Archives West Finding Aid

Wilford Woodruff (1807-1898) was one of the most important record keepers in Mormon and early Utah History. His journal, which covers 1833-1898, is the best record for many of Joseph Smith's sermons. Born in Conneticut, Woodruff was in the saw-mill industry when he began a quest to find religion. He soon encountered the Mormon missionaries and was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Within the decade he followed in the footsteps of those missionaries by serving missions in the Southern States, New England, and Great Britain. He was called as an apostle in 1839 and in eight years participated in the vanguard group that entered the Salt Lake Valley on 24 July 1847. He was responsible for helping with Mormon temple work and was the first President of the St. George Temple when it opened. He also supervised a good portion of the construction of the Salt Lake Temple and dedicated it when finished in 1893. He had five wives and thirty-three children. He succeeded John Taylor as LDS Church President in the midst of the Polygamy controversy. With Federal laws fracturing the Church, Woodruff officially ended polygamy in 1890. In the last years of his tenure as President he dealt with the LDS Church's financial difficulties and church-owned businesses being hit by the Panic of 1893. He died in San Francisco in 1898.