599 of 600: Nearly an Entire Religious Denomination Joins the Church — The United Brethren of Herefordshire (1840)

In one of the most statistically remarkable conversion events in the history of Christianity, all but ONE of the approximately 600 members of the United Brethren — an entire dissenting religious denomination in Herefordshire, England — became Latter-day Saints in 1840.

The United Brethren were a group of around six hundred individuals and families who had separated from the Primitive Methodist movement in search of a church that taught the same principles as Christ's primitive church. They had been fasting, praying, and searching the scriptures for years. The Sunday before Wilford Woodruff arrived, two of their preachers, Thomas Steed and Susan Brooks, said to each other: "I don't know. I have preached all I know. What are you going to preach?" The other replied, "I also have preached all I know. I hope the Lord will send us light."

The Lord sent them Wilford Woodruff.

Within weeks, virtually the entire denomination was baptized. As the Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation records: "Ultimately, all but one of the 600 United Brethren became Latter Day Saints."

A 99.8% conversion rate of an entire organized religious body — 599 out of 600 — is a statistical improbability without parallel in modern missionary work. This was not the conversion of scattered individuals; it was the near-complete absorption of an existing faith community that had been specifically prepared, by their own fasting and prayer, to receive the restored gospel.

The single holdout among the 600 stands as a solemn counterpoint: the message came to all, the Spirit witnessed to all, the same evidence was before all — and yet one chose to remain. The other 599 recognized the light they had been praying for.

Wilford Woodruff kept a meticulous record of the United Brethren who were baptized, noting their names, the locations and dates of their baptisms and confirmations, and the names of the men who performed the ordinances. This precious record has been transcribed by the Wilford Woodruff Papers Project and is available online.