Served on the Iowa Supreme Court from January 9, 1855, to January 11, 1860.
Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1808. He was graduated from Dartmouth College with high honors. His father was defendant in the famous Dartmouth College Case, in the argument of which Daniel Webster won perhaps his greatest distinction as a constitutional lawyer. After his admission to the bar he formed a partnership with his cousin Benjamin R. Curtis who afterward went to the Supreme Court of the United States.
In 1839 he moved to Iowa locating at Bloomington, now Muscatine. Justice Woodward was one of the three commissioners who framed the Code of 1851, the others being Charles Mason and Stephen Hempstead. He was a member of the Ninth and Ninth Extra General Assemblies, but resigned before the close of his term to accept the position of Clerk of the United States Circuit Court.
Justice Woodward died February 24, 1871.