Early footsteps of a pioneer

Mary Patterson was living in Swampscott, a seaside town just north of Lynn in Massachusetts, when she fell on the ice one chilly February 1866 Saturday. 

Weatherspark.com gives this overview of the weather in Swampscott:

In Swampscott, the summers are warm; the winters are very cold, snowy, and windy; and it is partly cloudy year round. Over the course of the year, the temperature typically varies from -5°C to 27°C and is rarely below -13°C or above 32°C. 

Mary's fall and subsequent illumination of thought that enabled her to regain her health, set her future course as a spiritual pioneer in motion. Among the "Trivia" about Swampscott on its official website is this paragraph:

• Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Science religion, was a resident of Swampscott when she found the “healing power of Christ” which is now a major religion throughout the world.

However, while her situation was difficult indeed, poverty, homelessness and singlehood* would not stop her imperative mission. 

She now reverted to the surname Glover. 

At one point, she moved north to the "little village of Amesbury, Massachusetts, tucked away tranquilly where the Powwow River flows into the lower Merrimack" ((Peel, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery, p. 300). [See area coloured red in the map above.] Here, in her deep desire for "a place where she could be quiet and study and write" (ibid) she moved for a short time into a "large, fifteen-room Georgian house at the foot of Merrimac Street ... owned by a retired sea captain, Nathaniel Webster" (ibid). 

Soon however, she was forced to seek shelter "down the street to the home of Miss Sarah Bagley" (p. 303). She acquired her first Bible reference book, Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, at this time, and soon teaching of her discovery began in earnest. 

While in Amesbury, she met and healed the poet Whittier** who was struggling with a chilly atmosphere both within and without, and who gratefully remarked: "I thank you, Mary for your call, it has done me much good" (p. 305).

Julie Swannell

*Around July 1866, Mary had "told her once-loved Daniel with quiet firmness that they had come to the final parting of the ways" (Peel, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery, p. 276)

**Whittier's poems appear in many hymns in the Christian Science Hymnals:

• 49 Dear Lord and Father of us all
• 96 He stood of old
• 142 Immortal Love, forever full
• 170 Let every creature hail the morn
• 217 O, he whom Jesus loved
• 229 O Love divine
• 230 O Love, O Life, our faith and sight
• 238/547 O, sometimes gleams
• 372/3 We may not climb