Public Figure, Private Life
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Places Mary Baker Eddy called home
During the first half of her life, 1821-1864, Mary Baker Eddy lived mainly in New Hampshire. Then, after two-and-a-half pivotal decades in Massachusetts, she returned to her native state, where she lived most of the next two decades. In January 1908 she moved back to Massachusetts, living for the next three years at Chestnut Hill, where she passed away in December 1910.
[L] = Houses restored and maintained as historic sites by Longyear Museum.
(For more information go to: MARY BAKER EDDY HISTORIC HOUSES)
Baker farm at Bow, New Hampshire
Bow, N.H.: 1821-1836. Her birthplace on the Baker family farm is marked today by a plaque and rows of stones outlining where the house and barns once stood.
Tilton, N.H.: 1836-1853. In 1836, when Mary was fourteen, the Bakers moved to Sanbornton (now Tilton). Here, in December 1843, she married George Washington Glover, and left with him on Christmas day for Charleston, South Carolina. Six months later she returned here, a widow. Her son, George, Jr., was born here, and here her twenty years of frequent invalidism began. The Baker house at Tilton has been moved and altered in appearance by subsequent owners.
Franklin, N.H.: 1853-1855. After her marriage to Daniel Patterson in 1853, the Pattersons moved here, where he pursued his dental practice and she sought to recover her health.
[L] North Groton, N.H.: 1855-1860. The Pattersons moved in 1855 to this house, where Patterson operated a sawmill. Five years later they lost the house and sawmill to foreclosure.
[L] Rumney, N.H.: 1860-1862. In this rented house Mary B. Patterson continued her struggle with ill health, experimenting with homeopathy and other cures of the day.
Tilton, N.H. — Hill, N.H. — Portland, Maine — Lynn, Mass.: 1862-1865. Often indigent and dependent on family for support, the Pattersons moved frequently, including a stay in Portland, Maine, where she was treated by magnetic healer Phineas P. Quimby.
[L] Swampscott, Mass., 23 Paradise Road: 1865-1866. While the Pattersons were renting rooms in this town on the outskirts of Lynn, Mary Patterson experienced the healing that led to the discovery she would name Christian Science.
[L] Amesbury, Mass.: 1868, 1870. The Bagley house is typical of the many homes in Lynn, Swampscott, East Stoughton, and Taunton where she was a guest or tenant for a few weeks or months while she taught, healed and researched the Bible.
[L] Stoughton, Mass.: 1868-1870. She enjoyed a settled year and a half here in the home of Sally Wentworth, her fourth student. In the peace and quiet of this home she worked on texts for teaching and on a commentary on the book of Genesis.
Lynn, Mass., various addresses: 1870-1875. For a time she taught and carried on a healing practice with one of her students. Then in 1872 she withdrew from the public practice of healing and suspended her classes. The next three years were devoted to writing Science and Health. As she wrote and sought a publisher, she was forced to move repeatedly from one rented room to another — eight times during one of these years — because of her poverty, and often because of opposition to her teachings.
[L] Lynn, Mass., 8 Broad Street (now 12 Broad St.): 1875-1881. In 1875 she purchased the home where she completed and published the first edition of Science and Health. Here she taught, preached, and founded the Church of Christ (Scientist) and the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. And here, in 1877, she and Asa Gilbert Eddy were married.
Boston, Mass., 569 and 571 Columbus Avenue., Massachusetts Metaphysical College: 1882-1889. In 1882 the Eddys rented this Boston town house, number 569, as a home for themselves and for the College. Following Gilbert Eddy’s passing, a few weeks after they had moved in, Mrs. Eddy continued to live and teach here until 1884, when she moved next door to number 571. She lived there until 1887 and taught there until 1889. The buildings are now commercial properties and are greatly altered in appearance.
Boston, Mass., 385 Commonwealth Avenue: 1888-1889. Mrs. Eddy purchased this home on a prestigious Boston boulevard and lived here while continuing to teach at the College a dozen blocks away. Owned by The Mother Church, this is now the residence for the church’s First Reader during the Readers’ three-year term prescribed by the Church Manual.
[L] Concord, N.H., 62 North State Street: 1889- 1892. On May 22, 1889, Mrs. Eddy and her household left Boston. By June they had settled in this rented house in the heart of the capital city of New Hampshire. Here she revised Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures for the 50th edition, wrote Retrospection and Introspection, and prepared to reorganize her church.
Concord, N.H., Pleasant View: 1892-1907. In late 1891 she purchased a two-story farmhouse on Pleasant Street on the outskirts of Concord. In June 1892, after renovating and enlarging the house, she and her household moved to the home she named “Pleasant View.” This was her home for fifteen-and-a-half years, longer than she had lived anywhere else since her childhood. Not grand, but comfortable, Pleasant View had a warm, intimate quality that reflected her love of home. Here she reorganized her church, wrote the Church Manual, prepared the 226th edition of Science and Health, and led the Christian Science movement. She left Pleasant View in 1908 to return to the Boston area. In 1917 the house was razed, and later The Mother Church built a home there for Christian Science practitioners and nurses of advanced years, which it operated until 1975. The property now houses a greatly enlarged retirement home which has no association with Christian Science. The gate that once welcomed people to Pleasant View now stands on the grounds of Longyear Museum, as do a fountain and gazebo from its lawns.
[L] Chestnut Hill, Mass., 400 Beacon Street: 1908-1910. In January 1908, she left Pleasant View for her new home at Chestnut Hill, near Boston. This residence, although large enough to accommodate her growing staff, was not palatial but was a modestly appointed, spacious home. Here she launched The Christian Science Monitor and continued to lead her church, write articles, and revise her writings, including her major work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
