For eight years Woodson served as coeditor and publisher of the Democratic newspaper Lynchburg Republican.

Woodson was appointed secretary of the Kansas Territory by President Franklin Pierce on June 29, 1854, and took the oath of office in Washington, D.C., on September 28, drawing an annual salary of $2,000.

Because he was fully sympathetic to those who wanted to make Kansas a slave state, he agreed with the wishes of the proslavery forces in the territory.

Woodson spent his last years in Parker, Kansas, where he was actively helping to establish a town which its residents believed would be located along a railroad line.

When the railroad bypassed Parker, most of the citizens – including Woodson – relocated to Coffeyville, Kansas.