Background
Ziegler was born on September 1, 1843 in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, the son of Francis and Ernestina Ziegler. His parents removed to Iowa when he was still an infant.
Industrialist manufacturer patron of polar exploration
Ziegler was born on September 1, 1843 in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, the son of Francis and Ernestina Ziegler. His parents removed to Iowa when he was still an infant.
In Muscatine, Iowa, after Ziegler had rudimentary schooling. He graduated in 1863 from a business college at Poughkeepsie, New York. Later he studied for a time at the College of Pharmacy of the City of New York.
After graduating, Ziegler sought and found work in a wholesale drug house in New York City. In 1868 he began business for himself in a small way, dealing in extracts and other supplies for bakers and confectioners. Baking powder was a comparatively new product, and in 1870, with two other men, Ziegler organized the Royal Chemical Company and began the manufacture of Royal Baking Powder, long the most popular brand in America. Incorporated in 1873, the Royal Baking Powder Company became enormously prosperous. The success of the company was largely due to Ziegler's energy and knowledge of the business; but he could not agree with his partners, and after a long legal struggle, culminating in 1888, he sold his interest in the company for $3, 000, 000. He then bought the Price Baking Powder Company of Chicago and the Tartar Chemical Company of Jersey City. In 1899 these companies, together with two others, were united with the Royal in what was popularly known as the Baking Powder Trust, with a capital of $20, 000, 000. Ziegler was believed to be the moving spirit in this consolidation, though he denied it. He was indicted in Missouri in 1903 for bribery of members of the legislature, but the governor of New York refused to extradite him, and he was never tried. In 1890 he undertook to prevent the acquisition by the city of Brooklyn, where he lived, of the Long Island Water Company, which certain aldermen had bought for $500, 000 and which they proposed to sell to the city for $3, 500, 000. He bought stock in the company, brought suit as a stockholder to block the deal, and finally succeeded in having the purchase price reduced to $2, 000, 000. He refused nomination for the mayorship of Brooklyn in 1893. In 1901 Ziegler financed an unsuccessful expedition in search of the North Pole, headed by Evelyn B. Baldwin. The party returned to Norway on August 1, 1902, sixteen days after a relief ship had sailed in search of it. Baldwin and Ziegler now parted company, and the latter sent another polar ship out from Trondhjem, Norway, in June 1903, under Anthony Fiala, who had been a photographer with the first expedition. This party was not heard from for more than two years, and its patron died without knowing its fate. Just before his death, however, he had sent out two relief ships, which rescued the men in August 1905. Caches of supplies left by the first expedition had kept them alive, and, though they had not reached the Pole, they had made valuable scientific studies. In his later years, Ziegler dealt in realty on a large scale. He died on May 25, 1905. Ziegler was interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City.
Ziegler was a Director of the Irving National Bank, and a member of the following clubs: Down-Town Club of New York, the Union League Club of Brooklyn, the New York, Larchmont, and Atlantic Yacht clubs, the Union League Club of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Geographical Society, the Arctic Club of New York, and the Caughnawaga Hunting and Fishing Club of Quebec.
He was a Mason and a Knight Templar.
On July 22, 1886, Ziegler married Electa Matilda (Curtis) Gamble. He had no children of his own but adopted two.