Image Gallery
Swampscott, Mass.: “The Birthplace of Christian Science”
Paradise Road: “The birthplace of Christian Science”
While living here in February 1866, Mary Patterson (the future Mary Baker Eddy) experienced, through prayer alone, the pivotal healing of a severe injury that led to her discovery of Christian Science. Three decades later, Mrs. Eddy would refer to this site as “the birthplace of Christian Science.” The house exterior has been restored to the way it looked in late 1865 when Daniel and Mary Patterson rented the second-floor apartment. The house was owned by a wholesale food merchant, Armenius C. Newhall, and his wife.
A 19th-century garden
In 1865 the Newhall property consisted of two-and-a-half acres. Mary Patterson wrote of “a gracefully sloping lawn — a fountain of crystal water beautifully bordered by the weeping willow — fruit trees ranged in stately rows.” Today the lot is much smaller. The orchard is gone. But the grounds have been restored to a period-inspired landscape design.
Upstairs parlor
In this small parlor on the second floor, the Pattersons received visitors — mostly neighbors, friends from the Temperance League, and fellow parishioners of the Congregational Church which Mrs. Patterson attended.
Bedroom in the Pattersons’ apartment
The second-floor parlor, bedrooms, and kitchen of the Pattersons’ apartment are furnished in typical mid-nineteenth-century style.
Doorway to the upstairs kitchen
The apartment is laid out “railway-style”: you pass through each room to get to the next. A doorway from the bedroom leads to a hall and stairway down to the side door on the first floor. Beyond the hall is the upstairs kitchen. The door on the left opens into a small bedroom/dressing room.
The kitchen where the crucial healing occurred
Lying helplessly on a cot near the heated stove in the kitchen, she prayed and sought help from her Bible. It was here that, inspired by the account of a healing by Jesus, Mary Patterson (later Eddy) found herself free of pain and able to sit up, then stand and walk across the room unaided, to the amazement of her friends. That healing marked a watershed in her life, leading to her discovery of Christian Science.
