Mary D. Babcock was born around 1843 in New York to Christopher D. Babcock and Louisa Cole. Her father was a farmer who owned $600 of real estate in 1850. She grew up and attended school in Persia, New York. The family moved to North East, Pennsylvania, by the early 1860s. Union soldier Ephraim E. Brown courted her during the war, and they maintained an active correspondence for several years. In August 1864, she declared that she loved him “as dear as she loves her self,” writing that, “if I could only see you I would give all I have in [the] world.” The couple, however, never married, and she died in North East on November 7, 1865.