Wilford Woodruff

In my day to day scripture study, I have been reading the Doctrine and Covenants. I never grew a love for Doctrine and Covenants when I studied it in seminary (I’d like to deflect the blame from myself and onto my seminary teacher, who being brand new, did not do a very good job teaching it. Okay, so it’s probably my own fault that I didn’t try very hard to listen and learn…). So I decided this year to study it with the book The Doctrine and Covenants Made Easier. These books are heaven sent in understanding simple to deep understandings and I loved studying the Book of Mormon with them.

I came to the end of the first book yesterday; it took me up to section 42, and at the end of the book the author, David J. Ridges, added all this extra information about who was where, when, in early church history. I started thumbing through it and Wilford Woodruff caught my eye. It’s amazing to see God’s hand in someones life…especially when it involves being 13 years old and already having 11 serious accidents that should have killed him.

I’m just going to quote all the details mentioned in the book. I hope you’re as amazed as I was that Wilford Woodruff survived as long as he did.

1807: Wilford Woodruff is born on March 1 in Connecticut. His mother will die when he is not quite one year old. He will be tough, having had numerous life-threatening accidents, and will be well prepared to handle the tough task of issuing the Manifesto stopping polygamy. He will write a journal of nine volumes with more than 7,000 pages. He will live 91 years.

1810: Wilford Woodruff falls into a cauldron of scalding water. He is three and it will be nine months before he will be out of danger of dying from this accident.

1812-1813: When he is five and six, Wilford Woodruff has many accidents. He will fall from the top of a barn flat on his face on the bare floor. Later, he will fall from the top to the bottom of the stairs but will only break one arm in one place.

(This next story is crazy and quite lively to picture in your mind)

Wilford Woodruff is feeding a pumpkin to his favorite cow when a bull leaves his own pumpkin, pushes away the cow that young Wilford likes, and starts eating her pumpkin. Wilford is furious, picks up the pumpkin and marches toward his cow to give it to her. The bull sees him carrying the pumpkin and lunges toward him. Wilford starts running but does not drop the pumpkin despite his father’s frantic shouts to do so. The enraged bull is upon him- he trips and falls, the pumpkin rolls away, and the bull jumps over little Wilford, gores the pumpkin, and tears it to shreds. Wilford escapes.

Wilford falls from his uncle’s porch and breaks his other arm. Wilford hasn’t yet broken a leg, so he does that. He lies in pain in the house for nine hours before help arrives. Wilford gets kicked in the abdomen by an ox. (If he hadn’t been standing so close, he probably would have been killed. As it was, he was thrown more than kicked, probably saving his life.) Later, a wagon load of hay tips on top of him, but he suffers no harm.

That all happened when he was 5-6 years old!

1815: He is now about eight years old and still alive, but his horse has bolted, tipping the wagon over on top of him and his father (his father should know by now not to get that close to him). Later this year, Wilford climbs an elm tree, stepping on a weak, dry limb when he is 15 feet up. It breaks and he falls, landing flat on his back on the ground. The fall knocks the wind out of him.

*Just as a side note, if you’ve ever seen any of the youtube videos of LOST in 8 min 15 seconds, how the narrator just slaps down these crazy happenstances like they’re nothing… I feel like that’s how the author wrote this. At least that’s how I read it in my mind.*

1819: Twelve-year-old Wilford Woodruff is drowning in 30 feet of water. A man saves him. He suffers much as he is revived.

1820: Thirteen-year-old Wilford Woodruff is freezing to death. Hypothermia has set in. He is asleep in the hollow of a large apple tree. A man in the distance who saw him crawl into the hollow comes over to the tree. He has much difficulty waking him but saves his life.

1821: Wilford Woodruff accidentally sunk an ax into his left instep, passing nearly through his foot. It will be nine months before it is healed. He is 14 years old.

1822: Wilford Woodruff is 15 years old and has just been bitten on the hand by a rabid dog. The dog did not draw blood, and Wilford is spared again.

1824: Wilford Woodruff has just been dislodged from the saddle on a runaway horse careening wildly down a hillside, has slid up the horse's neck and is on its head, hanging onto its ears for dear life as it continues to plummet down a steep, rocky hillside. The horse slams into a breast-high boulder, stopping it dead in its tracks while Wilford flies through the air, landing on his feet almost 16 feet in front of the horse (otherwise he would have been killed instantly). He breaks one leg in two places and displaces both ankles. The dazed horse almost rolls over him as it attempts to get up. In eight weeks he will be able to walk with aid of crutches.

1827: Wilford Woodruff is 20 years old and still alive, but he is standing on a water wheel, clearing away ice. Another worker, unaware that Wilford is there, opens the water head gate, which starts the wheel in motion. Wilford falls off and narrowly escapes being crushed in the machinery. 

1831: Wilford Woodruff has another bout with a water wheel. He survives again.

1833: Wilford Woodruff, age 26, is baptized on December 31, two days after first hearing missionaries preach. That same day, his horse with newly caulked shoes kicks Wilford's hat off his head, missing his head by just two inches. Ten minutes later, Wilford has hitched the horse with another to a sled and is driving away. Some loose boards on the sled slide forward, slip end first tot he ground, fly up endwise, picking Brother Woodruff up and pitching him forward between the horses. The frightened animals run down the hill, dragging him under the sled behind them. He escapes without injury. 

1834: Wilford Woodruff and Brigham Young are marching with Zion's Camp. Wilford is nearly shot b y a rifle ball that is accidentally discharged by a camp member. The ball passes through three tents with a dozen men in each without hurting anyone and passes within inches of Wilford's chest. 

A musket, heavily loaded with buckshot and pointing directly at Wilford Woodruff's chest, is accidentally snapped but misfires. 

1839: In April, Wilford Woodruff is pinned in a wagon accident and dragged by the frightened team for about half a mile with his head and shoulders dragging on the ground. Despite his awkward position, he manages somehow to steer the frightened horses into the corner of a high fence, where he and team land in a pile together. Of this incident he said, "I was considerably bruised, but escaped without any broken bones, and after one day's rest was able to attend to my labors again."

1846: While felling a tree in Winter Quarters on October 15, Wilford Woodruff is struck by the tree, knocked into the air, and thrown against an oak tree. His left thigh, hip and left arm are badly bruised, and his breastbone and three left ribs are broken. His lungs, internal organs, and left side are badly bruised. He must ride his horse 2 1/2 miles over rough road to get back to the settlement. Pain forces him off the horse twice. Upon arriving back at Winter Quarters, men carry him in a chair to his wagon. Before putting him in bed, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, and others bless him. He lay upon his bed, unable to move until his breastbone begins to knit together. In about 20 days, he begins to walk, and in 30 days, he returns to his normal duties.

Of his accidents, Wilford said, "I have broken both legs, one of them in two places; both arms, both ankles, my breastbone, and three ribs. I have been scalded, frozen and drowned. I have been in two water wheels while turning under a full head. I have passed through a score of other hairbreadth escapes."