CHAPTER IV
CHANGE AND BEREAVEMENT
MARY BAKER and George Washington Glover were married two weeks before the Christmas of 1843 at the farmhouse near Tilton by her beloved pastor, Dr. Corser. There was a wedding party and all the notables of the neighborhood and guests from Concord and even Boston attended. Roaring fires greeted the arriving sleighing parties and there were feasting and merriment. Mark Baker saw all his children around him at this wedding, save the lamented Albert, and felt that all were well launched in life. Samuel was there from Boston, with his wife, a missionary in her teens to the Indians. Abigail, who had been married six years, was present with her husband, Alexander Tilton. Martha with her husband, Luther Pillsbury of Concord, and George Baker, still unmarried, were there.
Surrounded by five children, four of whom were well married, Mark Baker was justified in believing that his name and blood would go down to posterity enriched, strengthened, honored. There was to be, however, no permanent issue, save through the medium of that frailest and youngest, the flower-like girl, who, in her bridal garments, clung to his arm as they walked down the stairs of the old-fashioned house. She alone, holding her father back at the
