Cyrus J. Fry (1850-1893) was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, and died in Deadwood, South Dakota. By 1860 he had moved with his family to Freeport, Illinois, and by 1873 to Chicago, Illinois. In 1875 he married Christiana D. Fry (b. Brining) in Barton County, Kansas. After their marriage they moved to Raton, New Mexico, where Fry worked as an assistant paymaster for the Raton coal mines, but due to his ill health, they returned to Kansas by 1877, where he became the Postmaster of Great Bend. They moved to Meckling, Kansas, sometime prior to 1880, and Fry went into the farming and stockraising business. In 1888 he was elected Treasurer of Clay County, and in 1889 he was appointed United States Marshall for the District of South Dakota, by which time the Frys were living in Vermillion. In 1886 Fry wrote to Mary Baker Eddy to order copies of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. In 1887 Fry's wife studied Christian Science with his sister, Elizabeth C. Burchard (b. Fry), and in March 1888 both Fry's wife and Burchard took the Primary course from Mary Baker Eddy and subsequently joined The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts. He was an active Mason and Knight of Phythias.

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