James M. Whitehead (1810-1901) was born in Metuchen, New Jersey, and died in Washington, D.C. For 40 years he was corresponding secretary of the Baptist Home Missionary Society (BHMS), New York, New York. After leaving the BHMS he was introduced to Christian Science by Mary Hinds Philbrick and later studied with Ellen Brown Linscott, both of whom were students of Mary Baker Eddy's. After studying with Linscott, he shared an office and healing practice with Isabella A. Beecher and Mary Hinds Philbrick. In the summer of 1886, Eddy asked Whitehead to investigate and monitor her students, Emma Curtis Hopkins and Mary H. Plunkett, who had begun teaching their own brand of mind-cure and were using Eddy's ideas without giving credit. Whitehead drifted away from the Christian Science movement shortly afterwards and became an itinerant mind-cure healer back in New York.

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