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Belgians in the Civil War

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BELGIANS IN AMERICA:    Biographies of Belgian settlers  

JOHN M. KEMP, Freeport, is one of the best known and most prosperous builders and contractors of this hustling and enterprising city. He has done work in all the principal towns and cities within a radius of many miles, and the character of his work has been such, that it is the best commendation he can urge in the competition for new business.
Matthias Kemp, the grandfather of John M., was born in Germany. He lived thirty-four miles from Cologne, and he died in his native country in 1833 at the age of 46. He was a skilled worker in orchards and vineyards, and a very honorable and upright man. John Kemp, the father of John M., was born in the same German community about 1816, and emigrated to America in 1844. He located on a farm near Roxbury, Dane county, Wisconsin, and died there in 1886. He was a wine-maker in Germany, but a farmer in the new world. His wife was a native of Germany, and was also born near Cologne. She bore the name of Margaret Odenhauser, and died in 1894. They were Catholics, and were the parents of seven children: Matilda is dead, Margaretta married Frank Hilderbrandt, Michael lives in Freeport John M. is the subject of this article, Frank H. is in Madison, Wisconsin, and Herbert is in Freeport.
John M. Kemp was born in Roxbury, Wisconsin June 24, 1864, and attended district school until he was eighteen. He decided to learn, the carpenter's trade, and spent four
years mastering it under competent instruction. He was contractor in his native town for a year or more, and then located at Madison, where he spent the next five years. He was at Superior for a season, and two years in Rockford. He was in Janesville two years, another at Madison, and in 1896, located in Freeport, which be regards as his permanent home.
Here he has built about seventy-five houses. He built the St. Mary's school and Judd block in Rockford, the Kent block in Janesville and nearly forty houses in Madison. This is the record of busy years, and shows Mr. Kemp as an active man.
Mr. Kemp was married to Mary Theresa Kirsch in Roxburys. She is dead, and left three children, John, Phrona and Marie Louisa. John alone is living. Mr. Kemp was married to Marie Theresa Tyson, January 13, 1891, in Madison. She Was born, in Roxbury, and was a daughter of Mathias and Johanna Elizabeth (St. Fontaine) Tyson. Her mother was born in Belgium, and was a daughter of John Peter St. Fontaine, whose wife lived to be one hundred and two years old. Mathias Tyson born in Trier, near Cologne about 1832, and when he was twenty-one, emigrated to this country and settled near Roxbury. He was a framer and a shoemaker, and later in life became a very capable book-keeper. To Mr. and Mrs. Kemp six children were born: Frank Anthony, Louis Mathias, Raymond Gerhart, Veronica May, Johanna Elizabeth, and Clara Marie. They are members of the St. Joseph Catholic church and society He is a democrat, and in 1889 bought a lot and built the Freeport Hotel on east end of Galena Street.

Source : (collective work) : In the foot-prints of the pioneers of Stephenson County, Illinois : a genealogical record.; Freeport, Ill.: Pioneer Pub. Co., 1900, 401 pgs.