Early last year, I wrote about symbols I had observed in Wilford Woodruff’s journals. It turns out that I wasn’t the only person who had that on the mind – Joshua Matson had done some earlier and more intensive research on the same topic that he shared in a presentation at the Building Latter-day Faith Conference on March 4, 2023. From there, he worked on and published an article in BYU Studies and then discussed symbols in Wilford Woodruff’s journals in an interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk. What follows here is a copost to the full interview.
Wilford Woodruff’s journals are some of the most incredible documents of church history, for several reasons:
When I first embarked on my study of his journals, I was motivated to delve into this record because of three primary factors:
- Wilford Woodruff was witness to some of the most important events in Latter-day Saint history and was present at nearly every major event related to the Church in the 19th Century. …
- Wilford Woodruff’s determination to provide a comprehensive and consistent record of his life makes his journals the quintessential example of journal keeping for Latter-day Saints. This fact is only heightened when you consider that Woodruff, notwithstanding his leadership responsibilities, predominately recorded the entirety of his nearly 7,000 pages in his own hand. The words written—and as we will discuss later, the symbols drawn—come directly from Woodruff and serve as a memorial to their author.
- Wilford Woodruff’s unique approach to not only recording the events of his life and the history of the Church but to catalogue and organize these events in his life in such a way that make quantifying Woodruff’s ministry possible. No other personal journal or diary that I am aware of provides the level of accountability of the efforts given by a single individual to the tasks to which they were assigned.
While these important characteristics have been noted by other scholars of Church history, as I studied each page of Wilford Woodruff’s journals, I found that they are one of the greatest textual records of the Restoration because they merge the ecclesiastical with the personal.
Wilford Woodruff’s journals are significant in our church’s history.
Joshua Matson explained how he started piecing together the meaning of the symbols in Wilford Woodruff’s journals:
I was caught off guard when I first finished reading Woodruff’s record of 1835 and the recording of events after December 31 was not followed immediately by a record of January 1, 1836, but rather two pages of statistics. …
Year after year I recognized that Woodruff would spend time at the end of each year “perusing” his journals to compile similar accountings. Returning to the text from the year, I noticed early journals (1835–1837) contained marginalia such as check marks, x’s, and a hybrid check mark/x.
These marks appeared next to entries that recorded events that corresponded with the data compiled in the year end accountings. Then, starting in 1838, Woodruff developed independent symbols that were drawn next to the events that corresponded with the data at the end of each year.
Taken together, it became clear that Woodruff would utilize symbols as a means of speeding up the process of perusing his journals each year.
The marks were intended to make later examination of his journals easier.
Some examples of the types of symbols are useful to help understand how this worked for Wilford Woodruff:
The most prevalent symbol that Woodruff utilized throughout his journal was the symbol of a hand pointing to the right. This symbol identified times in which Woodruff wrote a letter.
The next most frequently employed symbol is a simple box, sometimes with dots inside of it. This symbol identified times in which Woodruff received a letter or package.
After these symbols, Woodruff also consistently used keys to demarcate entries in which he participated in a priesthood ordinance or utilized his apostolic authority. These three symbols often highlighted the ecclesiastical side of Woodruff’s record.
On the more personal side of his record, Woodruff would draw bows and arrows to represent moments in his life of distress, sickness, or aggression towards him or the Church.
Similarly, he marked the death of friends and family members by drawing a coffin, which originally began with the deceased individual’s initials appearing inside of the drawn coffin and then expanded over time to include the entire name of the individual and, at times, biographical information.
The final symbol that is frequently utilized by Woodruff is a stylized heart that marked births, marriages, sealings, and birthdays for those close to him.
These symbols are sometimes used together, merging their meanings together (such as a bow and arrow piercing a heart suggesting that distress, sickness, or aggression came against someone that Woodruff cared about, or a key within a heart that represented a priesthood ordinance being done in connection with someone close to him).
There were a variety of symbols he used. And his system of symbols continued to evolve throughout his life:
Most of Wilford Woodruff’s symbols stayed very consistent over the more than sixty years in which he kept his personal record. A couple of symbols, however, became more elaborate over time.
The coffin that Woodruff drew to demarcate dates on which an individual close to him died is one of the most recognizable of these shifts. In the early utilizations of this symbol, a simple coffin was drawn. Beginning in 1844 with the death of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Woodruff begins to insert the initials of the deceased within the coffin. Finally, beginning in 1875, Woodruff expanded the Coffin symbol to occupy enough space to also include biographical information for the deceased, including their full name, their death date, and their age at death, sometimes to the day.
Other examples of elaborate uses of the symbol can be seen with the heart symbol on January 28, 1844. Here, Woodruff draws 13 stylized hearts with a key inside each of them intertwined with in a larger central stylized heart with four keys in the center of it to commemorate the day on which he and Phebe were sealed.
Given the context of this entry, the symbol suggests that their sealing not only joined them together as a couple but connected them with the ancient patriarchs and matriarchs (Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Rachel) as well as to the other individuals who had received this ordinance, particularly the other members of the Twelve and their wives, who provided instruction pertaining the sealing prior to its performance.
He continued to expand and refine his approach as time went by.
While primarily intended for use by Wilford Woodruff himself, the symbols are also useful for later historians in interpreting his record:
In a world that didn’t have the ability to “command-f” (or control-f for my Windows friends) on a document to find a specific word or phrase in a large collection of texts, the symbols utilized by Woodruff for over 60 years to catalogue and organize his journals is remarkably ahead of his time. …
The symbols and year-end summaries would be a valuable resource for anyone trying to see what Woodruff valued in his life of service and family. The journals were almost immediately transferred to the Church History Department for keeping upon his death, further emphasizing his desire that the record he maintained be not only preserved but utilized by future generations.
Ultimately, the symbols serve as a guide to reading what Wilford Woodruff wrote. The extra time he took to highlight specific entries, and sometimes specific insights in those entries, shows us what Woodruff felt was of most value in his incomparable record.
The symbols help highlight what the original author held to be important.
For more on symbols in Wilford Woodruff’s journals, follow the link to head on over and read the full interview with Joshua Matson at the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk. While you’re there, try exploring some of the other content, such as the recently-updated David A. Bednar Quotes page.