Professor Edward FONTAINE, who is now in Reidsville, once baptized a negro, Mark DAVIS, the slave of the nephew of Jeff DAVIS, at Canton, Miss.  Mark had accidentally killed a young white man while ‘possum hunting.  Under the gallows the sheriff was so affected he couldn’t tie the rope and Mark helped him tie it around his own neck.  He thanked Dr. FONTAINE under the gallows, “Master,” said he, “when you come to die, I pray God I may be one of them sent to bear you from this world.”  But the Sunday previous he was baptized.  He preferred to be dipped like the other negroes.  The jailor and Mr. FONTAINE quietly took him down to the creek at Canton, but the thing had got wind, and a great crowd was on the banks, and among them was a band of fifty Choctaw Indians. The creek not far from the bank was some 15 feet deep.  After Mark had been dipped, Dr. FONTAINE made the cross of Christ on his forehead, and just then “kerdip” came a sound, and a Choctaw had taken a running leap and plunged head under into the deepest of the stream.  As he arose he made a cross on his face and said with a grunt, “Hell’s gone!”  Dr. FONTAINE had delivered an affecting sermon on the bank of the creek, and this Indian had understood it.  He baptized himself.  They all shook hands, and the Indians returned to his tribe a converted man.

Source: Roanoke News, 21 September 1878. Available online at digitalnc.org.