Mary C. Swift (1842-1914) was born in New York and died in Watertown, Wisconsin. She married Henry Spencer Swift Jr. in 1860 in Albion, Wisconsin. After Henry was killed in the Civil War in 1863 while leading Company E of the 33rd Wisconsin Infantry at Coldwater, Mississippi, she married Henry's brother, Pardon Holden Swift, in 1865. Swift joined The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 3, 1896, and was listed as a practitioner in the directory of The Christian Science Journal in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1898 and in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, in 1899. She was an active branch church member and in 1907 became the first registered Christian Science practitioner to join First Church of Christ, Scientist, Watertown, Wisconsin, where she served as First Reader. Although Swift intended to study with Mary Baker Eddy, there is no record of her doing so.

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