Martha S. Pillsbury (1819-1884) was Mary Baker Eddy's second oldest sister. She was married December 15, 1842, to Luther C. Pillsbury (1817-1850), a prison administrator. He worked in prisons in Concord, New Hampshire, Wethersfield, Connecticut, and Albany, New York, where he died of cholera in 1850. Martha spent most of the rest of her life in New Hampshire. Like her sister Mary, she was a single mother, with daughters Mary (1849-1856) and Ellen (1845-1904). (Ellen Pillsbury [later Philbrook] was healed of enteritis by Mary Baker Eddy in 1867.) Martha held the mortgage on the property owned by Eddy's second husband, Daniel Patterson, in North Groton, New Hampshire. Due to his inability to meet interest payments, Martha was forced to foreclose in 1859, a particularly bitter moment for her younger sister. (Note: Death notices and voter registration rolls spell the family name as Pillsbury, but the alternate spelling, Pilsbury, appears in other documentation and is the name used in correspondence.)

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