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