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Wilford Woodruff (March 1, 1807 - September 2, 1898) was the fourth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1889 until his death. Woodruff's large collection of diaries provide an important record of Latter Day Saint history. Woodruff was one of nine children born to Aphek Woodruff, a miller working in Farmington, Connecticut. Wilford's mother Beulah died of "spotted fever" in 1808 at the age of 26, when Wilford was just fifteen months old. As a young man, Wilford worked at a the sawmill and a flour mill owned by his father. Woodruff joined the Latter Day Saint church on December 31, 1833. At this time, the church numbered only a few thousand believers clustered around Kirtland, Ohio. On January 13, 1835, Woodruff left Kirtland first full-time mission, preaching without "purse or scrip" in Arkansas and Tennessee. Woodruff was always known as a conservative religious man, [ citation needed ] but was also enthusiastically involved in the social and economic life of his community. He was an avid outdoorsman, enjoying fishing and hunting. It is quite likely that Woodruff was the first fly fisherman in the Rocky Mountains. [ citation needed ] As an adult, Woodruff was a farmer, horticulturist and stockman by trade and wrote extensively for church periodicals. The contents of the LDS Church's adult priesthood and Relief Society instruction manual during 2006 were taken from Woodruff's writings and sermons.
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