BIO: George BERGNER, Dauphin County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Bookwalter

Copyright 2008.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/dauphin/
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/dauphin/runk/runk-bios.htm
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Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County, 
Containing Sketches of Representative Citizens, and Many of the 
Early Scotch-Irish and German Settlers.  Chambersburg, Pa.: 
J. M. Runk & Company, 1896, page 338.
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  BERGNER, GEORGE, was a native of the village of Neunkirchen, a few 
miles distant from the city of Bremen, in the kingdom of Hanover, where 
he was born on June 6, 1818.  He came to America at the age of twelve 
years, and reaching Reading, Pa., he apprenticed himself to Engelman, a 
printer and a well-known almanac-maker, with whom he served his time.  
In 1834 he came to Harrisburg and worked as a compositor on the 
different German newspapers and journals.  In 1838 he was sent by the 
executive committee of the Anti-Masonic party to Somerset, Pa., to 
publish a German campaign paper, and during the Harrison campaign was 
sent on a similar service to New Bloomfield, Perry county.  In 1841 he 
purchased the Vaterland Waechter of his former employer, Mr. 
Ehrenfried.  During the Know-Nothing campaign of 1854 he published the 
American, in opposition to the tenets of that then dominant party.  The 
following year he purchased the Telegraph, which he soon established on 
a successful and permanent basis.  From 1857 to his death he was the 
publisher of the Legislative Record.  In 1861 Mr. Bergner was appointed 
by President Lincoln postmaster at Harrisburg.  He was removed by 
President Johnson in 1866, but upon the election of President Grant he 
was reappointed to the position, an office he held at the time of his 
death.  During the Rebellion his pen and his purse were at the service 
of the Union, while he himself went out as a private soldier in the 
First regiment, Pennsylvania militia, during the invasion of the State 
in 1862.  Mr. Bergner's life was an active one, and yet apart from his 
own business affairs and official position, much of his time was given 
to the public.  For many years he was one of the inspectors of the 
Dauphin county prison, was a trustee of the State Lunatic Asylum, vice-
president of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Society, bank director, etc.  
His business career was a very successful one.  He died at Harrisburg, 
after a very brief illness, August 5, 1874, aged fifty-six years.