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I will here state the Martin Harris, when he came to this Territory a few years ago, was rebaptized, the same as every member of the Church from distant parts is on arriving here. That seems to be a kind of standing ordinance for all Latter-day Saints who emigrate here, from the First Presidency down; all are rebaptized and set out anew by renewing their covenants.


Source: Richards, F. D. ed., Journal of Discourses. 1854-1886. Liverpool: 26 vols. Vol. 18, 160 - 161.




There were other significant developments under Wilford Woodruff's direction: in November 1896, the Church's monthly Fast Day was changed from the first Thursday to the first Sunday of each month, a practice that continues; in 1897, the custom of rebaptism was ended.


Source: Ludlow, Daniel H, ed. The Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Vol. 2. HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1992.




On July 22, 1847, the pioneer company of Latter-day Saints colonizing the Rocky Mountain West began settlement of what geographers now call the Wasatch Oasis, a series of narrow crescents of arable land rimming the western flanks of the Wasatch Mountains from present- day Brigham City southward to Nephi. The first site occupied was the northeastern part of the Salt Lake Valley. On July 22, 1847, before Brigham Young himself had entered "The Valley"(as they then and forever after called it), the pioneer company began plowing and planting. Within a few weeks they had explored the valley and its surrounding canyons, participated in a ritual rebaptism to sanctify their new beginning in the West, constructed a fort with adobe walls on three sides to enclose the rustic log cabins they were building, surveyed a city of 135 ten-acre blocks, harvested salt from the lake, put a whipsaw into operation, built a boat, hewn out a canyon road, set up a blacksmith shop, and established an adobe yard. By December 7, they had planted 2,000 acres of fall wheat, looking to the need to feed the nearly 2,000 people who already had arrived, as well as those who would be coming the next season. Great Salt Lake City, as it was then called, had been founded--the first Mormon settlement in the Great Basin, the future capital of Utah, and still a mecca for Mormons throughout the world.


Source: Historical Atlas of Mormonism. 88.




There are a lot of personal accounts of rebaptism among the journals of early Mormons.



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