Frank M. Ziebach
Frank M. Ziebach was a political figure in the Dakota Territory during the territorial period from 1861 to 1889. He was a pioneer newspaperman, founding a number of newspapers in the Iowa and Dakota Territories, including the Yankton "Weekly Dakotan" in 1861, which is still published today as the Yankton "Press and Dakotan". He was known as the "squatter governor" of the Dakota Territory. Ziebach County, South Dakota was created in 1911, and is named for him.
Frank M. Ziebach was born in 1830 in Pennsylvania, and died in 1929 in Yankton, South Dakota at the age of 98. His life spanned the period from the presidency of Andrew Jackson to that of Herbert Hoover.
Early life, marriage and children
Frank M. Ziebach was born On November 23, 1830 in Union County, Pennsylvania, near Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. When a boy he entered the printer's trade. In 1853 he went to Madison, Wisconsin, but in 1855 returned home and founded the "Lewisburg Argus".He married Elizabeth Fisher, of Danville, Pa, and over the course of their married life they had four sons and two daughters.
Iowa 1856 to 1862
Frank M. Ziebach moved from Pennsylvania to Iowa and in August 1856 he began publication of the "Western Independent" with J. N. Cummings in Sargeants Bluff, eight miles south of Sioux City, Iowa. In 1858 Frank bought out his partner, and moved the equipment to Sioux City, where he commenced publication on July 22, 1858, as the weekly "Sioux City Register". The "Register" declared itself to be a "Democratic" newspaper. In 1859, Frank sold an interest to William Freney and the "Register" was consolidated with the "Sioux City Eagle". The partnership of Ziebach and Freney continued to publish the "Register" until 1862, but in 1861 Frank transferred his interests to Yankton, South Dakota.The Yankton ''Weekly Dakotian'' newspaper
In 1861, Frank M. Ziebach freighted his printing outfit from Sioux City, Iowa to Yankton by team and wagon. He and his partner from Sioux City, William Freney, formed the Dakotian Printing Company in Yankton, and printed the first edition of the "Weekly Dakotian" at Yankton on June 6, 1861. Frank Ziebach was the editor and did a good portion of the practical work besides. He was a master printer and a good journalist.The papers Ziebach had formed in Iowa were self-proclaimed Democrat newspapers and in early editions the Yankton Weekly Dakotian similarly proclaimed itself to be a "Douglas Democrat" newspaper. However, after the elections brought the Republicans to power in the territorial legislature in the fall of 1861, the newspaper switched sides. The newspaper became inactive for a short period, during which Ziebach sold the newspaper to J.C. Trask in March 1862. The Dakotian now re-emerged and declared itself a Republican newspaper, and the Dakotian Printing Company was rewarded by becoming the first "Public Printer" in Dakota, doing the printing for the first Legislative Assembly.
After the first legislative session the Dakotian was sold to George W. Kingsbury, and Frank M. Zieback subsequently rejoined the newspaper as a partner of Kingsbury. Since the Dakotian had been a declared Democrat newspaper when published by Frank Ziebach in 1861, but now had switched its allegiance to the Republicans in 1862, when Ziebach rejoined Kingsbury in the newspaper business "political party prudence" dictated that Ziebach be a silent partner and Kingsbury, a Republican, be the official editor and manager of the paper. These political machinations had their reward, and during the second session of the territorial legislature Ziebach and Kingsbury retained the position of "Public Printer".
After 1863, the paper passed into the sole possession of Kingsbury. Yankton was the territorial capitol of the Dakota Territory from 1861 until 1883 and during this period the Dakotian grew swiftly with its reporting of the early political wars of Dakota Territory. The paper passed through a number of different ownership entities, and in the following decades other area newspapers become consolidated with the Dakotian so that it eventually became known as the Press and Dakotan and is still published under that name today in Yankton, South Dakota.
There is a debate about the "first newspaper" in the Dakota Territory. On March 2, 1861, Congress passed the Organic Act that brought the Dakota Territory into being, with Yankton as its capitol. The Weekly Dakotian was the first newspaper that was published in the Dakota Territory after the passage of the organic act. However it was the second newspaper in the area that became South Dakota. The first newspaper in what is now South Dakota was the Dakota Democrat published in Sioux Falls for about four years starting in 1858.
The Yankton Dakota Militia in the 1862 Indian uprising
In August 1862 raiding Sioux killed Judge Amedon and his son near Sioux Falls, and shortly thereafter Yankton got news of the massacre in Minnesota by Little Crow. Settlers panicked and came pouring into Yankton with their goods and livestock. A sod stockade was thrown up around the printing offices of the Dakotian. The stockaded newspaper building became known as "Fort Yankton". The governor called for militia volunteers, and four hundred citizens responded. Frank M. Ziebach was elected Captain of Company A of the Dakota Militia, and George W. Kingsbury, the co-editor at the Dakotian became the company orderly sergeant. Frank M. Ziebach became known by the tongue in cheek title of Commander in Chief of the Army at Fort Yankton. Although for Yankton there was almost no fighting, historical memory now recalls dashing images from "the exciting and perilous weeks of the Indian outbreak of 1862, when Yankton was besieged."Public offices in Iowa and the Dakota Territory, 1868 to 1889
Frank M. Ziebach went to Dubuque Iowa in 1863 and purchased an interest in the Dubuque Herald. He returned to Sioux City, Iowa in 1868 and in the fall of that year was appointed register of the United States land office at Sioux City. He was mayor of Sioux City for two terms 1868–69 and 1869–70.He returned to Yankton in 1870, where he again became engaged in the newspaper business. In 1873, he was elected to the office as Superintendent of Schools, but since he did not qualify, another was appointed to fill his place. He was elected mayor of Yankton serving for three terms from 1876 through 1880.
He served as a member of the territorial legislature 1877–78 and 1883–84. When in the 1877–78 territorial legislature, Mr. Ziebach resided in Yankton, and represented Yankton County. When he was in the 1883–84 territorial legislature he resided in Scotland and represented Bon Homme County.
He was a delegate to the South Dakota state constitutional convention, in 1883. He served as a member of first Yankton's Board of Education, formed in 1875. He has also held other minor offices in city and territorial government.
From 1861 to 1889, Dakota Territory elected a single non-voting Territorial Delegate for a two-year term to the United States House of Representatives. Each party held bi-annual conventions to nominate their candidate for the office. Frank M. Ziebach attended the Democratic Party Territorial Convention in 1874, and in 1882, serving each time on the influential "Committee on Resolutions". Though not chosen as the Democratic candidate for territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress, in each convention he was nominated for the position and received a substantial number of votes.