Article December 7, 1929 Issue

Eddy, Mary Baker (1821-1910), the Founder and...

C.P.S.

Encyclopædia Britannica

Eddy, Mary Baker (1821-1910), the Founder and Leader of the Christian Science movement, was born on July 16, 1821, at Bow, near Concord, New Hampshire, U.S.A. She was the youngest of the six children of Mark Baker and Abigail Ambrose Baker. Her father was a man of local prominence, first at Bow and later at Tilton, New Hampshire; a landowner, a justice of the peace, a member of the committee having charge of the public schools, and a deacon of the Congregational church. Her mother was the daughter of Deacon Nathaniel Ambrose, of Pembroke, New Hampshire, who also represented the same type of citizenship.

In 1843 Mary Baker married Major George W. Glover, a native of Concord, New Hampshire, but a resident of Charleston, South Carolina. By occupation a contractor and builder, his business extended to adjoining states and to the island of Haiti. Major Glover died six months after their marriage while they were at Wilmington, North Carolina, pursuant to his business. Her only child (also named George W. Glover) was born three months later, after she had returned to New Hampshire. During the next nine years she lived at Tilton, New Hampshire, with her father, or with her sister, Mrs. Abigail Tilton, and occupied herself to the extent allowed by delicate health in caring for her child and in teaching. For a time she conducted a private school for young children; at other times she was an extra teacher in a New Hampshire Conference Seminary.

In 1853 Mrs. Glover married Dr. Daniel Patterson, of Franklin, New Hampshire, a dentist. This marriage proved to be extremely unfortunate. After they moved to Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1863, he became unfaithful to her and finally deserted her. Therefore, in 1873, she obtained a divorce for his desertion resulting from his infidelity. In 1877 Mrs. Glover (Mrs. Patterson having resumed this name) married Asa Gilbert Eddy, of Lynn, an ardent Christian Scientist and one of the first of her followers to engage in the public practice of Christian Science. After his death (at Boston, in 1882) Mrs. Eddy continued as a widow until she died at Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, near Boston, on December 3, 1910.

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