[2] Among her siblings was brother was J. Gilbert Pierson, and sister Sarah Colt, who was killed with her husband, the Rev.

Her father was an inventor who established the iron works firm of J. G. Pierson & Brothers in Ramapo.

[3][4] Among her large extended family was uncle Eleazar Lord (wife of her aunt Elizabeth Pierson), and cousins: Brigadier General John Frederick Pierson,[5] and Helen Maria Pierson, who married William Gaston Hamilton (son of John Church Hamilton and grandson of first U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton).

[8] Together, the couple had ten children, including a daughter Julia Colt Emmet died young.

Their children who lived into adulthood were:[11] Julia died in New Rochelle, New York on September 26, 1908.