Jeptha H. Phillips (1851-1913) was born in Highland County, Ohio, and died in Los Angeles, California. He attended Ohio Wesleyan University in the early 1870s and went into the practice of law in Olathe, Kansas. In 1879 he married Jennie B. Phillips (b. Burris) in Johnson County, Kansas. By 1885 he had moved to Leadville, Colorado, where he was the pastor of the First Congregational Church, and by 1887 to Los Angeles, California, where he served as the pastor of the East Los Angeles Congregational Church. While in Leadville, Phillps became acquainted with Septimus J. Hanna, one of Mary Baker Eddy's students, and after moving to Los Angeles he studied Christian Science with John P. Filbert, another of Eddy's students. He joined The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 5, 1895, and his wife joined on July 6, 1895. She was a practitioner listed in The Christian Science Journal in Los Angeles. In the late 1890s Phillips resumed the practice of law, working as an attorney for the Title Insurance and Trust Company of Los Angeles.

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