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| W. W. Phelps | |
|---|---|
| Name | W. W. Phelps |
| Birth date | February 17, 1792 |
| Birth place | Lyme, Connecticut |
| Death date | November 13, 1872 |
| Death place | Plainfield, Illinois |
| Occupation | Printer, publisher, hymnwriter, educator |
| Known for | Early Latter Day Saint printing, hymnody, church leadership |
| Spouse | Sally Waterman Phelps |
W. W. Phelps
William Wines Phelps was an early American printer, publisher, hymnwriter, educator, and prominent figure in the early Latter Day Saint movement. A Connecticut-born newspaperman and politician, he became a close associate of Joseph Smith and played significant roles in the development of publishing, hymnody, and administration among the Saints, while also becoming embroiled in the Missouri conflicts and later activities in Nauvoo and Illinois.
Phelps was born in Lyme, Connecticut, and raised in towns linked to the early Republic such as Norwich, Hartford, and New London, where regional figures and institutions like Yale College and Dartmouth College influenced New England intellectual life. He trained in printing and newspaper work in settings comparable to the offices of the New-York Evening Post, Independent Chronicle, and other early American periodicals, interacting with networks that included politicians like John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, and state leaders in Connecticut and Vermont. Phelps's early career intersected with commercial arteries such as the Erie Canal era transport networks and the political cultures of New England state legislatures and county courts.
After moves to western New York and then Ohio, Phelps encountered itinerant religious revivals akin to those in the Second Great Awakening, and he became associated with communities around Palmyra, New York, Kirtland, Ohio, and Painesville, Ohio. He joined the movement led by Joseph Smith within the milieu of early 19th-century American restorationism alongside contemporaries such as Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Sidney Rigdon, and Orson Hyde. Phelps quickly assumed responsibilities that overlapped with missionaries and scribes connected to publications like the Messenger and Advocate and organizational efforts linked to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency.
As a trained printer and publisher, Phelps established periodicals and printing ventures reminiscent of enterprises such as the Nauvoo Neighbor and earlier American presses like the Philadelphia Gazette and The Emancipator. He produced hymn texts, liturgical materials, and doctrinal summaries that entered collections used alongside works by hymnists such as Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts, Reginald Heber, and contemporaries like William W. Phelps's peers in the movement: Eliza R. Snow, W. W. Phelps (note: name restriction), John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and Brigham Young. His output contributed to hymnbooks and tracts distributed among branches in Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, and New York. Phelps's editorial work paralleled 19th-century American religious publishing traditions represented by firms in Boston, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati.
Phelps held administrative and ecclesiastical posts that connected to bodies like the High Councils, the Quorum of the Seventy, and units analogous to the First Presidency and Council of Fifty. He corresponded and collaborated with leaders such as Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Willard Richards. Phelps supervised printing operations that supported missionary deployment reminiscent of efforts by Parley P. Pratt and Orson Pratt, and he contributed to institutional frameworks that interfaced with civic entities in Jackson County, Missouri, Hancock County, Illinois, and Adams County, Illinois.
Phelps became entangled in the violent clashes between Saints and Missourians that included events comparable to the 1838 Mormon War, the Extermination Order by Governor Lilburn Boggs, and legal proceedings in Ray County and Carroll County. He was implicated in rhetoric and publications that provoked local militias and was associated with figures such as Thomas B. Marsh, David W. Patten, Alexander McNair, and John Bullock Clark. Phelps faced arrest, property loss, and legal actions paralleling cases brought before judges in Missouri circuit courts and complaints involving sheriffs and posses. The controversies intersected with national political figures and processes such as the United States Congress debates over religious liberty and frontier order.
Following expulsion from Missouri, Phelps joined Saints who resettled in Nauvoo, Illinois, where he worked on printing at presses akin to the Nauvoo Neighbor and produced materials related to the Nauvoo Legion, the University of Nauvoo concept, and civic institutions linked to Hancock County. His later collaborations connected him to leaders such as Joseph Smith, Emma Smith, William Smith, and John C. Bennett, and events including the Martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and the Succession Crisis after 1844. After the deaths in Nauvoo, Phelps remained in Illinois and the Midwest, interacting with communities in Rock Island, Quincy, Illinois, and Plainfield, Illinois, maintaining correspondence with emigrant groups in Utah Territory and figures like Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball.
Historians and biographers have evaluated Phelps in contexts alongside scholars of the movement such as Leonard J. Arrington, Juanita Brooks, Fawn M. Brodie, Richard Lyman Bushman, and D. Michael Quinn. Analyses consider his contributions to hymnody relative to collections featuring works by Joseph Smith, Eliza R. Snow, Parley P. Pratt, and William Clayton, and his publishing legacy compared to 19th-century American religious printers like Orson Pratt and secular contemporaries such as Horace Greeley and Benjamin Franklin in terms of influence. Debates about his role in Missouri controversies draw on archival materials tied to repositories like the Church History Library, state archives in Missouri and Illinois, and newspapers including the Nauvoo Neighbor and Missouri Republican. Phelps's cultural footprint persists in hymnals, historical studies, legal histories of the 1830s–1840s, and in discussions among modern scholars of Latter Day Saint movement origins and the broader landscape of American religious history.
Category:1792 births Category:1872 deaths Category:American printers Category:Latter Day Saint hymnwriters