The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, issue 1 | Page 4

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