Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/26

4 Joseph Baker, the grandfather of Mark who married Hannah, the daughter of Captain John Lovewell, hero of "Lovell's Fight," and through her came into possession of the homestead in Bow. According to family tradition this farm, which was given to Hannah Lovewell by her father, was originally a part of "Lovell's Grant," a tract deeded to Captain Lovewell by the government for "gallant military service."

As far back as the memory of any of the present generation of Bakers goes, however, the farm was first occupied by Joseph Baker 2d, and his wife, whose name is recorded by the Baker family both as Mary Ann O'Moor and Marion Moore. Of their large family of children, Mark, born May 2, 1785, was the youngest, and at the death of his father in 1816, he, with an elder brother, James, inherited the farm. Mark's share of the estate, included the farmhouse and barns, with the obligation to support his mother. The farm was hill land, rising from the valley of the Merrimac River, and not especially fertile, but as his fathers before him had done, he managed, by toiling early and late, to wring from it a living for himself and his large family. In May, 1807, he had married the daughter of Nathaniel and Phebe Ambrose, neighbours across the Merrimac, in Pembroke, and brought her home to his father's house. Like the Bakers, the Ambrose family were severe Congregationalists, and farmers of the familiar New England type. Deacon Ambrose and his wife were staunch