Aretus Sams Woodward was born in North Carolina on March 9, 1879. Woodward was for a time (circa 1912 & 1913) a steward of a Buncombe County convict camp under the direction of Joseph Harvey Brittain. He later moved to Tennessee where he engaged in the pottery business. Woodward died in Erwin (Unicoi County), Tennessee, on May 25, 1957.