metropolis ; his prudent beginning, 

 and steady progress for many years, always advanc- 

 ing, never receding ; and then, after the lapse ot 

 forty years, still a Boston merchant in one of the 

 largest and most respected mercantile houses in the 



