Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MARSHALL P. WILDER. vii a representative from the town of Dorchester. In 1849 he was elected a member of the Council of Governor Briggs, and the following year a member of the Senate and its president. In January, 1868, Colonel Wilder was solicited to take the presidency of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and was unanimously elected to the position, which he has since held with distinguished ability, delivering the annual addresses. Through his personal influence more than fifty thousand dollars have been raised to procure a new building for the use of the society, and to establish a fund for the support of a librarian. By his energy and untiring devotion to the interests ot the society, he has infused new life and vigor into its efforts for the public good, and given it a reputation and an influence which it never had before. It is safe to say that no one else could have raised it to its present prosperous condition, or given it its extended influence and character in the community. The Hon. Paul A. Chadbourne, late president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, in a recent memoir of Colonel Wilder says that: The interest which Colonel Wilder has always manifested in the progress of education, as well as the value and felicitious 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 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. His writings…