While Elder Woodruff was not personally selected as an object of the enemies' attack, he was nevertheless deeply interested in the safety of his brethren, and watched over them with a brotherly love. He was ever ready, if necessary, to lay down his life for his brethren.
When President Young was on trial, Elder Woodruff was in the court taking notes of the proceedings, and listening with eager and anxious feelings. At that time President Young was prosecuted by Maxwell and Baskin, and defended by Major Hempstead and the eloquent Thomas Fitch, then the most noted attorney in the Territory.
On the 28th of June, the year following, he reported his sermon in honor of Mary Philipps of Kaysville, who died in her ninety-eighth year. She had been baptized by Elder Woodruff in England in 1840. He always manifested a strong attachment for those who had been the fruit of the gospel in his early labors.
A little later a peculiar experience came to him in the death of a Sister Allen, who was sorely afflicted at the home of one of Abram O. Smoot's wives. She had suffered severely for two years and very much desired that she might be released from her sufferings in this life. She therefore called upon Elder Woodruff to bless her to that end. He prayerfully asked the Lord to let her go, and being impressed that it was proper that she should go, he dedicated her to the Lord, and in one hour she passed peacefully to the great beyond.
About this time, Apostle Woodruff entered on some new and rather extraordinary experiences in an effort he made to assist in the colonization and development of Rich County, Utah. He therefore made a home at Randolph for his wife, Sarah. His son, Wilford, had been released from the Muddy Mission, and returned to Randolph to assist his father, and to establish a home for himself there.
His new activities in the early settlement of Randolph brought him into somewhat close relation with the people who were, at this time, busily occupied in the settlement of Bear Lake.
While on a visit to Soda Springs, where he met President Young and party, there died a Mrs. Rose, a wife of Major Rose, both of whom he had baptized thirty years before in England. The Rose family were then and have since been somewhat prominent in the affairs of that part of the country.
Besides visiting people for their spiritual edification, he also occupied a part of his time in hauling wood from the near-by canyons to his family in Randolph.
On one occasion he recorded his experience as follows:
"David and myself went to the canyon to get wood, and as it was all the way down hill, we put on about two and one-half cords of dry quaking asp. While going down a very steep hill, the ring of the neck-yoke broke and the wagon pushed on at great speed. One of the mules fell just as the wagon was about to stop. The front wheel run over it and pinioned it fast to the ground, with the sway bar across its back, while the tongue of the wagon ran into the ground nearly six feet. The mule had to lie there until we unloaded the wood, uncoupled the wagon, dug the tongue out of the ground with an axe, and tipped the wheels over to release it. We thought it would be almost if not quite dead, but to our surprise, the mule rose up, shook itself and began to eat.