Daniel Patterson (1818-1896) was born on October 22, 1818, in Saco, Maine. As an adult, he became an itinerant dentist and married one of his patients, Mary Baker Eddy (then Glover), on June 21, 1853. The Pattersons first lived in Franklin, New Hampshire. In late 1855, they moved to North Groton and then, in 1860, to Rumney, both in New Hampshire. In 1862, during the Civil War, Patterson was supposedly asked by the Governor of New Hampshire to take funds to Northern sympathizers living in the South. While sightseeing at the battlefield of Bull Run in northern Virginia, Patterson was captured and held in several Confederate prisons before escaping and returning North. He opened a dental practice in Lynn, Massachusetts, in September 1863. In 1865, Daniel and Mary Patterson moved to Swampscott, Massachusetts. After repeated infidelities, Patterson deserted his wife, most likely in the summer or fall of 1866, and he provided her alimony payments over the next two years. On November 26, 1873, she was granted a divorce on the grounds of desertion. Daniel Patterson died in Saco, Maine, on August 14, 1896.

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