Born on May 11, 1825, in Münchberg, Bavaria, Zapf studied theology and philology in Erlangen. After serving for several years as a curate in Bavaria, he emigrated in 1854 to the United States of North America, where he first served as a pastor in Coontown, New York. His little church stood in the woods, and he lived within it—utterly alone. He was an inwardly conflicted, melancholic man, a disposition that is also evident in all of his poems. In 1855, he joined Dr. Stohlmann’s St. Matthew’s Congregation as an assistant preacher, remaining there for several years, and later accepted a position in Williamsburg, New York. After a prolonged illness, he died on September 28, 1872, while serving as a pastor in Brooklyn, New York.
Works
Johannesbilder (Narrative Poems), 1853.
Hiob (A Dramatic Portrait from the Orient; with an Appendix of Sonnets), 1866.
Source: Brümmer, Franz. Lexikon der deutschen Dichter und Prosaisten vom Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart. Bd. 8. 6. Aufl. Leipzig, 1913.
[A John A. P. Zapf was naturalized on September 14, 1867, in Brooklyn, NY.]