My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE C. HOLLENBACH, of 428 High street, Pottstown, Pennsylvania, was born in Lower Pottsgrove township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, November 7, 1849. He is the son of Bernard and Margaret (Saylor) Hollenbach, natives of Wittenberg, Germany. Bernard came to America at the age of eighteen years and his wife at the age of four years. They had one child, George C. Hollenbach.

Bernard Hollenbach (father) was a machinist and an engineer on the Reading Railroad. He was fatally injured by the explosion of a boiler and died about six months later, in 1851, at the age of twenty-seven years, nine months, and some days. His wife is still living. She married (second husband) John G. Miller and they now reside in Pottstown, having recently moved from their farm in Lower Pottsgrove. John G. Miller and Margaret Saylor Miller had three children: Catharine, wife of John S. Umstead, of Pottstown; Elizabeth, deceased; and Rosa, wife of John Benner, of Kansas. Bernard Hollenbach was a Lutheran and his wife belonged to the same church. She afterwards united with the Methodist church. She died December 31, 1903.

The paternal grandfather of George C. Hollenbach died in Germany, at the advanced age of eighty-four years. He had two sons, Bernard and George. The latter was drowned at sea in 1861.

The maternal grandfather of George C. Hollenbach was George Conrad Saylor. He was born in Wittenberg, Germany, and came to America with his family, locating in Pottsgrove township where he engaged in farming. He resided in the same place until six months before his death when he went to live at the home of his son, John, in Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he died at the age of sixty-six years. His wife was Catharine (Scholl) Saylor, a native of Germany. She died in Pottsgrove township and was more than seventy years of age at the time of her death. They had three children. George Conrad Saylor was a soldier in Germany.

George Hollenbach was reared in Pottsgrove township and had charge of sheep from the time he was nine years old until he was thirteen years of age. He then worked four years on the canal and at boating for the United States government for three more years. He returned to his home and worked in a paper mill several months, and then on the telegraph line for two years and also followed various occupations. He lived in Sanatoga from 1872 to 1900 and was postmaster there for eighteen years. He also engaged in the general merchandise business in 1876, bought and sold horses, and fattened horses on the farm. In 1890 he leased the Mill Park Hotel farm and stockyard and lived there until 1893, when he retired and moved to his present home. He owns property in Pottstown and in Pottsgrove township.

Mr. Hollenbach is a director in the Citizens’ Bank, and a director in the State Mine in Northhampton county. He is also interested in and a director of the copper mines at Ringing Rocks, two miles from the center of Pottstown, where a syndicate has control of seventy acres of rich copper mines.

George C. Hollenbach was superintendent and general manager of the Ringing Rocks Railway Company. He is still interested in farming, owning two farms in Lower Pottsgrove township, one of thirty-seven acres and one of forty acres, he superintending the conduct of the same. He is the owner of nine separate residences properties in Pottstown; two in Sanatoga; also a small farm of five acres at Sanatoga; and a farm of forty-five acres in Upper Pottsgrove township. He was one of the organizers of the United States Graphite Company, of which he is a director.

June 8, 1873, George C. Hollenbach married Miss Mary Steinbright, daughter of Henry and Mary (Nace) Steinbright. They had two children: Harry U. and George. George died at the age of twenty-three years and nine months. Harry U. Hollenbach married Mary Schmick and they live in Pottsgrove township, where he is a machinist. They have two children living, George C. and Florence. Two of their children died.

Mr. and Mrs. George C. Hollenbach are members of the Emmanuel Lutheran church, in which he has served as a deacon and an elder for a number of years; and was superintendent of the Union Sunday-school at Sanatoga for twenty years. He belongs to Madison Lodge No. 466, I. O. O. F., and was past grand for thirty-one years. He also belongs to the Knights of the Mystic Chain, Sparta Castle, Faglesville, and also to the Patriotic Sons of America, the Brotherhood, the True Blues and the Royal Arcanum.

Politically Mr. Hollenbach is a Republican and he represented the seventh congressional district in the state legislature in the sessions of 1893 and 1895. He served on the ways and means committee, the game and fish, and the insurance committee. He was a school director in Pottsgrove township for a number of years, was auditor in the same township and he served as a member of the Republican county committee.

Mrs. Hollenbach’s father was born in Germany and her mother in Bucks county, Pennsylvania. They had two sons and one daughter: John Steinbright, of Norristown; Henry, of Gwynedd township; and Mary Ann, wife of Mr. Hollenbach.