Wilder, Sampson Vryling Stoddard, 1780-1865

Sampson Vryling Stoddard Wilder (1780-1865) was born in Lancaster, Mass., and became a successful merchant during the early part of the nineteenth century. He operated his own trade company in Boston and between 1803 and 1823 traveled to France twenty times to oversee trade with that nation as a representative of Richards, Taylor and Wilder of New York. Wilder commissioned the building of a summer mansion in Bolton, Mass., where he entertained the Marquis de Lafayette in 1824. He founded the Evangelical Hillside Church in that town, held religious meetings in his home, and became acquainted with several notable religious leaders during that period. He was president of the American Tract Society and was affiliated with twenty-one other religious societies. He married in 1814 Electa Barrell ( -1878) of Boston and had eight children.