47. Alfred Winslow Hosmer (Concord). Sally Pierce Hosmer, ca. 1885-1890. From a glass plate negative, presented by Herbert Buttrick Hosmer.

Born in Chesterfield, New Hampshire in 1795, Sally Pierce married Concord farmer Edmund Hosmer in 1823. The couple lived on Sandy Pond Road and, between 1824 and 1839, had ten children. In the early 1850s, Hosmer sold their Sandy Pond farm and bought Hunt property on Lowell Road (the present 320 Lowell Road, now known as the Hunt/Hosmer House).

Edmund Hosmer was a friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and a respected associate of others in the Transcendental circle. Hosmer helped Thoreau build his cabin at Walden Pond in 1845, and Thoreau was a frequent guest at the Hosmers' table. In his journal entry for July 6, 1852, Thoreau referred to Hosmer as "the most intelligent farmer in Concord, and perchance in Middlesex." Edmund Hosmer died in 1881.

This portrait by Alfred Winslow Hosmer (who was related to Edmund) shows the widowed Sally Pierce Hosmer in extreme old age. The fact that she is dressed in her best does not hide the frail and weary Mrs. Hosmer's readiness to take leave of this world. She died in July of 1890.