Thomas Wilder: Early New England Portrait Painter by Arthur Kern from Antiques & Fine Art magazine

Another portrait of 1842, that of Lucy Thomas, is inscribed 'By TH. Wilder / at Winchester N.H. May / 25. 1842.' Nothing is known of the subject except for the fact that in 1842 she was probably a resident of Winchester, about fifteen miles from Westmoreland. The present location of the portrait is unknown but photographs of the front and back of the canvas, in the collection of Old Sturbridge Village, show Lucy with head and body turned very slightly, wearing a white cap and collar, and with poorly depicted hand.

By 1843 Wilder's area of activity had changed to Massachusetts, where he painted eight portraits of subjects who lived in the towns of Oakham, Ware, and Athol, within an area of only twenty miles in diameter and between fifteen to twenty-five miles from Worcester, where three years later he possibly painted another portrait, now missing.14 Four of the paintings are in the collection of the Worcester Historical Museum. The portrait of Charles Adams is inscribed 'Dr. Charles Adams/Done at Oakham, Mass. August 1843, by Thomas Wilder.' Adams, born in 1782, was a Massachusetts-born physician, with real estate valued at $1,200 in 1850. The portrait of Dr. Adams has a red drape hanging in the left upper corner. The portrait of his wife, Sarah McAllister Adams (which also bears an inscription), has a similar drape in the opposite corner. Dr. Adams is shown in the usual three-quarter view, but Mrs. Adams is turned only very slightly. Both are seated in a fancy painted chair. One other pair in the same collection, that of Joseph (b. 1784) and Sally (Sarah) Breckenridge Cummings (b. 1787) of Ware, is neither signed nor dated. They are nearly identical in presentation, however, to the Adams' portraits, all having drapes and being seated in the same chair. All four are older sitters and are stylistically similar to the portrait of Persis Rice; it seems Wilder had a slightly different approach to painting younger sitters than he did in representing older ones.

The other four Massachusetts portraits are in the collection of Old Sturbridge Village. The likeness of Richard S. Bryant is inscribed 'Richard S. Bryant/ Age 22/ by/ TH. Wilder.' The subject was born in Athol, Massachusetts, February 9, 1822, and died in 1853, due to yellow fever contracted in Panama while returning from the gold rush in California. His older brother, George Quincy Adams Bryant and wife, Louisa Ann Roby Bryant, also sat for Wilder, probably around the same time he painted Richard in 1844. A fourth portrait is inscribed 'Louisa B. Fisher, age 16 By TH Wilder.' The identity of Louisa is unknown, but she was likely related to the Bryants, as her portrait came to the museum from the same source.

A number of Wilder's later portraits are among the missing, including a portrait signed and dated March 10, 1846, which has been described as that of Christopher Harrin15 and Christopher Harris.16 There is no evidence of a Christopher Harrin living in 1846 in areas in which Wilder was then active, but there is some evidence to support the likelihood of a Christopher Harris, a then nineteen-year-old harness maker in Worcester, Massachusetts. Another later painting by Wilder, referred to as Mother and Child, is known only from correspondence in 1973 between the curator of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, and its then owner. According to the former, the painting was signed on the back 'By Thos Wilder 1847.' Its owner described it as having coloring and a dark green drape on the left similar to the portrait of Anna Baylies Bushee.

The last known portrait by Wilder is that of Anna Bayliss Bushee; it is signed 'By Thos. Wilder 1848' on the reverse in the lower right corner. A silver coffin plate that accompanies the painting is inscribed: 'Anna Baylies Bushee died February 18, 1848. Aged 4 years 8 months.' This highly developed painting shows a full-length figure of a lovely girl seated on a red chair. To the right of her head is what appears to be a large framed picture with a light gray background and two ethereal angel-like heads, symbolic of the fact that this is a posthumous painting. Anna, who is buried in the Union Cemetery of North Smithfield, Rhode Island, was the great-granddaughter of George Aldrich, an innkeeper in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. This is the only known Wilder paining of a Rhode Island subject. It is not surprising that he was active in the area of North Smithfield, which is only about thirty miles from Worcester, where he was then painting portraits.

Though Wilder's last known portrait was dated 1848, he advertised his availability as a portrait painter through 1862.17 It must be assumed that either there are many paintings that have not come to our attention, or that he suffered the same fate as many of the itinerant artists of the time; the loss of his clientele to more popular, less expensive daguerreotypists. There may have been other reasons, clues to which are found in letters he sent from Worcester to his brother. 'Sept. 16, 1855: My own health is much better now than it has been for four years past and I am able to accomplish as much in my business as ever.' In June 1856 he wrote, 'Dear Brother, All our calculations are reversed. My employers have brought on a lot of work which they say must be done in order to pay off for the quarter ending June.'18 Unfortunately, nowhere does he indicate the nature of his illness or the type of business that may have interfered with his work as a portrait painter. Thomas Wilder's death notice appeared in two Worcester newspapers, The Aegis & Transcript and the Massachusetts Weekly Spy in 1862, giving his age as seventy-two and the date of his death as July 11. His final resting place is in the Rural Cemetery of Worcester, Massachusetts.