The Women of Mormondom

by Edward W. Tullidge

This Wm. Huntington was also a patriot, and served in the war with Great Britain, in 1812.

The sisters Zina and Prescindia, with their brothers, were raised fourteen miles east of Sackett's Harbor, where the last battle was fought between the British and Americans, in that war; so that the Revolutionary history of their country formed a peculiarly interesting theme to the "young folks" of the Huntington family. Indeed their brother, Dimock, at the period of the exodus of the Mormons from Nauvoo, had so much of the blood of the patriots in his veins that he at once enlisted in the service of his country in the war with Mexico—being a soldier in the famous Mormon battalion.

Prescindia Lathrop Huntington, the eldest of these two illustrious sisters, was born in Watertown, Jefferson county, N. Y., September 7th, 1810, and was her mother's fourth child; Zina Diantha was born at the same place, January 31st, 1821.

Prescindia is a woman of very strong character; and her life has been marked with great decision and self-reliance, both in thought and purpose. She was also endowed with a large, inspired mind—the gifts of prophesy, speaking in tongues, and the power to heal and comfort the sick, being quite pre-eminent in her apostolic life. In appearance she is the very counterpart of the Eliza Huntington whose likeness is published in the book of the Huntington family. A mother in Israel is Sister Prescindia, and the type of one of the Puritan mothers in the olden time. She was sealed to Joseph Smith, and for many years was one of the wives of the famous Heber C. Kimball.

Mother Huntington was also an exemplary saint. She died a victim of the persecutions, when the saints were driven from Missouri, and deserves to be enshrined as a martyr among her people. Her name was Zina Baker, born May 2d, 1786, in Plainfield, Cheshire county, N. H., and married to Wm. Huntington, December 28, 1806. Her father was one of the first physicians in New Hampshire, and her mother, Diantha Dimock, was descended from the noble family of Dymocks, whose representatives held the hereditary knight-championship of England—instance Sir Edward Dymock, Queen Elizabeth's champion.

Mother Huntington was a woman of great faith. "She believed that God would hear and answer prayer in behalf of the sick. The gift of healing was with her before the gospel was restored in its fullness."

Thus testify her daughters of their mother, whose spirit of faith was also instilled into their own hearts, preparing them to receive the gospel of a great spiritual dispensation, and for that apostolic calling among the sick, to which their useful lives have been greatly devoted.

Father and Mother Huntington had both been strict Presbyterians; but about the time of the organization of the Latter-day Church he withdrew from the congregation, which had become divided over church forms, and commenced an earnest examination of the Scriptures for himself. To his astonishment he discovered that there was no church extant, to his knowledge, according to the ancient pattern, with apostles and prophets, nor any possessing the gifts and powers of the ancient gospel. For the next three years he was as a watcher for the coming of an apostolic mission, when one day Elder Joseph Wakefield brought to his house the Book of Mormon. Soon his family embraced the Latter-day faith, rejoicing in the Lord. Himself and wife, and his son Dimock and his wife, with "Zina D.," then only a maiden, were the first of the family baptized. Zina was baptized by Hyrum Smith, in Watertown, August 1st, 1835.

Prescindia at that time was living with her husband at Loraine, a little village eighteen miles from her native place, when her mother, in the summer of 1835, brought to her the Book of Mormon and her first intelligence of the Mormon prophet. She gathered to Kirtland in May, 1836, and was baptized on the 6th of the following June, and was confirmed by Oliver Cowdry.

"In Kirtland," she says, "we enjoyed many very great blessings, and often saw the power of God manifested. On one occasion I saw angels clothed in white walking upon the temple. It was during one of our monthly fast meetings, when the saints were in the temple worshipping. A little girl came to my door and in wonder called me out, exclaiming, 'The meeting is on the top of the meeting house!' I went to the door, and there I saw on the temple angels clothed in white covering the roof from end to end. They seemed to be walking to and fro; they appeared and disappeared. The third time they appeared and disappeared before I realized that they were not mortal men. Each time in a moment they vanished, and their reappearance was the same. This was in broad daylight, in the afternoon. A number of the children in Kirtland saw the same.