My Genealogy Hound

ELMER B. ZIEGLER, one of the best known teachers of Montgomery county, is a native of Limerick township, where he was born January 16, 1872. He is the son of Augustus Ziegler, a prominent farmer of that township.

Mr. Ziegler was reared on the homestead farm, spending his youth in farm work, alternating with attendance at neighborhood schools. He was also for a time a pupil at a private school in Pottstown. He was a student in the West Chester State Normal School one term, remaining at that institution until 1889, and then went for a term to the State Normal School at Kutztown, Berks county, returning to the West Chester Normal School and graduating from that institution in 1898. He then entered upon his career as a teacher, in which he has been very successful, being now one of the leading educators of the county. He taught schools in his own township for several years, leaving that vicinity for a wider field of usefulness in a short time. He next took charge of the public schools at Barren Hill, in Whitemarsh township. He was elected principal of the Hatboro public schools, remaining there for three and a half years. When Professor J. Horace Landis was appointed county superintendent to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. Hoffecker, Professor Ziegler became an applicant for the principalship of the Conshohocken public schools, the position which he now holds. Although there were a very large number of applicants, Professor Ziegler secured the appointment, resigning his position at Hatboro. He has given excellent satisfaction to the directors and patrons of the Conshohocken schools because of the able manner in which he has carried on the work of instruction.

Professor Ziegler married, in 1895, Miss Lydia M. Boyer, daughter of Peter Boyer, a farmer of Upper Salford township, the couple having had four children, of whom three died in infancy, and a daughter, Leota, who is living. In politics Professor Ziegler is a. strong Republican. In religious faith himself and his wife are attached to the Lutheran church.

The schools of Conshohocken have had able teachers in the past thirty years, and the school board of that borough are especially desirous of maintaining the excellent reputation they have achieved. When Professor Hoffecker was elected to the county superintendency on the retirement of Abel Rambo in 1878, he had been teaching very successfully in Conshohocken for several years. His successors were able instructors, so that the high standard of the schools has been maintained. The predecessor of Professor Landis was J. Warren Schlichter, also from that section of Montgomery county of which Professors Landis and Ziegler are natives. It is a somewhat curious fact that the teachers of Conshohocken schools for many years should all have belonged to the Pennsylvania-German element which is so numerous and so influential in the upper section of Montgomery county.