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��Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, Ph.D.

��1485. There is strong presumptive evidence that the American family is an offshoot from this. President Chad- bourne, the author of The Book of ti .c Wilders, in his life of Colonel Wilder, gives reasons for this opinion. The paternal ancestors of Colonel Wilder in this country performed meritorious services in the Indian wars, in the American Revolution, and in Shays' Rebellion. His grandfather was one of the seven delegates from the county of Worcester, in the Massachusetts con- vention of 1788, for ratifying the Con- stitution of the United States, who voted in favor of it. Isaac Goodwin, Esq., in The Worcester Magazine, vol. ii, page 45, bears this testimony: "Of all the ancient Lancaster families, there is no one that has sustained so many important offices as that of Vvilder."

At the age of four, Marshall was sent to school, and at twelve he entered New Ipswich Academy, his father desiring to give him a collegiate education, with reference to a profession. When he reached the age of sixteen, his father gave him the choice, either to qualify himself for a farmer, or for a merchant, or to fit for college. He chose to be a farmer; and to this choice may we attribute in no small degree the mental and physical energy which has dis- tinguished so many years of his life. But the business of his father increased so much that he was taken into the store. He there acquired such habits of industry that at the age of twenty- one he became a partner, and was appointed postmaster of Rindge.

In 1825, he sought a wider field of action and removed to Boston. Here he began business under the firm-name of Wilder and Payson, in Union Street ; then as Wilder and Smith, in North Market Street; and next in his own

��name at No. 3 Central Wharf. In 1837, he became a partner in the commission house of Parker, Blanchard, and Wilder, Water Street; next Parker, Wilder, and Parker, Pearl Street ; and since Parker, Wilder, and Company, Winthrop Square, having continued until this time in the , same house for forty-seven years. Mr. ^ Wilder has lived to be the oldest commission merchant in domestic fabrics in active business in Boston. He has passed through various crises of commercial embarrassments, and yet he has never failed to meet his obli- gations. He was an original director in the Hamilton (now Hamilton Na- tional) Bank and in the National Insurance Company. The former trust he has held for fifty-two years, and the latter for forty years. He has been a director in the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company for nearly forty years, and also a director in other similar institutions.

But trade and the acquisition of wealth have not been the all-engrossing pursuits of his Life. His inherent love of rural pursuits led him, in 1832, to purchase his present estate in Dor- chester, originally that of Governor Increase Sumner, where, after devoting a proper time to business, he has given his leisure to horticulture and agricul- ture. He has spared no expense, he has rested from no efforts, to instil into the public mind a love of an employ- ment so honorable and useful. He has cultivated his own grounds, imported seeds, plants, and trees, and endeavored by his example to encourage labor and elevate the rank of the husbandman. His garden, green- houses, and a forest of fruit-trees have occupied the time he could spare from business, and here he has prose- cuted his favorite investigations, year

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