Mary Baker Eddy and the Stoughton Years

Hufford, Kenneth. Mary Baker Eddy and the Stoughton Years. Brookline, MA: Longyear Foundation, 1963.

This small book contains detailed information about Mary Baker Eddy’s domestic life between the fall of 1868 and the spring of 1870, when she boarded with the Wentworth family in Stoughton, MA, about 25 miles south of Boston. This was a period in which she was separated from her husband, Daniel Patterson, and had no source of income, so she moved frequently, boarding with various families who had some interest in her study and writing. Eddy had healed Mr. Alanson Wentworth, who had suffered from sciatica in the hip for many years prior to Eddy’s successful treatment, and she agreed to help Mrs. Sally Wentworth with her nursing practice in exchange for her room and board. Eddy had begun to teach and write her first manuscripts during this time. The primary value of this resource is its description of Eddy’s relationships with the significant people in her life at the time: in addition to the Wentworths and their children, Lucy and Charles; Hiram Crafts; and Sarah Bagley. It also includes details of the Wentworth home and location.