Anton Wenzel Fraps was born in Teplitz, North Bohemia.  He came to America at age 30 in 1858 and settled in Raleigh, North Carolina.  At age 39, Fraps and 26-year old Margaret Elizabeth Lumley Stonebanks were married in a union that would produce four children.

In that year, 1867, Fraps was a bar owner and furniture maker.  In the 1872 Business Directory, Fraps was listed as the manufacturer of lager beer as well, the only listed brewer in the entire state.  By 1880 he was listed as a liquor dealer in the census and City Directories.

As North Carolina temperance laws tightened the reins on sales of alcohol, Fraps' business oriented towards things more wholesome.  In the late-1880s, the old Bohemian ran a grocery store and was listed as a confection dealer.

Anton Wenzel Fraps died on the 11th of January, 1902.  He was 73 years old.