● ● ● told how he was graduated from Dartmouth “with the reputation of being one of the most talented, close and thorough scholars, that the institution has ever produced” went on to say:
Of an ardent and enthusiastic temperament, he applied himself, soul and body, with a zeal and a perseverance, which never flagged till his physical strength became utterly prostrate, to the improvement of his mind and the acquisition of knowledge. . . . Mr. Baker was a man of strongly marked character. What he did, he did with all his might. If he pushed things to extremes, it must be attributed to his warm and ardent feelings.109
But the strength of factional politics was such that five months later Hill’s New-Hampshire Patriot saw fit to launch an attack on Baker which caused the Patriot to reply:
The fiendish malignity with which the lamented Baker has been pursued, even beyond the sacred confines of the tomb, by men who should have defended his memory as a brother in the glorious cause of Equal Rights, will not be lost upon the democracy of New Hampshire. That “young man” defended their principles with honesty and ability to the day of his death.110
A few months later the attack was renewed, causing a new burst of eloquence in defense of Baker’s memory. Sometime during these months Mary wrote a poem entitled “On reading an attack upon the political career of the late Albert Baker Esqr.”111 The death of Albert was hard enough in itself; now she was learning that character assassination ● ● ●
109 “Death of Albert Baker, Esq.,” New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette, 21 October 1841, p. 2. Another part of this tribute, making mention of his intense interest in metaphysics, is reprinted in Eddy, Retrospection and Introspection, p. 7, but is inadvertently attributed to Isaac Hill through a confusion of the New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette with Hill’s New-Hampshire Patriot.
110 New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette, 24 March 1842, p. 1.
111 [Mary Baker, “On reading an attack upon the political career of the late Albert Baker Esqr.,” poem, A09001, pp. 38–39, MBEL.]