Yesterday I noticed that the full name of my wife’s
paternal great-grandmother is Theodosia Ernest Propes. I had not noticed
before. Noticing this made me think of the book, Theodosia Ernest: or, The Heroine of
Faith. Perhaps her father and/or mother were fans of the book, and she was
named after the heroine. Theodosia Ernest is an interesting and
important piece of Baptist history.
Theodosia
Ernest was written by a Baptist preacher named Amos Cooper Dayton. He was
born in 1813 at Plainfield, New Jersey. He died in 1865, and was buried in
the Evergreen Cemetery, Houston County, Georgia. Dayton was
raised Presbyterian, and is supposed to have written Theodosia Ernest soon after he converted to the Baptist faith, perhaps
in 1853 In this work of fiction he puts forth an argument and defense for
immersion baptism. On the marker they erected at his gravesite in 2005, the
Georgia Baptist Historical Commission calls Theodosia Ernest the “1st Southern
Baptist Novel.”
A. C. Dayton was a preacher and writer – also a dentist,
editor and teacher, who is sometimes considered a member of the “Great
Triumvirate” of Landmarkism. His writings also include Theodosia Ernest (Vol. 2): Ten Days’ Travel
in Search of the Church, Emma Livingston, the Infidel’s Daughter,
and Pedobaptist and Campbellite Immersions.
According to James Taulman, Dayton’s first sermon in 1852 was on the ‘Love of
God’ from the text Ephesians 3:17-19, and that this topic and text was also
Dayton’s last sermon in May 1865.
Online information regarding Amos Cooper Dayton
Weekly Whig (Vicksburg, MS), Wednesday, January 10, 1849, p. 3
The Christian Herald (Moulton,AL), Friday, September 2, 1865, p. 3
My paternal grandmother born in 1861 was also named Thedocia Ernest Scoggins later married to George Robertson in Rutherford county NC.
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