32 MA8SACHISKTTS HOKTICl LTUUAL SOCIETY. 



locate the school at Springfield ; hut as Congress soon afterwards 

 granted land to eacli State for an agricultural college the necessity 

 for the school was dl)viate(l. In lHG3the Massachusetts Agricultu- 

 ral College was incorporated, and he was named as its first trustee. 

 In 1871 he delivered ihe address on the graduation of the first 

 class from that institution, and at the Commencement in 187H he 

 had the honor of conferring the degree of Bachelor of Science on 

 twenty young gentlemen who were also its graduates. 



Mr. Wilder's labors for the good of the community were not con- 

 fined to his favorite pursuits of agriculture and horticulture. In 

 1«59 he presided at the first public meeting in relation to the col- 

 location of several scientific institutions on the Back Bay lands, 

 where the splendid edifices of the Boston Societ3' of Natural His- 

 tory and the INIassachusetts Institute of Technology now stand. 

 Of the latter institution he was one of the founders, a Vice-Presi- 

 dent, and Chairman of its Society of Arts. 



In January', 18G8, he was unanimously elected to the office of 

 President of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, 

 made vacant by the death of Ex-Governor John A. Andrew ; 

 which he held until the time of his own death. At each annual 

 meeting he delivered an appropriate address. In his first ad- 

 dress he urged the importance of procuring a suitable building for 

 the Society, and in 1870 a Committee, of which he was Chairman, 

 was appointed to carry out this object. Mr. Wilder devoted more 

 than tliiee months to the work of soliciting funds for this pur- 

 pose, and raised more than forty-four thousand dollars, with which 

 the building No. 18 Somerset street was purchased and adapted to 

 the purposes of the Societ}'. A little later he raised a fund the 

 income of which is devoted to paying the librarian, and a year or 

 two before his death a further sum for enlarging the building, 

 making a total of nearly eighty-four thousand dollars, secured by 

 him for promoting the objects of the Society. 



Mr. Wilder was one of the twelve representative men selected 

 to receive the Prince of Wales at the banquet given in his honor 

 on the occasion of his visit to Boston in 1860. He was also one 

 of the United States Commissioners to the Universal Exi)Osition 

 at Paris in 1867, wiiere he was appointed Chairman of the Com- 

 mittee on Horticulture and the Cultivation and Products of the 

 Vine. While in Europe he visited many of the prominent horti- 

 culturists in England, France, and Belgium whom he had previ- 



