MAGLMWilder
MARSHALL P. WILDER 1799-1887
Deputy Grand Master, 1862
BIOGRAPHY
From New England Freemason, Vol. II, No. 5, May 1875, Page 193:
We have the pleasure to present to our readers an excellent portrait of a distinguished Brother. The engraving will be found remarkable alike for the accuracy and fidelity of the likeness and for the skill and artistic perfection of its execution. It has called forth the highest encomiums from the best judges and most skilful practitioners of the art of engraving. It is indeed a speaking likeness, which will be instantly recognized, and with pleasure, by those who have ever seen the original; and to those who have not, it will suggest a very accurate idea of his genial and noble countenance.
Many memorials of this eminent merchant and horticulturist have appeared in our periodicals and society publications during the past few years; but the present brief sketch we propose to confine principally to his Masonic history, and to let him speak for himself. Marshall Pinckney Wilder was born September 22, 1798, at Rindge, N. H. He is the oldest son of Samuel Locke Wilder and Anna Sherwin. His paternal grandmother was a sister of Samuel Locke, D. D., President of Harvard University, from whom his father derived his Christian name. In the Indian wars, in the Revolutionary struggle, and in Shay's rebellion, some of the ancestors of our subject rendered important services, and his grandfather was one of the seven delegates from Worcester County in the Convention in Massachusetts in 1787, who voted in favor of adopting the Constitution of the United States.
At the early age of four years he was sent to school, and at twelve he entered New Ipswich Academy. After remaining there one year he returned home, and was put under the tuition of Rev. Joseph Brown, it being his father's intention to give him a collegiate education, with a view to a profession. The boy, however, preferred a more active life, and at sixteen his father gave him his choice of the farmer's or the student's life. He chose the former, and thus, probably, laid the foundation of that robust health and those horticultural tastes which have characterized him for so many years.
At an anniversary festival in 1861, which called back to their birthplace many of the sons of Rindge, Brother Wilder pleasantly described his school-boy days, and pictured the old schoolhouse near his father's door, the little rods of chastisement, resembling a bundle of apple-grafts, behind the master's desk, and the evening spelling matches, where each carried a candle in a turnip to the arena. Proceeding in a more touching strain, he asks: "Who that has a soul within him can forget the place of his birth, the home of his childhood, the old district school where he learned his ABC, the church where he was offered at the baptismal font, or the consecrated ground in which repoBe the loved and lost ones of earth?
"I can recollect this old church as it then was, with its high pulpit, spacious galleries and square pews, surrounded with balustrade and rail; and how terrified I was if, by chance, I turned one of the rounds and made it squeak, lest I should have disturbed the venerable Deacon Blake, whose pew was between that of my father and the sacred desk; and now and then, in time of service, I opened one eye and looked around to espy the handsomest young lady in the congregation; and here it was my eye caught hers who became my first love and the wife of my youth.
"I never return to this good old town, the place of my birth, the home of my youth, and in whose sacred soil repose my mother, my brother and sister, the wife of my youth and some of my children, but I feel sensations which no language can describe. I never revisit this town, but, with the first glimpse of her glorious old hills over which I have roamed in my youth, my soul rises with the inspiration of the scene, and I almost involuntarily exclaim, Thank God, I am with you once again!
"I feel the gales that from ye blow
A ruoinentary bliss bestow,
As, waving fresh your gladsome wing,
My weary soul ye seem to soothe,
And redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.'"
The increase of his father's business led to the transfer of young Wilder from the farm to the store, and at the age of twenty-one he was admitted to partnership. He was enrolled in the New Hampshire Militia at sixteen, and, having a decidedly military turn, he rose in rank rapidly. He organized and commanded an independent company in his native town. At twenty-five he became Lieutenant-Colonel, and at twenty-six Colonel of the Twelfth Regiment.
In 1825 he removed to Boston, and established a wholesale grocery house, under the firm of Wilder & Payson. His military and mercantile acquaintance in New Hampshire proved of great advantage in the new business, which was continued until 1837, when the dry goods commission house of Parker, Blanchard & Wilder was formed, and under different styles has been continued until the present time.
He has frequently been called upon to occupy positions of trust and responsibility, and has for many years served as a director in several of the largest and most important corporations in the city of Boston. Although but little inclined for political life, he has served as a member of the Governor's Council, and of both branches of the State Legislature. As President of the Senate, he was highly complimented for his "untiring assiduity and uniform urbanity."
But it was in other pursuits that our Brother found his most congenial duties. From earliest boyhood the garden, the orchard, the forest and the field have had peculiar charms and attractions for him, and the taste has grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength. Horticulture, floriculture, agriculture and pomology have been his hobbies, and no man ever rode a hobby more to the pleasure and profit of his fellow-men. So intimately associated is he in our minds with the most luscious fruits and the most exquisite flowers, that the mere mention of his name maketh one's mouth to water, and is as a sweet savor in our nostrils. " Blessed is he that turneth the waste places into a garden, and maketh the wilderness to blossom as a rose." He was one of the founders of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and for eight successive years its President. He organized the American Pomological Society, and was the first President. He performed the same service and filled the same office for the Norfolk Agricultural Society, the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, the United States Agricultural Society and the Massachusetts Central Board of Agriculture.
One of his biographers thus describes the qualities exhibited and the labors performed in these various stations: "The life of Col. Wilder is a striking instance of what an individual may accomplish by industry, indomitable will and the concentration of his intellectual powers upon one grand object, that of raising the standard of terraculture to a higher rank among the great pursuits of a nation. No ordinary talent, no turn of mere good fortune could ever have placed him in the high position he has attained as a public benefactor. For we must take into view the difficulties and obstacles
which impede the projectors of every new and noble enterprise. One person alone can do but little; he needs help and fellow-workers to carry out his ideas. He must stir up the minds of others in favor of his plans. He must influence men of congenial temperament, and men willing to work and make some sacrifice, and to unite in his operations. This necessarily leads to the formation of societies, and every society thus constituted must have a head to plan, arrange and direct its operations. The presiding officer, like the commander of an army, should be the soul of the institution, ever remembering that in this age of progress, societies are the instruments, but the master spirit at the head is the great leader of all advance and improvement.
"He, therefore, who originates grand and valuable improvements should have every qualification to command success. He must be early and late at his work, and possessed of talent, knowledge, eloquence, and a winning way to draw toward him influences from all quarters, and especially on public occasions, amid a crowd of spectators. He must spare no expense, he must shrink from no labor; distance of place must not retard him, nor clouds of darkness dismay him, whether it be necessary to visit the village skirts of the wilderness or the gulches of California, ne must confine hiB view to no narrow section, but, like the eagle, look abroad and embrace a whole country in his vision, until the nation is electrified with his own spirit of reform and improvement. The great success which has crowned his endeavors to advance the public good in the departments of rural induetry, shows that the subject of this sketch possessed all these qualifications."
One so solicitous and laborious for the welfare of his fellow-men could not but feel a deep and strong interest in the Masonic Institution. We therefore find him connecting himself with the Fraternity at a very early age, manfully supporting its cause in the dark days of persecution and obloquy, attaining to the highest honors in its period of prosperity, and still maintaining an active interest in its counsels. He was initiated in Charity Lodge, No. 18, of Troy, N. H., at the age of twenty-five, exalted in Cheshire Chapter, No. 4, and knighted in Boston Encampment. He has received all the degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, including the Thirty-Third and last. He was one of the signers of the celebrated Roll of Dec. 31, 1831 — "The Declaration of the Freemasons of Boston and its Vicinity." As Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, he assisted in laying the corner-stone of the new City Hall in Boston, Dec. 22, 1862. At the World's Convention of Masons in Paris, in 1867, he sat as the delegate of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, and was the only Brother who spoke in the Convention as a representative of the United States.
At the celebration of the Feast of St. John the Evangelist by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, Dec. 27, 1871, some ten or twelve of the signers of the famous "Declaration" were present, and related most interesting reminiscences of the anti-Masonic times. On that occasion, the Grand Master introduced Brother Wilder to the company in the following words:
"Among the signers of this Declaration, we have the pleasure of recognizing to-night one who, in addition to having served the Masonic Fraternity in many positions, has rendered valuable services to this community in many other capacities. I refer to the founder of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. I have often thought, in watching the daily beauty of his life, in listening to the speeches which I have had the happiness to hear from him on occasions of this kind, that it was not to Masonry alone that he was indebted for the dignity of his character; that he had acquired something of the richness, and ripeness, and raciness of the fruits that he had produced, something of the beauty and fragrance of the flowers that he had cultivated. Of the man and the Mason, as well as of the gardener, it is true, "By their fruits ye shall know them.
"Brethren, I give you the health of our Past Deputy Grand Master, R. W. Marshall P. Wilder. In devotion to the interests of our Order, few Masons can with him compare; he always acts on the plumb; the principles of our Fraternity he keepeth as the apple of his eye; should it ever be again attacked, he will be sure to have 'a little more grape' for the assailants; and if its secrets are demanded, he will be the last man to peach. Brethren, I will not longer deprive you of the pleasure of listening to his voice so cheery, for I am sure the sentiments he may utter will pass current in this assembly."
To this introduction Brother Wilder replied as follows:
"Most Worshipful Grand Master, — I am indebted to you, and I feel it sensibly from the bottom of my heart, for the very kind manner in which you have introduced me to my Brethren, and for your appreciation of my labors; but, sir, I am here to-night at much personal inconvenience, and suffering from ill health, to be present on the fortieth year from the signing of that memorable Declaration; and if I could not have been here without being borne on the bier which may carry me to my last home, I would have asked some of my Masonic Brethren to have borne me on their shoulders, so that I could at least, by the Masonic sign, have testified, from the convictions of my conscience, to the purity of the Institution. But it is a privilege for an old man,—and, gentlemen, I cannot longer claim to belong to the rising generation,—it is a privilege for an old Mason to live to see this fortieth year, and in the language of Scripture I may say, 'These forty years have I been with you.'
"I well remember the time when, as a young merchant in Boston, having everything at stake, with a young family, and but little means, I was called upon to encounter this anti-Masonic excitement; but I took great pleasure in placing my name on that memorable record, and it stands not far from such names as those of the Rev. Dr. Eaton, the Rev. Dr. Harris, the Rev. Father Taylor, and my most excellent friend, whose absence from this board (although he has been present with us during the evening) we regret, — the Rev. E. M. P. Wells. But oh, what a sensation it excites! Of the four hundred members in Boston who signed that Declaration, how few are left! Those glorious luminaries of Masonry, which shall shine in its history while time shall last, have sunk below the horizon forever, and we shall never meet again with so many as have surrounded this board this evening. I could not, therefore, deny myself the pleasure of being here to-night, and, Most Worshipful Grand Master. I thank you for giving me this early opportunity to express these feelings, for I must soon retire.
"I have always felt, next to my religion, if I have any, the benign influences of Freemasonry. I have lived to see great changes in the moral and political world; I have lived to see, as has been asserted this evening, the malign influences spring up against Masonry, and I have lived to see those apostates, like Judas, go down to infamy. In relation to the benign influence of Masonry, I was never more deeply impressed, or more affected in my life, than when I appeared at the World's Convention of Masons, in Paris, as a delegate of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, where seven hnndred and fifty members, from fourteen different nations, had assembled in brotherly affection ; and when, without regard to color or shade of complexion, they threw their arms round my neck, and with affectionate tears trickling down their cheeks, I f-It the benign influence of Masonry, I could not but exclaim, 'Masonry will proclaim peace on earth and good will to men.'
"I thank you, also, Most Worshipful Grand Master, for alluding so kindly to that art to which I have devoted my whole life. I have stolen from the pursuits of business, and from other duties, every moment that I could seize to promote the beautiful art to which you have referred. It was born with me. From the day when my mother first took me into the garden to help dress and keep it, I can never remember the hour when I did not love the cultivation of the soil. I love everything that pertains to rural art and rural life. I love the singing of the birds, the babbling of the brook, and the sighing of the breezes; I love the vernal spring, odorous with the fragrance of the garden and the orchard; I love the summer solstice, rich with the verdure of the forest and the field; I love the mellow autumn, burnished with the golden harvests of the year ; but my love for this Institution, and the enjoyment of its social friendship, is equal to any which I have ever experienced in any other pursuit of life.
"But, sir, I must not further prolong these remarks. I have said it was a privilege to be here this evening. I hope to meet you again on some future occasion, but it must be confessed that I have climbed the summit of the hill of life, and am descending on the other side; soon I shall reach the valley below, and you will plant the acacia at the head of my grave; but while I do live, I will stand by the principles of Freemasonry, under the belief that the better Mason a man is, the better Christian he will be.
" Let me conclude with the expression of the hope that our Institution may go on prospering and to prosper, rising higher and higher in excellence and glory, until all the members of it, of every nation, kindred and tongue, shall join in one grand circle of life and love, to celebrate the Festival of the Saints John in the Kingdom of Heaven."
In his report to the Grand Lodge, Brother Wilder gives an interesting account of the Convention in Paris in 1867. (Extracts were provided in this essay; the complete speech is given below.)
The latest cause in which Brother Wilder has taken a strong and active interest is that of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society. In that Asssociation he succeeded Gov. Andrew as President some nine years since. In that capacity, and by his own personal solicitation and labors, he has raised the necessary funds for purchasing and equipping the spacious and convenient house now occupied by the Society in Somerset Street, Boston.
It falls to the lot of few men to witness the full accomplishment of so many favorite projects. In the enjoyment of such a realization, attended by the hearty good will and gratitude of all his fellow- citizens, and the affectionate respect and regard of his Brethren of the Masonic Fraternity, Col. Wilder is now passing the evening of his days in the midst of health, plenty and peace; and so may he long continue.
SPEECHES
From Proceedings, Page VII-214, December 27, 1867, on his visit to the Masonic Fair in France:
In accordance with the request of the Grand Lodge, I have the honor to report, that—
On my arrival in Paris I presented my credentials as the Delegate of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts to the World's Convocation of Freemasons, summoned by our illustrious brother General Mellinet, Grand Master of the Grand Orient of France, also Commander of the National Guard of France I was most cordially received, and furnished with a card of invitation to attend the Great Festival of the Brotherhood, to take place on the 15th of June 1867.
To add to the importance of our Delegation, I associated with me our brethren from the United States, especially those from Massachusetts, among whom may be named brothers Cummings, Usher, White, Guild and Hills of Boston, Nor should I forget to mention the presence of our aged worthy brother, the late James Herring, of New York, whose person had specially been confided to my care, and from whence he soon after took his leave of Freemasonry on earth to join the Grand Lodge above.
The Fete was one of the most interesting, imposing, and grand ever witnessed within the circle of the Masonic family. Fourteen nations were represented by about seven hundred and fifty brethren of the mystic tie, The services in the Great Hall, the address of the Grand Master, the oration, and other performances, were intrusted to and executed by gentlemen of distinguished ability.
The Grand Banquet was produced with all the elegance and recherche peculiar to French artists and caterers, each guest being furnished with a splendid bouquet of moss roses. The Most Worshipful Grand Master Mellinet presided with great ease and dignity, to whom your representative is indebted for special courtesies, and to M. Thevenot, Grand Secretary, and the Committee of Arrangements, for many other acts of politeness. Here, then, we were assembled in the Banqueting Hall of the Grand Orient of France — here in the most elegant and beautiful city of the world, alike renowned for art, science, and taste—here where the people and the products of every climate were assembled to hold a grand festival in honor of the genius, industry and progress of the age — and here to unite the world in efforts for the relief of toil, the reward of labor, and the multiplication of the blessings and comforts of mankind.
It was a most appropriate occasion for a meeting of the Masonic Brotherhood from all parts; and although differing in language, customs and manners, all were inspired with the feeling, that the dialect, color, or personal peculiarity, all were truly brethren of the great masonic family of the world.
Nor was language necessary to express the sentiments of the heart. The friendly grip, the affectionate embrace, the parting kiss, spoke more loudly than words the emotions swelling in the bosoms of brethren never again to kneel around the altar of Freemasonry on earth.
The speech of welcome was cordial and appropriate. In response, your representative alluded to the prosperous condition of Masonry in the United States, the respect entertained by his countrymen for their brethren in other lands, and closed with the following sentiment: —
"The Grand Orient of France, and the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, united by the sacred ties of masonic obligations — brought nearer by the wonderful achievements of science — may a chord of living sympathy and friendship bind us still closer together in one great circle of life and love."
The Most Worshipful Grand Master reciprocated these sentiments with the desire that the friendly relations existing between our institutions might be perpetuated forever.
One other occasion deserves notice in connection with this report. On the 24th of June a Grand Fete of the Order was held by the Supreme Grand Council of the thirty-third and last Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for France. This was held in Paris, and was attended by a large concourse of brethren. The services in the Lodge were impressive, the Grand Commander being no less a personage than our Illustrious Brother Vieunet, of the French Senate, and now in the ninety fourth year of his age. The Banquet, as on the former occasion, was arranged and provided for with taste and elegance, but what added much to its interest was the hall in which it was held for it was here that our Benjamin Franklin presented his grandson to Voltaire, whose benediction upon the child was pronounced in these memorable words: God and Liberty. Your delegate being a guest was called upon to respond for the United States. In the performance of this duty he alluded to a pleasing coincidence, that while we were enjoying the hospitalities of that hour in Paris, ten thousand of our brethren were passing in Grand Procession in the streets of Boston, in honor of Freemasonry and the dedication of a new Masonic Temple, erected at an expense of nearly half a million of dollars, and which it was believed was more elegant and appropriate than any similar institution in the world, Your representative, after thanking M. Lajonquiere, Grand Secretary, for kind attentions, concluded by proposing the following toast: —
"The Institutions of Freemasonry throughout the Universe, One in affection—one in obligation—one in destiny; May they go on prospering and to prosper, rising higher and higher in the scale of human excellence, grandeur, and glory, and rejoicing together forever as brethren of the great Masonic family of man."
MEMORIAL
From Proceedings, Page 1887-91:
"M.W. Grand Master: — The duty you have imposed upon me to present to this Grand Body a memorial Of the full, varied, and always useful, life of our deceased Brother, Marshall P. Wilder, is one of exceeding difficulty. That life was too full of incident, and honor, and purpose, to be easily or lightly told, and it deserves time for careful and detailed study.
"The life of our Brother Wilder was of unusual length; covering parts of two centuries, and reaching almost to fourscore years and ten, and in it all we find no idle hour, no moment gone to waste; but, full as it was of solid work and sober care, still there were times when
"Fancy chequered settled sense
Like alteration of the clouds
On noon-day's azure permanence."
"His breaking into manhood was a struggle for larger activity - not narrow and selfish, but for such action as, while it might enrich and ennoble himself, should also enlarge the world of benign experience for others, and fill the horizon of human life with beauty and with fragrance. Not only in the dull routine of business, but in the subtler manipulations of fruit and flower, he had
— " the patient brain
To track shy truth,"
till she became his friend and ally in the development of an honorable reputation, a wise studentship, an upright manhood, a devoted piety, and in the mastery of floral growths till they appeared in many new and gorgeous blooms, and in richer and more succulent pulps of berry, and apple, and pear.
"The details of his busy life have been collected with great accuracy and much completeness, and are on permanent record in the Report of the Massachusetts Council of Deliberation for the. present year, and need not be repeated for this Body. To draw the lessons of his busy life out of its multitudinous details, and give them prominence in our hearts, will be the highest tribute we can pay to his memory, and the most precious legacy we can receive, whether from his active life or his peaceful death.
"He was a man of virtuous principles and impulses. We sometimes think, or seem to think, that a virtuous life must be one of denial, cut off from the full enjoyment of God's best blessings, and that it foretokens an austere and unsympathetic disposition, a hard judgment, and a black and dismal earth. But this is a diseased opinion. Human nature is never at its fullest receptivity till all its faculties are open to receive the ministries of nature and providence, which are the unpolluted sources of its happiness. Our Brother Wilder was a felicitous instance of a spirit that held itself lovingly and joyously "to all these ministrations. He was by natural gift, and by culture, sunny in temperament, broad in sympathy, charitable in purpose, and beneficent in act.
"Look through his eighty-eight years of earth, and you will not discover a single deflection from open virtue. His youth was confiding and resolute; his manhood active and dutiful; his age cheerful and serene. In the crises of commerce, when others foundered and went down, he stood upright and firm, meeting every obligation to the full, despite all losses. This was, perhaps, in part his good fortune; it was in part, certainly, his good principles. In the ordinary courses of commercial dealing his word was a reliance; there was in it no subterfuge or speculation; it was uttered to be fulfilled in the act.
"In the relations of family and friendship he was true and trusted; no faintest cloud obscured the purity of his reputation. In public life he was the revered citizen, sought after for the place of responsibility and honor, and amply did he serve his day and generation in these executive duties. In every relation of his busy life, we may say of him in the words of the poet: —
" He seemed expressly sent below
To teach our erring minds to see
The rhythmic change of time's soft flow-
As part of still eternity."
"Closely akin to this quality of his nature was his loyalty to precise truth, and his habit of dealing with the extremest exactitude of facts. To this vigorous adherence is due in no small measure his symmetry of character, his success in enterprise, and his romantic triumphs in the modulations of natural life. Does any one believe that the wonderful results obtained by him, in the hybridization of flowers and .the amelioration of fruits, were the effects of loose speculation or careless manipulation? On the contrary, accuracy of knowledge was supplemented, by delicacy and precision of handling, and both were exercised under the inspiration of enthusiastic love and fidelity. Truth is indispensable for a self-reliant man; for. a strong or a broad man; for a stable and a safe man. But, among all the excellences of our deceased Brother, we pause to mention only his frank and comprehensive manliness. He was. open to address from every side and upon every subject. The interests of humanity were his interests. He was more than cooperative; he pursued individual lines of thought and activity, and it resulted that he was not only proficient in the achievements of material affairs, but he was -deeply versed in the matters of the intellect and the soul.
"He was an affluent writer, and gifted with the power to speak with eloquence what he had thought or written. The eloquent words of a distinguished Brother are worthy to be repeated here, as they allude to a scene which took place at one of our annual feasts of St. John, and will revive and brighten a memory that is very dear to many of us. They are these: 'A few years before his death it was our fortune to hear him make a most eloquent and feeling address to the Fraternity, warning them that his advanced age made it doubtful whether he should ever again grasp the fraternal hands around him, and giving parting words of comfort to the Brethren, and of wise advice for the Craft which he loved. Natural orator as he was, never, we think, did he rise to a higher flight of eloquence, and never did an assembly sit more spell-bound under the inspiration of one they loved as a man and revered as a Nestor of the Craft. We felt, indeed, that he was going from us; that the love, faith and will of the Craft could not detain him. We realized that the bonds of affection and fraternity which held us together .with adamantine strength would shortly become a memory, and the Grand Lodge sat hushed in the silence of the deep sorrow lying like a pall over the heart. Fortunately, the health of our Brother rallied, and he sat with us on several succeeding quarterly meetings; but we knew he was an old man, made a Mason before most of us were born, and those eloquent words lingered in our hearts, for they spoke of a doom inevitable and near.'
"But he was more than an eloquent writer and speaker; much more than this had nature and education done for him. The sensibilities of his spirit, by the pursuit , of truth, had gathered the potencies of inspiration, and he not seldom 'voiced this thought in the fulness of poetic verbiage.
"I close this memoir by presenting, for permanent keeping in the archives of this Grand Lodge, a poem, which, in his own bold and strong handwriting, he a few years since presented to me, and which is treasured as a precious keepsake. It seems to me, over and above its language, beautifully to picture some of the aspirations of his noble soul: —
"O Nature, in thy secret bowers,
Where thou dost make the fruit and flowers,
Oh, teach me how to make a rose,
And give the tints with which it blows.
"Tell me, thou source of every art,
How to the fruit I may impart
That sweetness, perfume and delight,
Which please the eye and charm the sight.
" Then hand in hand, and side by side,
I'll take thee, Nature, as a bride;
. Our loves and labors we will join
To make thy glories brighter shine.
" With thee, O queen of grace! I'll bide,
In Spring's first blush, and Summer's pride,
In golden Autumn, — all the year,
Thou fount of life, my life to cheer."
Fraternally submitted,
EDWIN WRIGHT,
Committee.
