Image Galleries

January 30, 2012

This image gallery takes a looks at work done in December 2011 at the Wentworth home in Stoughton, Massachusetts. View This Gallery »

December 12, 2011

Recently, two of the decorative outdoor objects from Mary Baker Eddy’s Pleasant View residence — the gracious granite entry arch with gates, and the classically ornamental water fountain — underwent conservation treatment. This process was photo-documented, and we are pleased to share bits and pieces of it with you via this image gallery. View This Gallery »

November 28, 2011

In late September 2011, 28 participants gathered from 11 different states for a four-day bus trip through New England. The tour group traveled to more than 13 historical sites related to the life and work of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer, Founder, and Leader of Christian Science. Destinations included Longyear Museum, Longyear’s eight historic houses, and stops in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts. View This Gallery »

November 14, 2011

It has been an extraordinary opportunity to see the Mary Baker Eddy Historic House in Lynn, Massachusetts, being transformed, and we are happy to report that Phase One of the Lynn restoration is nearing completion. This month the contractor is focusing on those all-important finishing touches, including installing and painting the fence. Earlier this fall we received good news from the City of Lynn when they agreed to change the house number from 12 back to 8 – the number Mrs. Eddy had when she lived here from 1875-1882. We hope you enjoy this photographic tour of the restored exterior and the new accessible entrance. View This Gallery »

October 3, 2011

Today the Mary Baker Eddy Historic House in North Groton, New Hampshire, sits in a quiet hollow, surrounded by heavily wooded hills. But when Mary Baker Eddy and her second husband, Daniel Patterson, moved there in 1855 to be near her 10-year-old son, George, North Groton was anything but quiet. It was a bustling community with farms, mica mines, and mills scattered across the cleared land. View This Gallery »

September 5, 2011

In May 2011, Longyear Museum welcomed the Principia Upper School Junior Class for a five-day Mary Baker Eddy History tour. A Longyear member, and enthusiastic supporter of Principia, fully funded this trip, which included guided tours of some of the Mary Baker Eddy historic houses as well as other sites of significance to the Christian Science movement. Following are some highlights of their adventures in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. View This Gallery »

August 1, 2011

As we reach the final stages of the exterior restoration of the Mary Baker Eddy historic house in Lynn, Massachusetts, the lovely Italianate style of the house, typical of the 1870s, is shining forth. As you look at the house, you will notice how the colors highlight the decorative brackets, pendants, and other architectural elements so typical of the Italianate style. The browns and beiges are meant to suggest a villa in Tuscany. The windows are designed to disappear, and they nearly do with the black-green paint. View This Gallery »

April 4, 2011

The skylight in Mrs. Eddy’s attic room is one of the most famous architectural features of the Mary Baker Eddy Historic House in Lynn, Massachusetts. But did you know there are three skylights in this house? In addition to the skylight on the west elevation that opens into Mrs. Eddy’s room, there are two skylights on the east elevation. All were in need of repair and preservation, and this image gallery takes a look at the skylights before they were restored. View This Gallery »

January 31, 2011

The Mary Baker Eddy Historic House in Lynn, Massachusetts, is all bundled up for winter. The exterior restoration team buttoned up the project at the end of December in advance of what turned out to be the first of New England’s major winter storms! The work site will reopen in mid-March, with an expected completion date of early June for Phase One. This image gallery takes a look at the Broad Street house at the end of December 2010. View This Gallery »

December 27, 2010

Visitors to Longyear’s Mary Baker Eddy Historic Houses are often curious about the basements and attics of the houses, which are generally “off limits” in tours. At the historic house in Lynn, however, the basement will be available for all to see. In order to preserve the original floor plan of the upper floors, the coatroom and two new accessible restrooms are being located in the basement. This image gallery takes a look at the work that is underway to prepare for these visitor services. View This Gallery »

November 22, 2010

As winter approaches, carpenters, masons, and roofers are busily working to complete repairs on the Mary Baker Eddy Historic House in Lynn, Massachusetts. As you’ll see in the following photographs, many clapboards have been repaired or replaced, and primed front and back before being installed. New sections of corner pilasters, fascia boards, soffits, and brackets have been installed where there was serious rot. When the carpenters have completed 50% of their work it will be time for the painters to begin applying a coat of primer and at least one finished coat of paint before the site is closed for the winter. The project will resume in the spring when the team puts the final coat of paint on the house and finishes the vestibule. View This Gallery »

October 25, 2010

Phase One of our project at the Mary Baker Eddy Historic House in Lynn includes a complete exterior restoration of the house, with accessibility improvements as outlined by the Massachusetts Building Code. In compliance with the building code, a fully accessible vestibule is being built on the east side of the house. This new universal entrance will include a lift to take visitors to the first floor of the house, and also to the basement, where accessible restrooms are being installed. View This Gallery »

October 18, 2010

At the end of September, twenty-seven participants set off on Longyear Museum’s Fall Tour of Mary Baker Eddy’s New England. The four-day tour began and ended at the Museum, but in between the group traveled to over seventeen sites in New Hampshire and Massachusetts relating to the history of Mrs. Eddy. View This Gallery »

September 27, 2010

The exterior restoration of the Mary Baker Eddy Historic House in Lynn, Massachusetts, officially got underway in August. Over the course of the project, we’ll be sharing progress reports through a series of image galleries and short video clips. This gallery takes a look at paint removal — one of the first steps in the exterior restoration. View This Gallery »

September 13, 2010

This gallery (continued from the June 2010 image gallery, Mary Baker Eddy’s Household at Chestnut Hill, Part One) presents images of historic photographs from Longyear's collection. It introduces more of the people who staffed Mrs. Eddy's home and headquarters at Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. View This Gallery »

August 30, 2010

Last March three “Nor’easter” storms in three weeks pounded fifteen inches of rain in the Boston area. FEMA declared these storms New England’s worst natural disaster in 100 years. While most of the Mary Baker Eddy Historic Houses weathered these storms without incident, the Chestnut Hill house suffered considerable damage from leaking chimneys. View This Gallery »

July 26, 2010

Approximately 80 counselors from Camps Newfound Owatonna in Harrison, Maine, visited Longyear on Sunday, June 20, as part of their pre-camp training program. They watched “The Onward and Upward Chain,” a historical video documentary produced by Longyear Museum; toured the Museum’s library and three galleries; and enjoyed refreshments in the courtyard. View This Gallery »

July 26, 2010

Longyear welcomed nearly 30 counselors-in-training from Camps Newfound Owatonna in Harrison, Maine, on Wednesday, July 7, 2010, for a full day of activities. The group toured the Mary Baker Eddy Historic House in Chestnut Hill. They also visited the Museum where they participated in a scavenger hunt; played “Longyear Jeopardy!”; watched Longyear’s most recent historical documentary, “Who Shall Be Called: The Pleasant View Years”; and enjoyed a taco dinner in the courtyard. The visitors then attended the Wednesday evening testimony meeting at The Mother Church. View This Gallery »

June 21, 2010

In this gallery of images from Longyear's collection of historic photographs, you'll meet a number of the people who staffed Mrs. Eddy's home and headquarters at Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, where she lived from January 1908 to December 1910. View This Gallery »

June 2, 2010

One hundred and thirty-five years after Mary Baker Eddy purchased the house on Broad Street in Lynn, Massachusetts, this historic structure is about to be transformed back into its original state, so that it will resemble much more closely the house Mrs. Eddy lived in and knew. The exterior restoration of the house in which she founded the Church of Christ, Scientist, is set to begin in just a few weeks. Longyear Museum trustees and staff observed this milestone with a commemorative ground-breaking ceremony at the house on May 18, 2010, as part of the annual trustee and staff meeting. View This Gallery »

May 10, 2010

Powerful lessons from some of the younger pioneers of the Christian Science movement are brought out in a Longyear Museum exhibit now on display at Principia College in Elsah, Illinois. The exhibit is a gift to Principia from Longyear Museum. View This Gallery »

April 19, 2010

When Longyear Museum purchased Mary Baker Eddy’s former home in Lynn, Massachusetts, in October 2006, it embarked on a process of research and architectural “detective work” to rediscover the home as Mrs. Eddy knew it. During the past three years, a team of preservation consultants with expert knowledge across many disciplines have examined the house from top to bottom. Their findings are the basis for our restoration plans. This summer, the Museum will begin the first phase of the project — a complete exterior restoration, including a new visitor entrance in the rear, with a lift for improved accessibility. View This Gallery »

March 18, 2010

A photographic tour of the 2010 Longyear on Board trip to the Panama Canal, with stops at five tropical ports: Aruba, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, and Jamaica. View This Gallery »

January 18, 2010

Through this gallery of images from Longyear's collection of portraits and historic photographs you'll meet a pioneering group of Christian Scientists in the American Midwest. These images represent a blend of spiritual conviction, rugged individualism, and courage that enabled them to introduce Christian Science along the American frontier in the 1880s. The stories of these and other courageous Christian Science pioneers are told in this Image Gallery and also in Longyear's documentary film, "The Onward and Upward Chain." View This Gallery »

December 7, 2009

This Image Gallery presents a selection from Longyear's collection of gifts and greetings from Mrs. Eddy. The Leader of Christian Science gave Christmas presents; she also gave gifts on special occasions, and to thank or encourage people. The nine items in this picture-story show that Mrs. Eddy liked to give books — her own and works by other authors — as well as gold jewelry, framed photographs, and a variety of other beautiful and useful things. View This Gallery »

November 16, 2009

Travelers on this year's annual Longyear Fall Tour reveal, in their own words, insights gained from visiting Longyear's eight Mary Baker Eddy Historic Houses and other sites on the trail of Mrs. Eddy’s life journey. A picture story and comments recapture some highlights of the trip. View This Gallery »

October 19, 2009

Close-up views inside Longyear Museum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, bring to life the history of Christian Science. Longyear's displays of historic documents, images, records, and artifacts lend immediacy and authenticity to the story of Mary Baker Eddy's life and work. Seeing firsthand the books she read, the Bibles she studied, the pen she held and the tablets she wrote on, enhance an appreciation of the words she set down. Watching her steps as she moved in the context of her time, visitors can learn much about her as Discoverer, Founder, and Leader. Longyear's collections, exhibits, research library, vaults, publications, and programs offer the visitor a clear view of the past that enlightens our perception of the present. If you can't visit the Museum in person, this image gallery is the next to best thing. View This Gallery »

September 21, 2009

This Image Gallery (September 2009) tells the story of Mary Baker Eddy’s 1898 class. She said that her work with that class “changed the character of the entire Field.” The picture-story includes portraits, documents, photographs, and artifacts from Longyear’s collection that are on display in the Museum’s exhibit: Imparting a Fresh Impulse – Mary Baker Eddy Teaches the Class of 1898. View This Gallery »

August 10, 2009

This Image Gallery takes you on a picture-tour of Longyear’s grounds. In addition to being a decorative landscape, the grounds present historically significant mementos from Mary Baker Eddy’s Pleasant View home in Concord, New Hampshire. View This Gallery »

July 20, 2009

The faces in the remarkable photograph of the Point of Pines picnic are a study in contrasts. Taken July 16, 1885, the image depicts members of the Christian Scientist Association — students of Mary Baker Eddy — celebrating its ninth anniversary. Seated side by side are those who would stand resolutely with their teacher – and those who would break away from her and even attack her. View This Gallery »

June 24, 2009

In 1908 Mary Baker Eddy, then 86, made national headlines by her surprise move back to greater Boston. In this study, rebuilt to mirror her former study at Pleasant View, Mrs. Eddy directed the officers of her church to publish a daily newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor. View This Gallery »

June 23, 2009

This house was the starting point of the nearly two decades of work Mrs. Eddy carried out while living in Concord, New Hampshire. Here she revised Science and Health and wrote Retrospection and Introspection. Visitors can also view scale models of her next home, Pleasant View, also in Concord. View This Gallery »

June 22, 2009

In the first house she ever owned, the future Mrs. Eddy completed the manuscript of Science and Health. Here in 1877 she and Asa Gilbert Eddy were married, and here she taught classes on Christian Science healing, formed her student association, and started her church and the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. View This Gallery »

June 21, 2009

The future Mary Baker Eddy’s stay in Stoughton from 1868 to 1870 was a year-and-a-half respite from moving from one home to another in Lynn and Amesbury. Here she had time for studying the Bible and for writing her earliest works on Christian Science. View This Gallery »

June 17, 2009

Here in the Bagley home in 1868 and again in 1870, the future Mrs. Eddy found a brief refuge where she was able to teach two of her earliest students – confirming her conviction that her discovery was indeed Science and, therefore, could be taught. View This Gallery »

June 17, 2009

This little five-room cottage is where the future Mary Baker Eddy lived from 1855 to 1860 – five years of invalidism and disappointment – and of growing conviction that in medicine, it was faith in the drug, rather than the drug itself, that seemed to heal. View This Gallery »

June 17, 2009

Situated on a sunny knoll not far from the Rumney town center, this house represented an improved outlook for the future Mary Baker Eddy. Living here from 1860 to mid-1862, she resumed her writing, mainly poetry, as she continued to seek health. View This Gallery »

June 17, 2009

While living here in February 1866, the future Mary Baker Eddy experienced, through prayer alone, the pivotal healing of a severe injury. Years later Mrs. Eddy would refer to this site as “the birthplace of Christian Science.” View This Gallery »

May 19, 2009

Mrs. Eddy directed those who were interviewing prospects for her household to send her workers “who will stand.” Scrapbook photos in this gallery recall eight of the steadfast helpers who stayed the course, watching and working. View This Gallery »

April 29, 2009

A photographic tour of Mrs. Longyear's journey in acquiring Mrs. Eddy's historic homes. View This Gallery »