“Wash” Glover, as his friends called him, Major Glover as he was more formally known by reason of his appointment on the staff of the governor of the state, had gone to Charleston in 1839.133 There he had quickly become a successful builder in partnership with George W. Logan, member of a prominent Charleston family. Logan was married to Anne D’Oyley Glover of that city, and it may be that the Charleston and Concord Glovers were related. In any case, by 1841 George Glover was “in the heighth of prosperity,” as he wrote his friend George Baker.134 Of seven builders in the city he was doing half the business, and a single Saturday’s payroll for his workmen was $1,267, a considerable sum in those days.
His office was just off exclusive Wentworth Street, where the Logans lived. He made casual mention in his letters of dining at the Alhambra, a fashionable coffee house. He was prominent in Masonic affairs, a Royal Arch Mason, an officer of St. Andrew’s Lodge. His letters were filled with a genial sort of swagger—if Abbie would name her first son after him (“as I am a Bacheldor”) he would give the lad a Negro servant worth a thousand dollars.135 His spelling rivaled Andrew Jackson’s for picturesque phonetic approximations. “I receved more solled cumfut in N H in Apral those 3 Dayes than I have receved for the Last 5 years before,” he wrote George (“Frend Baker”) in 1841.136
133 Mrs. Eddy in later years referred to him as “Colonel” Glover, and Bates-Dittemore suggest that in those easy antebellum days in the South he may well have been referred to as colonel. [Bates and Dittemore, Truth and Tradition, p. 29.] Dickens announced that every other man he met on his American tour seemed to be called colonel. George Sullivan Baker was appointed to the staff of the governor of New Hampshire with the rank of colonel on June 12, 1844.
134 [George Washington Glover to George Sullivan Baker, 20 April 1841, 1919.001.0042, LMC.] His letters to “Frend Baker” have generally been assumed to have been written to Samuel Baker, but examination of the originals at LMC shows clearly that they were addressed to George Baker. The spelling is Glover’s own. The prosperity is borne out by the Charleston Register of Means Conveyance between 1839 and 1842, which shows that he possessed real estate of considerable value, two transfers being made to him and thirteen by him to others during these years. Milmine’s description of him as a “bricklayer” is no more correct than her description of his parents as neighbors of the Bakers at Bow. [Milmine, “Mary Baker G. Eddy,” McClure’s, p. 239].
135 [George Washington Glover to George Sullivan Baker, 20 April 1841, 1919.001.0042, LMC; George Washington Glover to George Sullivan Baker, 19 May 1841, 1919.001.0043, LMC.]
136 George Washington Glover to George Sullivan Baker, 19 May 1841, 1919.001.0043, LMC.