The subject may be a member of the De Lancey family.

The subject was appointed a surgeon in the ninth Continental Infantry from Rhode Island in 1776. He was active on the Committee of Public Safety in Albany in 1780 and served as an army hospital surgeon and physician from 1781 until the end of the Revolutionary War. He then established private practices in New York and Albany. Anderson, who would later give up medicine to become an artist, entered his office as a pupil in 1789.

The subject was born in Norwalk, Conn., and graduated from Wheaton Seminary in Norton, Mass., in 1884. In 1894 she was one of the first two women to receive a B.A. degree from Brown University. She began teaching at Wellesley College in 1895, and four years later she was named president of Mount Holyoke College. She held that office for thirty-seven years. She was awarded the degree of Litt.D. by Brown University in 1900.

Jane De Forest Hawley was the daughter of Charles and Mary Stiles (Holly) Hawley of Stamford, Connecticut. She married Captain Henry Windle (d. 1872) on December 3, 1853. She was the sister of the artist and the aunt of the donor.

Captain Wilson of New London, Connecticut, was master of the ship that carried Dr. Alexander Anderson to St. Vincent, West Indies, after the doctor had lost most of his family in the yellow fever epidemic of 1798. Anderson then gave up the medical profession and turned to a career in art. He probably sketched the captain's likeness during the voyage.

A native of Indiana, the subject graduated from Indiana University Law School (1916) and practiced law in Indiana and Ohio. In 1929 he joined the New York firm of Weadock and Weadock which handled legal matters for the Commonwealth and Southern Corp., a large utility holding company. Four years later he became president of the corporation. He gained a reputation as a spokesman for business in opposition to Roosevelt's New Deal policies and in 1940 was the Republican nominee for president.

The subject, identified only "Mr. Wanser, the Elder," was probably Garret Wanser (1771-1856) of a prominent family whose members were among the early settlers of Amityville, Long Island.

A native of New York, the subject began his career as a librarian in 1898. In 1917 he became editor of the Society's "Quarterly Bulletin," a post he held until 1936, serving concurrently from 1921 to 1937 as librarian. In the latter year he was named director and also secretary to the board of trustees.

A native of Iowa, the subject worked as a journalist in his home state until 1933 when he was called to Washington to become secretary of agriculture under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He held that office until he was elected vice-president for Roosevelt's third term. He became a leader of the liberal movement in the late 1940s and was the Progressive party's unsuccessful candidate for president in 1948.