EDDY, Mary Baker, discoverer and founder of the religion (theology and practice) which she named Christian Science, and founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Mrs. Eddy (at first Mary Baker) was born at Bow, near Con cord, N. H., 16 July 1821, the sixth and young est child of Mark and Abigail Baker. One of her ancestors, John Baker, was among the earliest settlers of the colony of Massachusetts Bay (at Charlestown in 1634). One of her great-grandfathers was Capt. Joseph Baker, who earned his title and gained an honorable name in the service of the colony of New Hampshire. Other soldiers of renown among Mrs. Eddy's relatives were Capt. John Love well, hero of a war with Indians during the colonial period, Gen. Henry Knox of the War for American Independence, and Gen. John McNeil of the War of 1812. Her immediate family were people of considerable prominence and prosperity: her father a large landholder and well-known citizen; one of her brothers, Col. George Sullivan Baker, a public man and member of the staff of the governor of New Hampshire; another brother, the Hon. Albert Baker, a lawyer and member of the New Hamp shire legislature; a cousin, the Hon. Henry M. Baker, a lawyer and member of Congress from New Hampshire.
The home in which Mrs. Eddy was reared was one of refinement and religious devotion. Her parents were members of the Congrega tional Church, and their hospitality was fre quently enjoyed by the clergy of this and other denominations; and in the discussions of re ligious subjects which often occurred in the home Mrs. Eddy took an interest and partici pated in a manner that was seen to be unusual and far in advance of her years. To her mother and her brother Albert, however, Mrs. Eddy gave the most credit for her early train ing. Her mother was a woman of evident gentility and marked spirituality; her brother Albert a graduate of Dartmouth College, studied law with Franklin Pierce (afterward President of the United States), and became a young man of extraordinary promise before his decease at the age of 31.
As a child, Mrs. Eddy was frail and subject to illness. This kept her from attending school regularly; yet she was studious, and with the aid of tutors she gained an education equal to that which was then regarded as liberal. One of her tutors was the Rev. Enoch Corser, pastor of the Congregational church at Tilton, N. H., who supplemented his pastoral duties, sometimes by teaching in the local academy and sometimes by tutoring. Mr. Corser's con tact with Mrs. Eddy began soon after she re moved with her parents from Bow to Tilton in 1836 when she was 15 years old, and continued for six or seven years. He departed this life before she became famous, but an interesting and significant expression of his opinion was preserved and related by his son, Mr. S. B. G. Corser. Writing from Boscowan, N. H., in 1902, the younger Mr. Corser said: "My father, the Rev. Enoch Corser, was pastor of the Con gregational church at Northfield and Tilton (then Sanbornton Bridge) from 1837 to 1843, with which the Baker family was connected. If I remember rightly Mrs. Eddy was about 15 when I first met her, she being several years younger than myself. I well remember
her gift of expression, which was very marked. As her pastor, and for a time her teacher, my father held her in the highest esteem; in fact he considered her, even at an early age, superior both intellectually and spiritually to any other woman in Tilton, and greatly enjoyed talking with her. She and my father used to converse on deep subjects frequently. I remember her admiration for him, and she stands out in my recollection as his brightest pupil. He pre dicted for Mrs. Eddy a great future and spoke of her as an intellectual and spiritual genius? From her childhood or girlhood until more than a decade after her discovery of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy was a member of the Con gregational Church. Applying for membership at Bow when she was 12 years old, she was examined and given some assurance of accept ance in spite of the issue she took with the then-prevalent doctrine of unconditional elec tion or predestination. Whether she was formally admitted to. membership at this time, or not until five years later at Tilton, is a ques tion left uncertain by the records of these churches. It was at this earlier time, when Mrs. Eddy was about 12 years old, that she first ex perienced the power of prayer to deliver from sickness. Perturbed by the teaching that her brothers and sisters and she were already numbered among those who were to be saved or lost, she became ill with what the family doctor pronounced a fever. In her autobiography, 'Retrospection and Introspection' (p. 13), Mrs. Eddy thus related her healing: "My mother, as she bathed my burning temples, bade me lean on God's love, which would give me rest, if I went to Him inprayer, as I was wont to do, seeking His guidance. I prayed; and a soft glow of ineffable joy came over me. The fever was gone, and I rose and dressed myself, in a normal condition of health. Mother saw this, and was glad. The physician marvelled; and the 'horrible decree of predestination — as John Calvin rightly called his own tenet— for ever lost its power over me? Mrs: Eddy was married three times: first to Maj. George W. Glover, a native of New Hampshire who had removed to Charleston, S. C., and become a successful contractor and builder. His military title was gained by serv ice in the militia and on the governors staff in South Carolina. This marriage occurred in 1843, when Mrs. Eddy was 22 years old. It was dissolved in less than a year by the death of Major Glover. Ten years later (in 1853) Mrs. Eddy married Dr. Daniel S. Patterson, a dentist of Franklin, N. H. In 1873, after her removal to Lynn, Mass., and her discovery of Christian Science, she obtained a divorce from him on account of long-continued desertion due to his infidelity. In 1877, after she had begun the practice and teaching of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy married Asa Gilbert Eddy of Lon donderry, Vt., the first of her students to en gage in the public practice of Christian Science healing. He died five years later (in 1882) after having helped to sustain Mrs. Eddy dur ing the period in which the Church of Christ, Scientist, was organized and the Christian Science movement encountered its first active opposition.