Autobiography of Wilford Woodruff

Excerpts from the Autobiography of Wilford Woodruff

May 14.--I left Boston, and walked some thirty miles to Holliston; stayed at Deacon Haven's, and preached. I walked to Providence, Rhode Island, from thence took steamer to New York, and arrived on the 18th. Met and attended meetings with Brother O. [Orson] Pratt until the 27th, when I went up the North River to Newburgh, and preached in several towns in New York and New Jersey, and walked across the country to Farmington, Connecticut, and arrived at my father's June 11, 1838.

[1839] On the 4th [of] October, Adner Hart, brother to my stepmother, died, aged 43. He requested me to preach his funeral sermon. I had been sick at my father's house, with the ague, for fifteen days, attended with a severe cough, and the hour appointed for the funeral was the time for my ague, yet I attended the funeral and preached, and I had no more ague for many days. I left on the 7th, and visited New York, Long Island, and New Jersey, in very poor health.

November 1.--I assisted Elders Clark, Wright and Mulliner, to set sail for England. Elder John Taylor had recovered from his sickness, and arrived in New York on the 13th [of] December. December 19.--In company with Elders John Taylor and Theodore Turley, I went on board the packet-ship Oxford, and sailed for Liverpool, where I landed January 11, 1840, in good health and spirits. When I left my father, he gave me some money to assist in paying my passage; also gave me five dollars, which he requested me to keep until I arrived in Liverpool, saying, I would there need it. This I found to be true after landing; that money was all we had to pay our expenses to Preston, and we had twopence left.