ARP, JOHN
John Arp, who is engaged in general farming in Winfield township, owning one hundred and sixty acres of productive land on section 36, started out in business as a farm hand and was employed at breaking prairie. Gradually he has won success, however, and is now in comfortable financial circumstances. He was born in Holstein, Germany, October 19, 1838, and is a son of Peter and Wipke Arp. The father was a tailor in Germany and served with the army of that country, participating in the Napoleonic war. He remained a resident of Germany until after several of his children sought homes in the new world. The first of the family to come to the United States was his daughter Anna, who married Henry Bushna, and worked for Antoine LeClaire. Later his sons, Henry and Peter Arp, sought a home in the new world and in 1855 the father with the others of the family crossed the briny deep, landing at Galveston, Texas, whence they made their way to New Orleans and from that point up the Mississippi river to Davenport, being about three weeks in ascending the stream. The father never engaged in business after coming to the United States and both he and his wife died in this county.
John Arp acquired his education in the schools of Germany and was a youth of seventeen years at the time of the emigration. After arriving in Scott county he secured employment as a farm hand and at breaking prairie, so that he soon became familiar with the arduous task of bringing land under cultivation for the first time. In 1862 he began farming on his own account, renting a place in Winfield township from Henry Armil, constituting a part of the farm which is now his property. Later he bought eighty acres of land from Mr. Dow and subsequently purchased eighty acres from Mr. Armil, so that his holdings comprise a quarter section, which is a valuable and productive property. He has made all of the extensive improvements upon the place and the farm is lacking in none of the equipments and accessories usually found on a model farm of the twentieth century. Year by year he carefully tilled the fields but at a more recent date practically retired from farm work, employing others to till and cultivate the soil and harvest the crops, although he gives general supervision to all the work that is carried on.
On the 2d of May, 1864, Mr. Arp was united in marriage to Miss Sophia D. Vogt, a daughter of Carl W. and Mary Vogt, of Davenport, who came from Germany to Scott county in 1864. Mr. and Mrs. Arp have become the parents of four children: Mary, the wife of William Fellener, by whom she has seven children - Anna, Alice, Nettie, Hattie, Helen, William and Mamie; Wilhelmina, the wife of William Mohr, of Sheridan township, by whom she has four children - Anna, Alfred, Elmer and Wilbert; Anna, the wife of Henry Gertz, of Eldridge, by whom she has two sons, Harvey and Darwin; and Johannes, at home, who wedded Rose Bluhm, by whom he has two daughters, Thelma and Corinne.
Mr. and Mrs. Arp hold membership in the Lutheran church and are well known in this community, where he has lived for fifty-five years, while his wife has been a resident of Scott county for forty-six years. His life has been one of untiring diligence, crowned with success and, though his start in life was a humble one, he has come to be recognized as one of the substantial, worthy and respected farmers of Winfield township.
This bio was extracted from the History of Davenport and Scott County, Vol. I and II, by Harry E. Downer, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. 1910 Chicago. It was transcribed by Debbie Clough Gerischer.