High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! William Wines Phelps (February 17, 1792 March 7, 1872) was an early leader of the Latter Day Saint movement. He was an assistant president of the church in Missouri, scribe to Joseph Smith, Jr., and a church printer, editor, and song-writer. Born in Hanover, New Jersey, his father Enon Phelps and mother Mehitable Goldsmith moved the family to Homer, New York, in 1800. As a child, he attended public schools. As a young man, he traveled to Ohio, but soon returned to Homer, where he began publishing the Western Courier.