Ohio History Journal

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MAJOR DAVID ZIEGLER

MAJOR DAVID ZIEGLER.

 

 

BY GEORGE A. KATZENBERGER.

A custom has grown up of commemorating the Centennial

anniversary of the birth or death of prominent men as well as

of other important events, and, as it is a hundred years since

the death of the subject of this sketch, and I fail to find David

Ziegler's name in any of the indices of the nineteen volumes of

the publications of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical

Society, I have gathered a number of items concerning the first

Mayor of Cincinnati in the belief that some recognition is due

the memory of this pioneer and that the above named publication

is the most fitting medium.

Besides, the share of the Germans in the wars of the United

States has not been adequately recognized in the prevailing lan-

guage, nearly all articles of appreciation of their services appear-

ing in German books and magazines. I have been able to find

but two articles of any length on the life and services of Ziegler,

one, a biographical sketch of seven pages by Mary D. Steele of

Dayton, Ohio, appearing in the Magazine of Western History,

May, 1885, which article is reprinted in substance in Howe's

Historical Collections of Ohio, and the other by the leading Ger-

man-American Historian, H. A. Rattermann of Cincinnati, being

an article read by him before the Literary Club of Cincinnati in

June, 1883. Mr. Rattermann, at the advanced age of eighty, is

still gathering material, writing articles and editing his com-

plete works which will appear in eighteen volumes, and in one

of which appears a lengthy poem commemorating Ziegler's

feats.

For centuries our European brothers have entered heartily

into the pious duty of bringing to remembrance the character and

deeds of their forefathers. But little over a century ago we

were but three millions of people, huddled together upon the

border land of the Atlantic, weak and regarded with scorn by

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