Erastus N. Bates (1828-1898) was born in Plainfield, Massachusetts, and died in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 1853 and moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he practiced law after studying it in New York. He married Lucy A. Bates (b. Sanders) in 1855. Bates was elected to the State Constitutional Convention in 1856. He moved to Illinois and served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1857 to 1859. He enlisted in the Union Army during the American Civil War in 1862 and served as Major and Lieutenant Colonel in the 80th Regiment, Illinois Infantry. In 1863, he was captured and sent to Libby Prison, a Confederate prison in Richmond, Virginia, for fifteen months. He escaped, but was immediately recaptured and transferred to Morris Island in South Carolina. After his release, Bates was commissioned a brevet brigadier general. He served as Illinois State Treasurer from 1869 to 1873. After Lucy passed away in 1872, he married Laura F. Bates (b. Breed) in 1873 in Ohio. Bates was introduced to Christian Science in 1886 when he attended a lecture by Hannah Larminie, a student of Mary Baker Eddy's, in Chicago, Illinois. He began taking on healing cases that year. Bates was a student of Mary Baker Eddy's, completing the Primary class in March 1888 and the Normal class in May 1889. When Eddy left Boston, Massachusetts, for Concord, New Hampshire, in 1889, she put Bates in charge of business and instruction at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. He taught one class before Eddy closed the college permanently later that year. Afterwards, he continued healing and teaching in Kansas City, Missouri. He was instrumental in helping to establish Christian Science both there and in Cleveland, Ohio, where he helped found First Church of Christ, Scientist, Cleveland, in 1891.

See more letters.