Zimmerman Information
Reports on the Zimmerman (Lancaster County) Family History
There are several paper documents that my uncle Martin possessed that are worth reproducing. Two are presented here; a genealogical research paper that was produced for a family reunion that would have included my paternal grandmother, as well as an accompanying newspaper article. The style is very “Dutchified”, with long complex sentences, too many commas, and plenty of spelling errors. Therefore, I have chosen to present them in several different ways. First is a PDF file with scans of the pages. In this way, the text is preserved exactly as in the paper form.
Additionally, I have run the scans through an optical character recognition program and performed some very light editing to try to make better sense of the text. These edits are almost exclusively spelling corrections and a reduction of the number of superfluous commas. Occasionally I added or changed a word if it was clear what the intent was; these are indicated by square brackets. For the most part, however, I did not modify grammar as I wanted to stay as true to the original as possible. The outputs of this process are presented both as a formatted PDF file as well as the following HTML text.
While it is unlikely that anyone will ever stumble across this page, it is my hope that by making it available, it will at least be preserved, if not actively used.
Mike Ressler April 3, 2012
Introduction to this paper
by Martin E. Ressler
On August 21, 1918, the descendants of Christian Zimmerman IV met at the farm of his son Martin Zimmerman, approximately 4 miles east of Ephrata, Pa. to share in a family reunion. Martin Zimmerman was my grandfather, and it was on this farm that I was born. The farm is now owned by Clayton Burkholder.
This was the first time that this family met for a reunion and one of the main features of the day was to have a historical paper presented to clarify the relationship of the various Zimmerman families.
Martin G. Weaver, a noted community historian in the forepart of this century was engaged to prepare this paper, and he left no stones unturned to gather all the available facts. He made one of the most thorough studies ever made on our Zimmerman ancestry, and presented the clearest and most factual historical account that I have ever read on our direct lineage to the first of this family settling in the wilderness of this county.
This historical manuscript was stored away among my grandfathers possessions and a few years ago was discovered again and given to me for further study on the present Zimmerman descendants. I felt it would be profitable to have a copy of this manuscript available to every family who are descendants of this branch of the Zimmermans, so I have prepared in mimeograph form a duplication of the original paper.
Also included in this folder is an account of the old Zimmerman cemetery, located on the original homestead several miles east of Union Grove, (Lanc. Co.) Pa.. This account was prepared by the same writer as the above stated paper, and it appeared in the “New Holland Clarion” July 16, 1910.
It is my hope that you will read these following pages and develop a deeper appreciation for your fine heritage.
The following report was prepared by Martin G. Weaver, and appeared in the New Holland Clarion July 16, 1910.
The Old Zimmerman Graveyard In East Earl
Please Note: The above article was written 57 years ago and this revered spot of the past continues to be a landmark in the community. The marker identifying the resting place of Hans Zimmerman a native of Europe continues to deteriorate. I would like to remind you that there is a current fund that has been established for the purchasing of a new marker to replace the former one and have a more permanent identification showing the resting place of our family head, buried nearly two centuries ago. I believe it would be of value to all our reunion members to visit the old burial ground, and reminisce across the past years as our forefathers pioneered their way through this frontier wilderness and gave to us the fine spiritual and moral values we enjoy today. If the Lord tarries, may the generations that follow us, speak well of the example for good we have given to them.
Martin E. Ressler Reunion Historian for the descendants of Christian Zimmerman IV
Presented at the annual Reunion; August 13, 1967.
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