Roscoe Carl Ziegler
Roscoe Carl Ziegler (b. 18 July 1896[1] in Milford, Pennsylvania; d. 7 June 1958) was a German American Methodist minister and Ku Klux Klan organizer in Trenton, New Jersey.
Life
Ziegler was born the son of William E. Ziegler (1870–1954) and his wife Matilda E., née Hagenbaugh (1875–1961). After High School, Ziegler joined the 78th Field Artillery Battalion (Battery C) in 1916, but the unit never saw action in WWI. Before leaving the militray, he had achieved the rank of sergeant.
In 1924, he held the rank of Kleagle and organized in Mercer and Warren counties. A Kleagle is an officer of the Ku Klux Klan whose main role is to recruit new members.
Reverend Ziegler became involved in national scandal in 1925 when he, as a married man and father of two (daughter Ruth and son Richard), eloped to El Paso, Texan with a young typist Miss Margret (Peggy) Roberts. He wife, Mrs. Mary (another source states "Ruth" Ziegler,[2] decided to divorce her husband and save him from being prosecuted under the Mann Act (named after Congressman James Robert Mann of Illinois): taking a woman across state lines for immoral purposes.[3] Ziegler and Roberts apparently never married.
- A Methodist minister, R. Carl Ziegler of Edgemere Avenue, Trenton, became a rising star as kleagle, or organizer, for Mercer and Warren counties. He gave up preaching to organize the Klan in the Asbury Park area, where it was strong enough to dissuade some Jewish tourists from visiting the beach. With his youthfulness, go-getter attitude, a wife and two children, Ziegler seemed the perfect model of the "100 percent American" man, and he was a persuasive speaker on how the KKK should be welcomed into church and home. Incredibly, the Jersey Klan even made itself out to be a friend of blacks. In June 1924, a hooded Klan delegation walked into the Sunday services being held at the St. Phillips Baptist Church in Hamilton and handed a $50 check to the black congregation's building fund. "We ask you to accept this contribution to encourage Protestant Christianity among Negroes," a klansman told the astonished worshipers. [...] On July 4, 1925, the Reverend Ziegler went missing, leaving behind his wife and two children. Ziegler wasn't the only one who was missing, either: so was his pretty 22-year-old neighbor, Peggy Roberts, and so were $1,000 in Klan funds. Peggy Roberts was to be married within a month to an ad man at the Trenton Evening Times. Furious, the jilted fiancee hired a private detective to track her down. It took the sleuth two weeks, but he followed the pair all the way to El Paso, Texas, where he notified authorities and had the 28-year-old Ziegler arrested. Back to New Jersey came the disgraced minister, where he was thrown in jail on charges of theft and violation of the Mann Act, the law forbidding the transport of women “for immoral purposes." Shocked Klansmen declined comment on the matter; others involved in the affair were more talkative. "I loved him," Miss Roberts said. I knew him for three months and when we went away he was willing to sacrifice his wife and children for me." "They are crazy enough to do anything," muttered Roberts' mother.[4]
He also allegedly embezzled Klan funds. His parents paid $1,596.96 to Arthur Hornbui Bell (1891–1973) of Long Branch, King Kleagle and Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in New Jersey, to avert possible prosecution. Mr. and Mrs. William E. Ziegler filed suit on 12 March 1926 in the Court of Chancery to recover the money,[5] after their son convinced them of the fact, that this had never happened.
In 1940, Ziegler and his new family (Marie Gladys, son Richard Carl and daughter Sandra E Ziegler) lived in 164 1/2 South Street, Middletown, Orange County, New York.[6]
