William Ziegler

William Ziegler Sr. (September 1, 1843 – May 25, 1905) was an American industrialist who was one of the founding investors of the Royal Baking Powder Company. With his wealth, Ziegler became a prominent public-interest litigant. His other interests were organizing Arctic expeditions and yachting.

Biography He was born in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, of German parents. His father, Francis Ziegler, died in 1846, and in 1848 his mother, Ernestine Ziegler, married Conrad Brandt. The family moved to Muscatine, Iowa, where his stepfather had a farm. He was educated in the public schools there and became a printer's apprentice in a newspaper office. He later became a clerk in a drug store and studied telegraphy and chemistry. In 1888 Ziegler sold his shares for $4,000,000. With the proceeds of the sale he bought the Price Baking Powder Company of Chicago and the Tartar Chemical Company in Jersey City, New Jersey. On March 2, 1899, he combined the three major baking powder companies, Dr. Price (Ziegler), Royal (Joseph Hoagland) and Cleveland (Cornelius Nevius Hoagland), into the Royal Baking Powder Corporation of New Jersey. The next spring, Mr. Ziegler sent out his private secretary, William S. Champ, in charge of a relief expedition on the ship Frithjof. Baldwin's differences with his sailing master, Johanson, were followed by his recall. Upon the explorer's arrival in the United States, it was announced that all relations between him and Ziegler were off. The third expedition fitted out by Mr. Ziegler, and which was still in the Arctic regions at the time of his death, was sent out in the summer of 1903 under the command of Anthony Fiala and Captain Edward Coffin of Edgartown, Massachusetts.

Yachting Ziegler at one time owned a sloop yacht named Thistle, which was entered in the race for the Kaiser's Cup. On one of his yachting expeditions to the South in April, 1895, he was reported drowned. In three days he turned up. Grief over his reported death, it was said at the time, killed John G. Demorest, his brother-in-law.