01907 Fall 2018 V2

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The house where a religion was born
BY THOR JOURGENSEN
Christian Science has an estimated
1,000 congregations worldwide, but its
birthplace is a yellow clapboard house at
23 Paradise Road.
The 10-room residence, surrounded
by a spacious lawn, was home to
Christian Science founder Mary Baker
Eddy from October 1865 to March
1866. She didn't live there long, but
what happened inside the house is much
more important to Christian Science
practitioners than the length of her stay.
Eddy clung to life in the house for
four days after slipping on ice at the
corner of Market and Oxford streets in
Lynn on Feb. 1, 1866. As a doctor and
friends said their farewells to her, Eddy,
44, lay in the kitchen in her second-floor
apartment near the warmth of the stove.
An account of her spectacular Feb. 4
recuperation is included in "Science and
Health," her most noted work on her
faith. While reading a passage by Mark
in the Bible describing one of Jesus'
A view of the backyard at the Mary Baker Eddy house.
healings, "She found herself suddenly
well. She got up and got dressed."
The inspiration Eddy drew from
her remarkable recovery in the house
framed the core belief she outlined in
her biography: "I was trying to trace all
physical effects to a mental cause."
In ill health most of her life, Eddy
PHOTOS: SPENSER HASAK
moved into the Paradise Road home
built by successful fish merchant
Armenius Newhall. The house lacked
running water but its rooms included a
mid-19th century novelty: closets. Most
people kept clothing and other items in
freestanding wardrobes. Paradise Road
at the time was a dirt road ending in