Woodruff's large collection of diaries provides an important record of Latter Day Saint history, and his decision to formally end the practice of plural marriage among the members of the LDS Church in brought to a close one of the most difficult periods of church history.
Woodruff was one of nine children born to Aphek Woodruff, a miller working in Farmington, Connecticut. Wilford's mother Beulah Thompson died of "spotted fever" in at the age of 26, when Wilford was fifteen months old. He was raised by his step-mother Azubah Hart.
As a young man, Woodruff worked at a sawmill and a flour mill owned by his father. Woodruff joined the Latter Day Saint church on December 31, At that time, the church numbered only a few thousand believers clustered around Kirtland, Ohio.
On January 13, , Woodruff left Kirtland on his first full-time mission, preaching without "purse or scrip" in Arkansas and Tennessee. At an early age my mind was exercised upon religious subjects, although I never made a profession until I did not then join any church, for the reason that I could not find any denomination whose doctrines, faith or practice, agreed with the gospel of Jesus Christ, or the ordinances and gifts which the Apostles taught.
Although the ministers of the day taught that the faith, gifts, graces, miracles and ordinances, which the ancient Saints enjoyed, were done away and no longer needed, I did not believe it to be true, only as they were done away through the unbelief of the children of men.
I believed the same gifts, graces, miracles and power would be manifest in one age of the world as in another, when God had a church upon the earth, and that the Church of God would be reestablished upon the earth, and that I should live to see it. These principles were riveted upon my mind from the perusal of the Old and New Testament[s], with fervent prayer that the Lord would show me what was right and wrong, and lead me in the path of salvation, without any regard to the opinions of man; and the whisperings of the Spirit of the Lord for the space of three years, taught me that he was about to set up his Church and kingdom upon the earth in the last days.
I was taught these things from my youth by Robert Mason, an aged man, who lived in Simsbury, Connecticut, who was frequently called the old prophet Mason.
He taught me many things which are now coming to pass. He did not believe that any man had authority to administer in the ordinances of the gospel, but believed it was our privilege, through faith, prayer and fasting, to heal the sick and cast out devils by the laying on of hands, which was the case under his administration, as many could testify.
In , I was inspired to go to Rhode Island; my brother, Asahel, was also directed by the Spirit of God to go to the same place. When we met, we both told our impressions, and it caused us to marvel and wonder what the Lord wanted of us in Rhode Island; but, as we had made preparations to move to the west, we let outward circumstances control us, and, Jonah like, instead of going to Rhode Island, we went to Richland, Oswego County, New York, and there remained until December 29, , when I heard Elders Zera Pulsipher and Elijah Cheney preach.
My brother Azmon and I believed their testimony, entertained the elders, and offered ourselves for baptism the first sermon we heard.
We read the Book of Mormon, and I received a testimony that it was true. We soon learned what the Lord wanted of us in Rhode Island, for at the time we were warned to go there, two of the elders were preaching there, and had we gone, we should have embraced the work at that time. January 2, This Judith Mehr rendition depicts struggles endured by members of Zion's Camp, an expeditionary force to help Church members in Jackson County redeem their brethren.
The members of the Church in Missouri were being persecuted, and the Prophet Joseph made it a matter of prayer and received a revelation on February 24, The Lord instructed the Prophet to assemble at least one hundred young and middle-aged men and to go to the land of Zion, or Missouri.
By the time they reached Missouri, the camp had increased to approximately two hundred men. For his faithful service, Wilford was one of the members of the original Quorum of Seventy , from , when he was ordained an apostle.
During that time he served several mission assignments. Woodruff was always known as a conservative religious man, but was also enthusiastically involved in the social and economic life of his community.
He was an avid outdoorsman, enjoying fishing and hunting. Woodruff learned to fly fish in England, and his journal account of his fishing in the East Fork River is the earliest known account of fly fishing west of the Mississippi River.
As an adult, Woodruff was a farmer, horticulturist and stockman by trade and wrote extensively for church periodicals. This is an audio recording that was made on March 19, by Wilford Woodruff,at age 91, just one and a half years before his death. It is one of the oldest audio recordings ever made, using a "talking machine" or cylinder phonograph invented by Thomas Edison just two decades previously.
Like many early Latter Day Saints, Woodruff practiced plural marriage. He was married to seven possibly nine women; however, not all of these marriages were concurrent. Phoebe Whittemore Carter - 8 March — 10 Nov , m. April 13, Woodruff met his first wife, Phoebe Carter, in Kirtland shortly after his return from his first mission through Southern Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky.
Woodruff came to Kirtland on November 25, , along with Abraham O. He was introduced to Phoebe by Milton Holmes on January 28, She was a native of Maine and had become a Latter Day Saint in There were present some five hundred persons who had come together, not to hear a Gospel sermon but to have some fun. On your first mission, without a companion or friend, and to be called upon to preach to such a congregation? With me it was one of the most pleasing hours of my life, although I felt as though I should like company.
Not a soul would sing a word. I told them I had not the gift of singing; but with the help of the Lord, I would both pray and preach. I knelt down to pray, and the men around me dropped on their knees. I prayed to the Lord to give me his Spirit and to show me the hearts of the people. I promised the Lord in my prayer I would deliver to that congregation whatever He would give to me.
I arose and spoke one hour and a half, and it was one of the best sermons of my life. The men who surrounded me dropped their heads. Three minutes after I closed I was the only person in the room. I could hear their conversation.
One man said he would like to know how that Mormon boy knew of their past lives. In a little while they got to disputing about some doctrinal point. One suggested calling me to decide the point.
The landlord said if I came that way again to stop at his house, and stay as long as I might choose. He recorded in his journal that in and he had traveled 9, miles, held meetings, organized 4 branches of the Church, baptized 70 people and confirmed 62, performed 11 priesthood ordinations, and healed 4 people by the laying on of hands and that he had been delivered from the hands of 6 different mobs.
When Elder Woodruff returned to Kirtland, he found that many Church members there had fallen into apostasy and were speaking against the Prophet Joseph Smith. Most of the leading men were fighting him. He was called to the First Quorum of the Seventy, and in that capacity he continued to testify of the truth, traveling to conferences in the area.
After he had been in Kirtland for less than a year, he followed a prompting to serve a full-time mission on the Fox Islands, just off the coast of the state of Maine. He said:. But the Lord told me to go, and I went. I chose Jonathan H. Hale, and he went with me. We cast out some devils there, preached the Gospel and performed some miracles.
While Elder Woodruff was serving a mission on the Fox Islands in , he received a calling that expanded his missionary service for the rest of his life. Marsh, who was then President of the Twelve Apostles, informing me that Joseph Smith, the Prophet, had received a revelation, naming as persons to be chosen to fill the places of those who had fallen: John E. He became known as one of the greatest missionaries in the history of the Church.
This book contains many accounts from his missionary experiences. Today Latter-day Saints are encouraged to build up the kingdom of God in the areas where they live, thus strengthening the Church worldwide. Elder Wilford Woodruff and his family lived in this home in Nauvoo, Illinois. About two years after the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, the Saints were forced to leave their homes in Nauvoo, establishing a temporary settlement in Winter Quarters, Nebraska.
Elder Woodruff, who had been serving a mission in England, returned to the main body of the Church. Departing from Winter Quarters, he helped lead the Saints on their most well-known emigration: their journey across the plains and mountains of the United States to their promised land in the Salt Lake Valley.
As part of the first company of pioneers, he transported President Brigham Young, who was ill, the last part of the journey. This is the right place.
Drive on. Elder Woodruff continued to help the Saints gather to their promised land. On one of his missions, he and his family spent two and one-half years in Canada and the northeastern United States, helping Church members emigrate to the Salt Lake Valley.
He was with the last group of these Saints when he had the following experience, showing his sensitivity to the promptings of the Spirit:. I went to the captain and asked him how many passengers he had. I had learned something about that still, small voice.
I did not go aboard that steamer, but waited till the next morning. In thirty minutes after that steamer left, it took fire. It had ropes instead of wheel chains, and they could not go ashore. It was a dark night, and not a soul was saved.
If I had not obeyed the influence of that monitor within me, I would have been there myself, with the rest of the company. He was no longer sent abroad on full-time missions. Instead his activities included helping more Saints emigrate to Church headquarters, meeting with those who visited the area, serving as a legislator, working to irrigate and cultivate the land, and developing crops and farming methods.
He frequently visited settlements of Latter-day Saints in Utah, Arizona, and Idaho, preaching the gospel and encouraging the Saints in their duties.
Wilford Woodruff served as Assistant Church Historian from to and as Church Historian from to , a period spanning the majority of his service in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In his continuing efforts to strengthen the Church, serve in the community, and provide for his family, Wilford Woodruff followed principles he had learned from his hardworking father.
Elder Franklin D. Though not a large man, he was able to perform labors that would have prostrated men of ordinary physique. He once told of a time when, at age 67, he climbed a foot ladder with his son Asahel to gather peaches from a peach tree.
Asahel started to lose his balance. In trying to save Asahel, Elder Woodruff himself fell. It did not hurt Asahel much. I was very sore and lame all night. In the first place, with Elder Woodruff it was never a question of age when he saw something he thought ought to be done, provided it was possible for him to do it. He was everywhere.
If he saw a limb in the top of an apple tree that should be sawed off, the thought barely took possession of him before he was in the top of the tree, and it was always hard for him to ask anybody else to do a thing that he could do himself. Whenever the Saints stayed for an extended period of time in a central location, they built a temple.
In doing so, they were true to a revelation from the Lord through the Prophet Joseph Smith—a revelation that Elder Woodruff recorded in his journal:. We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.
To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. That roughly translates into more than 11, pages in 31 daybooks and journals. The fourth president of the church also penned over 13, letters, receiving more than 17, in return. His records complete the story of the Restoration in the 19th century. This week the Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation launched a new website, wilfordwoodruffpapers.
Richard E. Turley Jr. He was one who recognized, I think, the long term impact of keeping good records. As the former assistant church historian and recorder, Turley was involved in the Joseph Smith Papers Project. Cannon Papers. Turley champions documentary editing as a way of making more original historical sources available so people can write with greater accuracy. An all-star team of historians, scholars, professionals and volunteers has been assembled to work on the Wilford Woodruff Papers.
Donald W. Parry and Jordan W. Clements serve as co-chairs of the board. Steven C. He received revelations daily.
0コメント