According to Collected Discourses, Vol.3, Appendix, Wilford Woodruff, December 13, 1893, the following men were baptized by proxy in the St. George Temple on August 21, 1877:

All the Signers of the Declaration of Independence except John Hancock and William Floyd.

(“Proxy work for both William Floyd and John Hancock had been performed by relatives previous to this work by President Woodruff. William Floyd (Floid) was baptized 13 March 1877, with the Endowment work being performed on 22 August 1877 with Addison Everett acting as proxy in both instances. The baptismal work for John Hancock was performed 29 May 1877.” Benjamin Franklin was ordained an LDS High Priest by proxy on August 22-24)

Also receiving proxy baptisms in August of 1877:

• Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (Military Leader)
• Lord Henry Brougham (British reformer, lawyer, and politician)
• Edward George Earl Lytton Bulwer (English member of Parliament and author)
• Robert Burns (Scottish Poet)
• Lord George Gordon Byron (English Poet)
• John Calwell Calhoon(US Senator and Vice-President)
• Count Camillo Bonso di Cavour (Italian Statesman)
• Thomas Chalmers (Scottish theologian and philanthropist)
• Henry Clay (US Senator)
• Richard Cobden (British reformer)
• Christopher Columbus (Explorer – Ordained an LDS High Priest by proxy on August 22-24)
• Daniel O. Connell (First Catholic member of British Parliament)
• Michael Faraday (English chemist and physicist)
• David Glascoe Farragut (American Civil War naval officer)
• David Garrick (English actor and stage manager)
• Edward Gibbon (Historian and author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)
• Johann Wolfgang Goethe (Writer and poet)
• Oliver Goldsmith (Author, playwright, poet)
• Henry Grattan(Irish orator and member of Irish Parliament)
• Washington Irving (Author)
• Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson (Confederate general in the American Civil War)
• Samuel Johnson (English lexicographer, essayist, poet, and critic)
• Benito Juarez (Mexican President)
• John Philip Kemple (English actor)
• Baron Justus von Liebig (German chemist)
• David Livingstone (Christian Missionary)
• Thomas Babington Macauley (English historian, essayist, and statesman)
• Lord Horatio Nelson (British naval admiral)
• George Peabody (American Philanthropist)
• Frederick II – A.K.A. “Frederick the Great” (King of Prussia)
• Hiram Powers (American sculptor)
• Sir Joshua Reynolds (English portrait painter)
• Frederick Von Schiller (German poet, dramatist, philosopher, and historian)
• Sir Walter Scott (Scottish novelist and poet)
• William Henry Seward (US Senator)
• George Stephenson (English inventor and engineer)
• William Makepeace Thackeray (English novelist)
• Frederick Henry Alexander Von Humboldt (German naturalist, explorer)
• Daniel Webster (American Statesman)
• John Wesley (Christian Evangelist/Pastor – ordained an LDS High Priest by proxy on August 22-24)
• William Wordsworth (English poet)

Between August 22-23, 1877 all of the remaining US Presidents were baptized by proxy except James Buchannan, Martin Van Buren, and Ulysses S. Grant. President Grant was still alive, but “President Woodruff declined the performance of the Temple work for these two deceased Presidents due to the actions they performed against the Saints during their administrations. The baptism for President James Buchanan was performed 4 June 1932 in the Salt Lake Temple, and endowments were given 19 October 1932 (#20580, Book 4T, pg. 924). Baptismal work for President Martin Van Buren was performed 4 May 1938 in the Salt Lake Temple, and endowments were given 21 June 1938 (#4564, Book 6H, pg. 203)” (Collected Discourses, Vol.3, Appendix, Wilford Woodruff, December 13, 1893).

According to the Salt Lake Tribune (8/17/91, p.A6) the following have also been baptized Mormon:

• Abigail Adams (Wife of US President John Adams)
• Louise Adams (Wife of US President John Quincy Adams)
• Dwight Eisenhower (US President)
• Patrick Henry (American Statesman)
• Thomas Kearns (US Senator)
• Abraham Lincoln (US President)
• Miguel Pro (Catholic Priest)
• Paul Revere (American patriot and silversmith)
• William Shakespeare (Playwright)
• Leo Tolstoy (Russian novelist)

The May 2, 2001 edition of the Mormon-owned Deseret News reported that following people of Jewish descent were also baptized by proxy in Mormon temples. The Simon Wiesenthal Center (named after the famous Nazi hunter) has asked that several names be taken off LDS records. The following are among that list. (Would a Mormon assume that just because a name has been stricken from the record that the work already done had no effect?)

• David Ben Gurion (Israel’s first prime minister)
• Menachem Begin (Prime minister)
• Moshe Dayan (Military hero)
• Golda Meir (Prime minister)
• Theodore Hertzel (Zionism founder)
• Anne Frank and several of her family members (Holocaust victim and autobiographer)
• Zacharias Frankel (Father of the Conservative Jewish movement)
• Sigmund Freud (Father of psychoanalysis)
• Albert Einstein (Scientist)
• Marek Edelman* (Leader of Warsaw ghetto uprising)
• Leopold Page* (The man who brought the story of Oskar Schindler to the world)

The Jewish community has often expressed its outrage over the proxy baptisms of holocaust victims. Despite numerous apologies and promises from the Mormon leadership to the Jewish community, proxy baptisms for holocaust victims continue. “Over the years, they’ve duly held baptism ceremonies for around 650,000 Holocaust victims, along with countless late celebrities, including John Lennon, and Albert Einstein. Thanks to her prominence, Ms Frank is believed to have been baptized at least nine times.”

ABC News reported in 2009 that “the day after then-Sen. Obama secured enough delegates to win the Democratic presidential nominee — someone had the president’s mother Stanley Ann Dunham, who died in 1995 of cancer, baptized. On June 11, she received the endowment.”

Let’s not forget Adolph Hitler (German dictator), who was baptized and endowed by proxy on December 10, 1993 and sealed to his parents (Alois Hitler and Klara Poelzl) on March 12, 1994, all of which took place in the London, England LDS temple.

If you know of other prominent people who have been baptized by proxy in an LDS temple, please send documentation to [email protected] or Mormonism Research Ministry, PO Box 1746, Draper, Utah 84020-1746.

* These men were still alive when someone was baptized on their behalf.