Born in Boston in 1746, Stephen Salisbury I rose to wealth and prominence as a shopkeeper in Worcester during the American Revolution. He married Elizabeth Tuckerman (1768–1851), the daughter of a successful Boston baker, in 1797. Stephen and Elizabeth had three children, but only their eldest, Stephen Salisbury II, born in 1798, survived childhood.

The elder Stephen was seventy-six years old when Gilbert Stuart painted his portrait in July 1823. Rather than depict a frail man of advanced age, the artist portrays Stephen as a robust and alert patriot with a flushed complexion and minute glints of white in his sprightly blue eyes. He wears a black coat of varying textures—possibly wool with a velvet collar, implied by the subtle variations of light and treatment of paint. His neck cloth is suggested by a casual arrangement of white frills and bows with light gray undertones for the shadows.

Gilbert Stuart, 1823-1824,
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA, 12/01/19