Bill Arp

For other people of the same name, see Charles Smith (disambiguation).

Bill Arp
Born	Charles Henry Smith June 15, 1826 Lawrenceville, Georgia
Died	August 24, 1903 Cartersville, Georgia
Education	University of Georgia (did not graduate)
Occupation	Author, editor, politician

Charles Henry Smith (June 15, 1826 – August 24, 1903) was an American writer and politician from the state of Georgia. He used the nom de plume Bill Arp for nearly 40 years. He had a national reputation as a homespun humorist during his lifetime, and at least three communities are named for him (Arp, Ga.; Bill Arp, Ga.; Arp, Texas).

Biography

Early life

Charles Henry Smith was born on June 15, 1826 in Lawrenceville, Georgia. He enrolled at the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, Georgia. However, he did not graduate. He moved to Rome, Georgia in the 1850s, where he lived in Oak Hill before he sold it to his colleague Andrew M. Sloan. (Sloan later sold the estate to prominent Rome resident Thomas Berry in 1871.)

During the American Civil War of 1861-1865, he served in 8th Georgia Volunteer Infantry (Rome Light Guards) as a Major on the staff of several Confederate generals, including Francis Bartow.

Career

After the war, he returned to Rome, where he served as mayor, alderman, and in the Georgia State Senate.

He also took up writing. He wrote "letters to the editor" to the Atlanta Constitution as Bill Arp. They were typically in "Cracker dialect" talking about all manner of things. He edited newspapers in Rome, Cartersville, Georgia and Atlanta and published five books: Bill Arp's Letters (1870), Bill Arp's Scrap Book (1884), The Farm and Fireside (1891), History of Georgia (1895), From the Uncivil War to Date (1903). He also wrote a monthly column for the Southern Cultivator.

Additionally, he was a successful lecturer.

Personal life

He resided in Cartersville, Georgia after 1877.

Death

He died on August 24, 1903 in Cartersville, where he was buried.

References

• Collected works online at UNC
• History of the University of Georgia by Thomas Walter Reed, Thomas Walter Reed, Imprint: Athens, Georgia : University of Georgia, ca. 1949, pp. 522–525
• "Alias Bill Arp: Charles Henry Smith and the South's 'Goodly Heritage' (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991) by Dr. David B. Parker.

External links

• Bill Arp from the Uncivil War to Date, 1861–1903. Atlanta, Ga.: The Hudgins Publishing Company, 1903, c1902.
• Works by Bill Arp at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)