Background
After the death of his father, he served an apprenticeship as printer on the Long Island Star (1808 - 15).
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William Edward Woodruff
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Deciding to go west, but with no particular goal in view, he went to Louisville, Ky. , then to St. Louis, and Memphis.
Twenty days later, on Nov. 20, the first number of the Arkansas Gazette appeared.
The sheet, which was eighteen inches square, was neat in typographical arrangement, well-written, and carefully punctuated.
Until 1830 it was the only newspaper published in the Territory of Arkansas.
Its policy was always strongly Democratic.
In 1838 Woodruff sold his newspaper property, but in 1841 it fell into his hands, and he took up his old task until 1843, when he again sold out.
He died in Little Rock, leaving three sons and five daughters.
Editorials from Woodruff's pen, the record of his life, and the testimony of those who knew him show him to have been a man of the highest kind of honesty, and downright and thorough sincerity.
Somewhat slightly built, he did not give the impression of one likely to adventure into frontier life.
Yet he did not lack spirit and courage.
[Fay Hempstead, Hist.
Rev. of Ark. , vol.
I (1911); Ark. and Its People, A Hist. , vol.
III (1930), ed.
by D. Y. Thomas; obituary in Daily Ark.
Politics
Three years later he established the Arkansas Democrat, and in 1860 he combined the two papers, using the title Arkansas Gazette and Democrat, though the latter name was soon dropped.
Personality
He wrote gracefully and eloquently, avoided personalities, and was generally regarded as one whose intellectual cultivation gave him superiority over other men.
Interests
Connections
Buying a small printing-press, he loaded it on a couple of pirogues that he lashed together, and, with a man to help, poled or punted his way to the mouth of the Arkansas River, and on Oct. 30, 1819, landed at Arkansas Post.
Woodruff's daughter. ]
