The subject of this portrait was a New York merchant. At the time of his marriage in 1810 he was associated with the firm of Stebbins and Couch, grocers, at 15 New Slip. He died in Southport, Connecticut.

The subject of this painting was a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church with pastorates in Philadelphia (1834-49) and Brooklyn Heights (1850-59), among others; in 1844 he joined the New-York Historical Society.

This painting was included in the Edwin Babcock Holden Sale at the American Art Galleries, New York City, on April 21, 1910.

Andrew Ellicott was a surveyor and mathematician and the author of "The United States Almanack" (1782). He surveyed the western boundaries of Pennsylvania and New York and worked on the western extension of the Mason-Dixon line. He surveyed the site of the District of Columbia from 1791 to 1793, plotted the border between Florida and the United States from 1796 to 1800, and surveyed the boundary between Georgia and South Carolina in 1811.

As a very young artist, Boughton chose a classic view of the Hudson Highlands near West Point for this large and ambitious canvas; one that also portrays the overgrown structure of Fort Putnam in the foreground. The picturesque and patriotic significance of the site, a famous ruin of the Revolutionary period, is reinforced by the visitors who gather to enjoy the vista and listen as an elderly guide, gesturing toward the ruins, recounts the military history of the spot.

This portrait by Richard Francis Nagle is based on an original by Charles Loring Elliott of 1857.

Publisher and bookseller James Rivington immigrated to America from England in 1760 and settled in Philadelphia. He had bookstores in New York and Boston as well as Philadelphia; he published "Rivington's New-York Gazetteer" (1773-75) and "Rivington's New York Loyal Gazette," later called "The Royal Gazette" (1777-83). This painting is after Gilbert Stuart's original portrait of Rivington, once owned by Ames but now lost, which was painted sometime between 1792 and 1795.

Stephen Van Rensselaer donated this painting to the Society after it was "Resolved that a portrait of the late Hon. Gouverneur Morris decd president of this Society be proecured at the expense thereof" (Minutes, Dec. 6, 1816). Curiously, there is no record of this portrait in Ames's account book, although several other likenesses painted at Van Rensselaer's commission are recorded.

Jones studied law under Harmanus Bleecker of Albany, and practiced there.

This portrait was bequeathed by the subject, Dorothy Roosevelt, to her nine-year old great-grandaughter Noel Geer. Ms. Geer, along with her mother Mrs. Sarah Geer, presented the painting to the Society in 1979.