Hiram S. Crafts (1834-1906) was born and died in Hebron, New Hampshire. He married Mary W. Raymond in Stoughton, Massachusetts, in 1856. Crafts was Mary Baker Eddy's first student. They met as boarders in the home of the Clarks in Lynn, Massachusetts, in the winter of 1866-1867, when Crafts moved to Lynn to work as a heel finisher in a shoe factory for the winter. When Crafts and his wife returned to their home in East Stoughton (now Avon), Massachusetts, they invited Eddy to accompany them and teach Hiram how to heal. In order to do so, Eddy began to systematize her ideas, and in the spring of 1867, the trio left for Taunton, Massachusetts, where Hiram decided to give up spiritualism and establish himself in the practice of Christian Science. After a few months, however, Mrs. Crafts persuaded her husband to return to his work as a shoemaker. In 1902, Crafts sent Eddy a notarized copy of her first scriptural teaching from 1867 (see A10062B).

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