Partly printed baptismal certificate, completed in manuscript issued to Ephraim Emmet Brown (1844-1934), when he joined the Re-Organized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, listing the names of the elders who authorized the baptism. Grand Rapids, Michigan, 3 May 1903. 1 page, 7 x 10 in. 

Born in Otto, Cattaraugus County, New York on March 10, 1844, Brown was studying in Pennsylvania at the outbreak of the Civil War. He returned to Otto and enlisted on 7 December 1861 and mustered into Co. C of the 64th New York Infantry. Brown's regiment participated in the battles of Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House, where he was wounded. Brown survived the war and returned to Otto before relocating to Plainfield Township, Michigan, where he worked as a farmer and fruit grower. 

After the death of Joseph Smith in 1844, several breakaway sects of Mormonism emerged as religious leaders vied for control within the faith. The Re-Organized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints splintered from the main branch of the Latter Day Saint Movement in the 1850s and was formally organized in 1860 with Joseph Smith III as its President. In 2001, the Church was renamed the Community of Christ. 

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