GEORGE W. HOLL.  For a man who has not yet turned forty, George W. Holl has done a great deal to attract the admiration and esteem of his fellow men.  He is recognized as one of the leading citizens of Auglaize County, and has connected himself successfully with a number of enterprises at New Knoxville and is also a prominent figure in public affairs.
     Born at New Knoxville Mar. 19, 1877, he attended the common schools and spent three years in the St. Marys High School until his funds gave out and the need of his services at home, especially the care of his mother, caused him to become a wage earner.  Later he managed to attend the Ohio Northern University at Ada for two years, and for nine years he taught school in the winter time and was employed in a brick yard during the summer.  As the oldest in his father's family he had to bear many of the responsibilities for the upkeep of the household.  His father was an invalid for five years, and spent all his accumulations during that time.
     George W. Holl was soon in business of a more important nature.  He helped organize the New Knoxville Hoop Company and became the first secretary of the company.  This has since become one of the largest plants of its kind in his town, but Mr. Holl sold his interests several years ago.  He took a part in organizing the local telephone company, the Electric Light Company and the Auglaize Tile Company, and is a stockholder in all three of these concerns.  The Telephone Company and Tile Company have made a particular record of success and prosperity.  Mr. Holl is president and largest stockholder of the Tile Company.
     As one of the democratic leaders of Auglaize County he has served on the County Democratic Committee, represented his county in the State Legislature four years and is now serving as state senator from the Thirty second Senatorial District, is serving as justice of the peace, and was elected without opposition.  In the Ohio Senate he was a member of the Finance Committee and chairman of the Committee on Banks and Savings Societies and has been personally commended by Governor James M. Cox and complimented by the governor by having introduced several administration measures at his request.  Mr. Holl is an active member with his family in the German Reformed Church and has been chorister of his church for some years.  In a business way he gives most of his time and attention to the tile factory and the contracting business.  He also buys and sells considerable real estate, owns his fine home and a fine farm in Auglaize County, and an entire section of land in North Dakota near the City of Fargo, a splendid farm he married Miss Emily M. Holtkamp, who was born on a farm in Shelby County, near New Knoxville, daughter of William Holtkamp, who arrived in Auglaize County in 1839 and was a pioneer settler.  Mr. and Mrs. Holl have three children: Olga, aged eleven; Carl, aged nine; and Margaret, aged five.
     Mr. George W. Holl is a son of George and Elizabeth (Wierville) Holl.  His father was born in Schwarzenhasel, Hessen, Germany, in 1837, and died in 1891.  The grandfather Christoph Holl came to the United States at the advanced age of seventy-nine and died in New Knoxville two years later.  The maternal grandfather of Mr. Holl was William Wierwille, who came to the United States in 1842 and was an early settler in Auglaize County, where he followed his trade as a stone mason.  George Holl, Sr., was a shoemaker by trade, and after coming to the United States he located at New Knoxville in 1866, arriving with only 20 cents in his pocket.  He made part of the journey from New York to Ohio on foot.  He was a hard worker, a skillful mechanic as a shoemaker, and was quite successful until the ill health of his later years swept away all his earnings.  He was a democrat and at one time served as a member of the board of education.  He and his wife were both active in the German Reformed Church.  He was married at New Knoxville to Elizabeth Wierwille who was then a widow.  She was born at New Knoxville to Elizabeth Wierwille, who was then a widow.  She was born at New Knoxville in 1842 and died in 1911.  She was three times married, and was the mother of eleven children.  Of those still living there are Mrs. S. H. Sibert, wife of a physician and the present corner of Auglaize County; Mrs. Amelia Schroer, a widow living north of New Knoxville on the farm where her husband died in 1914, and she is the mother of thirteen children, twelve of whom are living, and her oldest son is serving as a veterinary surgeon in the United States army.  Mrs. Christian Hollenbacher is the wife of a farmer three miles south of Wapakoneta; Mrs. Henry Deerkake, wife of a farmer in Auglaize County.
     The children by the marriage to George Holl, Sr., were:  Mrs. J. G. Keller, wife of a grocer at Lima; George W.; Edward C.,  a contractor associated with his brother George at New Knoxville; Rebecca, wife of William Fishbaugh, who is an assembler in the National Cash Works at Dayton, Ohio; Mrs. Asa Mallory, wife of a blacksmith employed in the locomotive works at Lima, Ohio.
Source:  History of Northwest Ohio  Vol. II - Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago & New York - 1917 - Page 749