1901-07-05—New York Tribune—A Mormon Baptizes Her

A Mormon Baptizes Her

New York Tribune, July 5, 1901, p. 1

A Mormon Baptizes Her

Miss Dickinson Admitted to Her New Faith

Mrs. Blair Was Not Immersed By The Latter Day Saints Because Her Husband Objected, It Is Said.

Although seen by comparatively few people, a novel affair took place in Jersey City yesterday. In Chapel-ave., which runs directly through the New-York Bay Cemetery, from Ocean-ave. to the shore of New-York Bay, and within a stone's throw of where the Jersey City Faith Christ's baptize converts and have a place of worship, Miss Elizabeth Dickinson, a former secretary of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, of the Port Morris Congregational Church, in The Bronx, was baptized into the Mormon faith.

It was said that Mrs. Blair, president of the society of which Miss Dickinson was secretary, who is said to be a convert to the Mormon faith, would have been baptized yesterday with Miss Dickinson if her husband had not objected. According to the tenets of the Mormon Church no woman can be baptized into that faith if her husband objects.

Prior to the ceremony between thirty and forty Mormon missionaries and converts, from New-York and Brooklyn, gathered in the building just across from the Faith Curists' Church, in Chapel-ave., and held a service of song, prayer and testimony. The subject of polygamy was not mentioned. Most of those in attendance were women. Some were old; some were fair looking matrons; some were youthful and attractive. Among the men were William J. Snow, president of the Brooklyn Mormon Conference; John E. Baird, vice-president of the Eastern States Mission; Elder Samuel Neff, a comparatively young man, who performed the baptismal ceremony, and George Goff. Elder D. C. Konlam, F. L. Cruickshank, Randall Jones, Guy Clarke, C. W. Thomas, E. D. Cluyde and John R. Porter, all elders of the Brooklyn Conference. Among the women was Mrs. Hattie Snow, the missionary wife of President William J. Snow.

In the service which preceded the baptismal ceremony in the Bay, addresses were made by Elders Neff, Clyde and B. F. Cummings, the latter a business man of Salt Lake City.

Though the words of the songs were not the same as those of orthodox denominations, the tunes were familiar. One of the airs that was sung at the end of the old pier from which Elder Neff waded out with the convert to where water was chest deep was that of "Sing, oh, sing of my Redeemer." The opening verse was:

Oh, my Father,

Thou that dwellers

In the high and holy place,

When shall I regain Thy Presence

And again behold Thy face?

The convert, Miss Dickinson, wore a bathing robe which looked like white or cream colored nun's veiling, encircled by silken cords. She wore white roses in her dark hair and a bunch of white flowers was fastened at the corsage. Elder Neff wore the same clothes (without his Prince Albert coat) in which he appeared when he addressed the gathering in the parlor of the house that the party had just left. The tide was not at flood, and the elder and the convert had to wade out some distance, but those whose hearing was good could catch Elder Neff's words before the immersion. They were:

Having been commissioned by Jesus Christ, I baptize you int he name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.