After marrying Presbyterian minister Edward Payson Terhune in 1856, Terhune moved with him to Newark, New Jersey and spent the remainder of her adult life in the North. They had six children together; three died as infants. In the 1870s, shortly after the birth of her last son Albert Payson, she published "Common Sense in the Household: A Manual of Practical Housewifery", a cookbook and domestic guide for housewives that became a huge bestseller, eventually selling more than one million copies over several editions.