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The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1.

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THE BAY STATE MONTHLY

A Massachusetts Magazine

of

LITERATURE, HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND STATE PROGRESS



VOLUME I.






CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

(This table of contents alos contains listings
for articles in the other issues.)


Abbott, Josiah Gardner _John Hatch George_

An Incident of Sixteen Hundred and Eighty-Six _Mellen Chamberlain_

Ansart, Louis _Clara Clayton_

Arthur, Chester Alan _Ben: Perley Poore_

Beacon Hill Before the Houses _David M. Balfour_

Boston Tea-Party, The

Boston, The First Schoolmaster of _Elizabeth Porter Gould_

Boston, The Siege of, Developed _Henry B. Carrington, U.S.A.,
LL.D._

Boston Young Men's Christian Association, The _Russell Sturgis,
Jr._

Boundary Lines of Old Groton, The _Samuel Abbott Green, M.D._

British Force and the Leading Losses in the Revolution

British Losses in the Revolution

Bunker Hill _Henry B. Carrington, U.S.A., LL.D._

Butler, Benjamin Franklin

Chelsea _William E. McClintock, C.E._

Defence of New York, 1776, The _Henry B. Carrington, U.S.A., LL.D._

Dungeon Rock, Lynn _Frank P. Harriman_

Early Harvard _Josiah Layfayette Seward, A.M._

Esoteric Buddhism.--A Review _Lucius H. Buckingham, Ph.D._

Fac-Simile Reprint of Daniel Webster's Fourth-of-July Oration, Delivered
in 1800.

Family Immigration to New England, The _Thomas W. Bicknell, LL.D._

First Baptist Church in Massachusetts, The _Thomas W. Bicknell,
LL.D._

First Schoolmaster of Boston, The _Elizabeth Porter Gould_

From the White Horse to Little Rhody _Charles M. Barrows_

Fuller, George _Sidney Dickinson_

Gifts to Colleges and Universities _Charles F. Thwing_

Groton, The Boundary Lines of Old _Samuel Abbott Green, M.D._

Groton, The Old Stores and the Post-Offices of _Samuel Abbott Green,
M.D._

Groton, The Old Taverns and Stage-Coaches of _Samuel Abbott Green,
M.D._

Harvard, Early _Josiah Lafayette Seward, A.M._

Historical Notes

Historic Trees: The Washington Elm; The Eliot Oak _L.L. Dame_

Lancaster in Acadie and the Acadiens in Lancaster _Henry S. Nourse_

Lovewell's War _John N. McClintock, A.M._

Lowell

Loyalists of Lancaster, The _Henry S. Nourse_

Massachusetts, The First Baptist Church in _Thomas W. Bicknell,
LL.D._

Massachusetts, Young Men's Christian Associations of _Russell Sturgis,
Jr._

New England, The Family Immigration to _Thomas W. Bicknell, LL.D._

New England Town-House, The _J.B. Sewall_

New York, 1776, The Defence of _Henry B. Carrington, U.S.A., LL.D._

Ohio Floods, The _George E. Fencks_

Old Stores and the Post-Office of Groton, The _Samuel Abbott Green,
M.D._

Old Taverns and Stage-Coaches of Groton, The _Samuel Abbott Green,
M.D._

One Summer.--A Reminiscence _Annie Wentworth Baer_

Perkins, Captain George Hamilton _George E. Belknap, U.S.N._

Poet of the Bells, The _E.H. Goss_

Railway Mail Service, The _Thomas P. Cheney_

Reuben Tracy's Vacation Trips _Elizabeth Porter Gould_

Revolution, British Force and Leading Losses in the

Revolution, British Losses in the

Rice, Alexander Hamilton _Daniel B. Hagar, Ph.D._

Siege of Boston Developed, The _Henry B. Carrington, U.S.A., LL.D._

Town and City Histories _Robert Luce_

Webster, Colonel Fletcher _Charles Cowley, LL.D._

Webster, Daniel, Fourth-of-July Oration of

Wilder, Marshall P. _John Ward Dean, A.M._

Young Men's Christian Associations _Russell Sturgis, Jr._

Young Men's Christian Associations of Massachusetts _Russell Sturgis,
Jr._


POETRY.

Bells of Bethlehem, The _James T. Fields_

His Greatest Triumph _Henrietta E. Page_

Rent Veil, The _Henry B. Carrington_

Song of the Winds _Henry B. Carrington_

Tuberoses _Laura Garland Carr_

Yesterday _Kate L. Brown_



[Illustration: Marshall P. Wilder]



THE BAY STATE MONTHLY.


_A Massachusetts Magazine_


VOL. I. JANUARY, 1884. No. 1.

* * * * *

Hon. MARSHALL P. WILDER, Ph.D.

BY JOHN WARD DEAN, A.M.

[Librarian of the New England Historic Genealogical Society.]


The editors of THE BAY STATE MONTHLY, having decided to begin in its
pages a series of articles devoted to the material advancement and
prosperity of Massachusetts, and the record of her past greatness, have
selected the Honorable Marshall Pinckney Wilder as a representative man,
and have decided that his memoir shall be the initial article in the
series, and also in this periodical. He has as a merchant won for
himself a high position, and by his enterprise has essentially advanced
the business of the city and the State. He has also been active in
developing our manufacturing industries, while his name is first on all
lips when those who have increased the products of the soil are named.
His life affords a striking example of what can be achieved by
concentration of power and unconquerable perseverance. The bare
enumeration of the important positions he has held and still holds, and
the self-sacrificing labors he has performed, is abundant evidence of
the extraordinary talent and ability, and the personal power and
influence, which have enabled him to take a front rank as a benefactor
to mankind.

MARSHALL PINCKNEY WILDER, whose Christian names were given in honor of
Chief-Justice Marshall and General Pinckney, eminent statesmen at the
time he was born, was the eldest son of Samuel Locke Wilder, Esq., of
Rindge, New Hampshire, and was born in that town, September 22, 1798.
His father, a nephew of the Reverend Samuel Locke, D.D., president of
Harvard College, for whom he was named, was thirteen years a
representative in the New Hampshire legislature, a member of the
Congregational church in Rindge, and held important town offices there.
His mother, Anna, daughter of Jonathan and Mary (Crombie) Sherwin
(married May 2, 1797), a lady of great moral worth, was, as her son is,
a warm admirer of the beauties of nature.

The Wilders are an ancient English family, which The Book of the
Wilders, published a few years ago, traces to Nicholas Wilder, a
military chieftain in the army of the Earl of Richmond at the battle of
Bosworth, 1485. There is strong presumptive evidence that the American
family is an offshoot from this. President Chadbourne, the author of The
Book of the 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
convention of 1788, for ratifying the Constitution 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 Wilder,"

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 distinguished so many years of
his life. But the business of his father increased so much that he was
taken into the 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
be 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 obligations. He was an original director
in the Hamilton (now Hamilton National) 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 Dorchester, originally that of
Governor Increase Sumner, where, after devoting a proper time to
business, he has given his leisure to horticulture and agriculture He
has spared no expense, he has rested from no efforts, to instil into the
public mind a love of an employment 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, greenhouses, and a forest of fruit-trees have
occupied the time he could spare from business, and here he has
prosecuted his favorite investigations, year after year, for half a
century, to the present day.

Soon after the Massachusetts Horticultural Society was formed, Mr.
Wilder was associated with the late General Henry A.S. Dearborn, its
first president, and from that time till now has been one of its most
efficient members, constantly attending its meetings, taking part in its
business and discussions, and contributing largely to its exhibitions.
Four years since, he delivered the oration on the occasion of its
semi-centennial. One of the most important acts of this society was the
purchase of Mount Auburn for a cemetery and an ornamental garden. On the
separation of the cemetery from the society, in 1835, through Mr.
Wilder's influence committees were appointed by the two corporations,
Judge Story being chairman of the cemetery committee, and Mr. Wilder of
the society committee. The situation was fraught with great
difficulties; but Mr. Wilder's conservative course, everywhere
acknowledged, overcame them all and enabled the society to erect an
elegant hall in School Street, and afterward the splendid building it
now occupies in Tremont Street, the most magnificent horticultural hall
in the world. It has a library which is everywhere acknowledged to be
the best horticultural library anywhere. In 1840, he was chosen
president, and held the office for eight successive years. During his
presidency the hall in School Street was erected, and two triennial
festivals were held in Faneuil Hall, which are particularly worthy of
notice. The first was opened September 11, 1845, and the second on the
fiftieth anniversary of his birth, September 22, 1848, when he retired
from the office of president, and the society voted him a silver pitcher
valued at one hundred and fifty dollars, and caused his portrait to be
placed in its hall. As president of this association he headed a
circular for a convention of fruit-growers, which was held in New York,
October 10. 1848, when the American Pomological Society was formed. He
was chosen its first president, and he still holds that office, being in
his thirty-third year of service. Its biennial meetings have been held
in New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Boston, Rochester, St. Louis,
Richmond, Chicago, and Baltimore; and it will hold its next meeting in
Detroit. On these occasions President Wilder has made appropriate
addresses. The last meeting was held, September, 1883, in Philadelphia,
when his last address was delivered. In this address, with his usual
foresight, he proposed a grand reform in the nomenclature of fruits for
our country, and asked the co-operation of other nations in this reform.

In February, 1849, the Norfolk Agricultural Society was formed. Mr.
Wilder was chosen president, and the Honorable Charles Francis Adams,
vice-president. Before this society his first address on agricultural
education was delivered. This was a memorable occasion. There were then
present, George N. Briggs, the governor, and John Reed, the
lieutenant-governor, of the State, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett,
Horace Mann, Levi Lincoln, Josiah Quincy, president of Harvard
University, General Henry A.S. Dearborn, Governor Isaac Hill, of New
Hampshire, the Reverend John Pierpont, Josiah Quincy, Jr., Charles
Francis Adams, and Robert C. Winthrop,--of which galaxy of eminent men,
the last two only are now living. It was the first general effort in
that cause in this country. He was president twenty years, and on his
retirement he was constituted honorary president, and a resolution was
passed recognizing his eminent ability and usefulness in promoting the
arts of horticulture and agriculture, and his personal excellence in
every department of life. He next directed his efforts to establishing
the Massachusetts board of agriculture, organized as the Massachusetts
Central Board of Agriculture, at a meeting of delegates of agricultural
societies in the State, held at the State House, September, 1851, in
response to a circular issued by him as president of the Norfolk
Agricultural Society. He was elected president, and held the office till
1852, when it became a department of the State, and he is now the senior
member of that board. In 1858, the Massachusetts School of Agriculture
was incorporated, and he was chosen president; but before the school was
opened Congress granted land to the several States for agricultural
colleges, and in 1865 the Legislature incorporated the Massachusetts
Agricultural College. He was named the first trustee. In 1871, the first
class was graduated, and in 1878 he had the honor of conferring the
degree of Bachelor of Science on twenty young gentlemen graduates. He
delivered addresses on both occasions. In 1852, he issued a circular in
behalf of several States for a national meeting at Washington, which was
fully attended, and where the United States Agricultural Society was
organized. Daniel Webster and a host of distinguished men assisted in
its formation. This society, of which he was president for the first six
years, exercised a beneficial influence till the breaking out of the
late Civil War. On Mr. Wilder's retirement he received the gold medal of
honor and a service of silver plate. He is a member of many other
horticultural and agricultural societies in this and foreign lands.

Colonel Wilder, at an early age, took an interest in military affairs.
At sixteen he was enrolled in the New Hampshire militia, and at
twenty-one he was commissioned adjutant. He organized and equipped the
Rindge Light Infantry, and was chosen its captain. At twenty-five five
he was elected lieutenant-colonel, and at twenty-six was commissioned as
colonel of the Twelfth Regiment.

Soon after his removal to Boston he joined the Ancient and Honorable
Artillery Company. In 1856, he was chosen commander of the corps, being
the one hundred and fifty-fifth in command. He had four times previously
declined nominations. He entered into correspondence with Prince Albert,
commander of the Royal Artillery Company of London, founded in 1537, of
which this corps, chartered in 1638, is the only offspring. This
correspondence established a friendly intercourse between the two
companies. In June, 1857, Prince Albert was chosen a special honorary
member of our company, and twenty-one years later, in 1878, Colonel
Wilder, who then celebrated the fiftieth or golden anniversary of his
own membership, nominated the Prince of Wales, the present commander of
the London company, as an honorary member. Both were commanders of the
Honorable Artillery Company of London when chosen. The late elegantly
illustrated history of the London company contains a portrait of Colonel
Wilder as he appeared in full uniform on that occasion.

In 1839, he was induced to serve for a single term in the Massachusetts
Legislature, as a representative for the town of Dorchester. In 1849, he
was elected a member of Governor Briggs's Council, and the year
following a member of the senate and its president, and he is the the
oldest ex-president of the senate living. In 1860, he was the member for
New England of the national committee of the "Constitutional Union
Party," and attended, as chairman of the Massachusetts delegation, the
national convention in Baltimore, where John Bell and Edward Everett
were nominated for President and Vice-President of the United States.

He was initiated in Charity Lodge, No. 18, in Troy, New Hampshire, at
the age of twenty-five, exalted to the Royal Arch Chapter, Cheshire No.
4, and knighted in the Boston Encampment. He was deputy grand master of
the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, and was one of the six thousand Masons
who signed, December 31, 1831, the celebrated "Declaration of the
Freemasons of Boston and Vicinity"; and at the fiftieth anniversary of
that event, which was celebrated in Boston two years ago, Mr. Wilder
responded for the survivors, six of the signers being present. He has
received all the Masonic degrees, including the 33d, or highest and last
honor of the fraternity. At the World's Masonic Convention, in 1867, at
Paris, he was the only delegate from the United States who spoke at the
banquet.

On the seventh of November, 1849, a festival of the Sons of New
Hampshire was celebrated in Boston. The Honorable Daniel Webster
presided, and Mr. Wilder was the first vice-president. Fifteen hundred
sons of the Granite State were present. The association again met on the
twenty-ninth of October, 1852, to participate in the obsequies of Mr.
Webster at Faneuil Hall. On this occasion the legislature, and other
citizens, of New Hampshire were received at the Lowell railway-station,
and were addressed by Mr. Wilder in behalf of sons of that State
resident in Boston.

The Sons celebrated their second festival, November 2, 1853, at which
Mr. Wilder occupied the chair as president, and delivered one of his
most eloquent speeches. They assembled again, on June 20, 1861, to
receive and welcome a New Hampshire regiment of volunteers, and escort
them to the Music Hall, where Mr. Wilder addressed them in a patriotic
speech on their departure for the field of battle.

The two hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the settlement of
Dorchester was celebrated on the Fourth of July, 1855. The oration was
by Edward Everett; Mr. Wilder presided, and delivered an able address.
On the central tablet of the great pavilion was this inscription:
"Marshall P. Wilder, president of the day. Blessed is he that turneth
the waste places into a garden, and maketh the wilderness to blossom as
a rose."

In January, 1868, he was solicited to take the office of president of
the New England Historic Genealogical Society, vacated by the death of
Governor Andrew. He was unanimously elected, and is now serving the
seventeenth year of his presidency. At every annual meeting he has
delivered an appropriate address. In his first address he urged the
importance of procuring a suitable building for the society. In 1870, he
said: "The time has now arrived when absolute necessity, public
sentiment, and personal obligations, demand that this work be done, and
done quickly." Feeling himself pledged by this address, he, as chairman
of the committee then appointed, devoted three months entirely to the
object of soliciting funds, during which time more than forty thousand
dollars was generously contributed by friends of the association; and
thus the handsome edifice at No. 18 Somerset Street was procured. This
building was dedicated to the use of the society, March 18, 1871. He has
since obtained donations, amounting to upward of twelve thousand
dollars, as a fund for paying the salary of the librarian.

In 1859, he presided at the first public meeting called in Boston, in
regard to the collocation of institutions on the Back Bay lands, where
the splendid edifices of the Boston Society of Natural History and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology now stand. Of the latter
institution he has been a vice-president, and the chairman of its
Society of Arts, and a director from the beginning. General Francis A.
Walker, the present president of the Institute, bore this testimony to
his efforts in its behalf at the in banquet to Mr. Wilder on his
eighty-fifth anniversary: "Through all the early efforts to attract the
attention of the legislature and the people to the importance of
industrial and art education, and through the severe struggles which so
painfully tried the courage and the faith even of those who most
strongly and ardently believed in the mission of the Institute, as well
as through the happier years of fruition, while the efforts put forth in
the days of darkness and despondency were bearing their harvest of
success and fame, Colonel Wilder was through all one of the most
constant of the members of the government in his attendance; one of the
most hopeful in his views of the future of the school; ever a wise
counsellor and a steadfast ally."

He was one of the twelve representative men appointed to receive the
Prince of Wales in 1860, at the banquet given him in Boston, Edward
Everett being chairman of the committee; also one of the commissioners
in behalf of the Universal Exposition in Paris, 1867, when he was placed
at the head of the committee on horticulture and the cultivation and
products of the vine, the report of which was published by act of
Congress.

In 1869, he made a trip to the South, for the purpose of examining its
resources; and in 1870, with a large party, he visited California. The
result of Mr. Wilder's observations has been given to the public in a
lecture before the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, which was
repeated before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, Amherst
College, the Massachusetts Agricultural College, Dartmouth College, the
Horticultural Society, the merchants of Philadelphia, and bodies in
other places.

His published speeches and writings now amount to nearly one hundred in
number. A list to the year 1873 is printed in the Cyclopaedia of
American Literature. Dartmouth College, as a testimonial to his services
in science and literature, conferred upon him, in the year 1877, the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

The Honorable Paul A. Chadbourne, LL.D., late president of Williams
College in a recent Memoir of Mr. Wilder remarks: "The interest which
Colonel Wilder has always manifested in the progress of education, as
well as the value and felicitous 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 the 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."

In 1820, Mr. Wilder married Miss Tryphosa Jewett, daughter of Dr.
Stephen Jewett, of Rindge, a lady of great personal attractions. She
died on a visit to that town, July 21, 1831, leaving four children. On
the twenty-ninth of August, 1833, Mr. Wilder was united to Miss Abigail,
daughter of Captain David Baker of Franklin, Massachusetts, a lady of
education, accomplishments, and piety, who died of consumption, April 4,
1854, leaving five children. He was married a third time on the eighth
of September, 1855, to her sister, Miss Julia Baker, who was admirably
qualified to console him and make his dwelling cheerful, and who has two
sons, both living. No man has been more blessed in domestic life. We
know not where there would be a more pleasing picture of peace and
contentment exhibited than is found in this happy family. In all his
pursuits and avocations, Mr. Wilder seems to have realized and practised
that grand principle, which has such a bearing and influence on the
whole course of life--the philosophy of habit, a power almost omnipotent
for good or evil. His leisure hours he devotes to his pen, which already
has filled several large volumes with descriptions and delineations of
fruits and flowers, proved under his own inspection, and other matters
pertaining to his various relations in life.

Colonel Wilder has shown us by his life what an individual may
accomplish by industry, perseverance, and the concentration of the
intellectual powers on grand objects. Without these, no talent, no mere
good fortune could have placed him in the high position he has attained
as a public benefactor. He has been pre-eminent in the establishment and
development of institutions. Few gentlemen have been called upon so
often, and upon such various occasions, to take the chair at public
meetings or preside over constituted societies. Few have acquitted
themselves so happily, whether dignity of presence, amenity of address,
fluency of speech, or dispatch of business, be taken into consideration.
As a presiding officer he seems "to the manner born." His personal
influence has been able to magnetize a half-dying body into new and
active life. This strong personal characteristic is especially remarked
among his friends. No one can approach him in doubt, in despondency, or
in embarrassment, and leave him without a higher hope, a stronger
courage, and a manlier faith in himself. The energy which has impelled
him to labor still exists.

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