The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, issue 1 | Page 5

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