Wilford Woodruff

Wilford Woodruff’s life as he recorded it day by day: his conversion in 1833, Zion’s Camp, missions through the eastern states and the British Isles, the trek west, his long service as a leader of the Church, the 1890 Manifesto, and the years he presided as the fourth President of the Church until his death in 1898. Woodruff’s own journal entries, letters and discourses are read in his voice, with Cowley’s narrative between them.

Matthias F. Cowley says in his preface (signed September 1909) that he read all of Woodruff’s journals, thousands of pages, and chose the most important part; the book holds only a small part of what Woodruff wrote. Besides Cowley’s narrative it prints Woodruff’s journal entries, letters, epistles and discourses, and the work of others: histories by Joseph Smith and George Q. Cannon, Deseret News reports of Woodruff’s 1897 birthday celebration and of his funeral, Dr. J. M. Tanner’s character sketch, and poems by Eliza R. Snow.

The printed chapter 55 is recorded as two parts, so chapters after it are numbered one higher than in the printed book; the printed tables of Woodruff’s wives and children are read as sentences. Each chapter’s printed synopsis is read at its start. The index is not included.

Text produced for Project Gutenberg by the Mormon Texts Project, with special thanks to Villate Brown McKitrick (released December 19, 2014).