Mary Baker Eddy

Mary Baker Eddy was born in a farmhouse in Bow, New Hampshire,on July 16, 1821

Eddy's birthplace

Mary's parents were Mark Baker and Abigail Barnard Baker, née Ambrose. Mark Baker was a strongly religious farmer from a Protestant Congregationalist background.

Mary spent much of her New Hampshire youth in the 1830s sick with obscure nervous disorders Regular physicians did her no good, but she found relief by homeopathy and mesmerism.

Inspired by a miraculous healing Eddy experienced after reading the account in Matthew 9 of how Jesus healed the paralytic, her success led her to developing her own system.

Mary Baker Eddy

In 1875 Mary Baker Eddy after years of thought, healing and study of the Bible published her book, Science and Health. It regarded sickness as a mere illusion to be overcome by right thinking and becomes the textbook of the sect Christian Science, which she founded four years later in 1879.

In January 1877 Mary Baker Eddy, turned down an offer of marriage from one of her students Daniel Spofford. One year later, she brought a court case against Spofford, accusing him of practicing mesmerism. The civil case was held in May 1878 in Salem, Massachusetts and became known as the second Salem witch trial. By 1918, it was considered the last witchcraft trial held in the United States.

Having founded the mother church in Boston in 1879, Eddy devoted her remaining years to the development of her Christian Science movement, which she built up through her healing work.

Eddy died of pneumonia on the evening of December 3, 1910 at her home at 400 Beacon Street, in the Chestnut Hill section of Newton, Massachusetts.