Joshua F. Bailey (1831-1907) was born in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, and died in New York, New York. He worked as a schoolteacher in Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 1850s, and he became a Special Agent of the United States Treasury Department in 1861. In 1865, he became an Internal Revenue Service collector for the Fourth Collection District of New York, and in 1869, he was appointed collector for the 32nd District of New York. During this time, questionable accounting practices during his earlier service, involving a $100,000 deficit in Bailey's accounts for which he and his sureties were liable, were uncovered. Bailey fled the country and lived in South America from 1870 to 1874, where he married Lucie Bailey (b. Coutin). Working for Thomas Edison's Telephone and Light Company, Bailey lived in Paris, France, until 1886. He received a pardon from President Grant and returned to the United States, and in the winter of 1887 he was introduced to Christian Science by Augusta E. Stetson, a student of Mary Baker Eddy's. He spent 12 hours a day reading
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which he credited with the healing of an unspecified condition that doctors in Paris had pronounced a "sentence of death." Bailey was a student of Mary Baker Eddy's, completing the Primary class twice in November 1888 and February 1889 with his son, Frank F. Bailey, and the Normal class in May 1889. Bailey took notes of Eddy's final Primary and Normal classes at her request. Eddy appointed Bailey editor of
The Christian Science Journal in February 1889. It was Bailey's idea to start the semi-monthly periodical
Christian Science Series in May 1889, however Eddy stopped its publication in April 1891, after already replacing him as editor in November 1890. He joined The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 5, 1892. Bailey became a member of the General Association of Teachers in October 1904, and he was also a member of the Christian Science Dispensary Association. He was a member of the Christian Scientist Association, as well as the National Christian Scientist Association. Bailey was listed in the directory of
The Christian Science Journal as a Christian Science practitioner and teacher in Boston (beginning in 1889) and in New York (beginning in 1893) until his passing. He was the author of Christian Science, a Revelation (1889).
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