George Woodward

SOURCE: Woodward, George – (12th Ten) Born Sept. 9, 1817, in Monmouth Co., N.J., to George and Jemima Shin Woodward. At age 15 he left home to be a clerk in his brother’s merchandising business at Homers Town, Pa. At 18, he went to Philadelphia and learned the mason trade. There he heard the missionaries and was baptized Sept. 7, 1840. In May 1841 he moved to Nauvoo, and helped with the temple and the Nauvoo House. He married Thomazin Downing in 1842 and was ordained a seventy. In te original company, he wrote near Ft. Bridger that Captain Jim Bridger “thought it a rash venture to plant so large a colony of almost destitute people in the Salt Lake or Bear River Valley.” Samuel Brannan “who had come from California sought to induce the pioneers not to stop in short of that part of the country.” When the company reached Green River, he recalled that President Young’s anxiety for welfare of the oncoming families behind them was so intense, he sent back five men “to see how they were getting along, I being one of them.” The five men advised the oncoming company to break up into groups of 50, which sped up their progress. Among those in the wagon was his wife, “to my joy.” After arriving in the valley, they settled in the Salt Lake Eighth Ward where in 1850 he was called as first counselor to Bishop Elijah Sheets. In 1861, he was called to settle in St. George, Washington Co., where he worked many years as a mason and in later years was a temple worker. He died Dec. 17, 1903, in St. George at age 83.

SOURCE: http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/58061/Biographies-of-the-orig...