3. Alfred Winslow Hosmer (Concord).  Charles Sanford and son John, ca. 1894.  From a glass plate negative, presented by Herbert Buttrick Hosmer.

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Charles W. Sanford married Anna Maria Hosmer in Concord in 1883. Their son John Densmore was born in 1893.

Sanford served as a Concord policeman from 1888 to 1891. In 1889, he was elected to collect taxes. He was also at various times a census taker, a truant officer in the local schools, a janitor for the Concord Free Public Library, and, from 1892, an auctioneer and real estate agent. In 1894, he opened a furniture store at the corner of Main and Walden Streets (in Friend's Block, the present 49-57 Main), on the Walden Street side.

Unfortunately, the multitalented Mr. Sanford did not confine his activities to the strictly legal. In 1896, he pled guilty to embezzlement in the course of collecting taxes. He spent three years in jail, returning to his real estate and auctioneering businesses on his release in 1899.

This touching photograph captures Sanford as an affectionate father before his financial transgressions caught up with him and temporarily removed him from his family circle.