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GEORGE HORRIDGE, president of the Farmers National Bank of Vinton, is one of that prominent group of men who have founded and promoted the commercial prosperity of Vinton. That Vinton is a local metropolis and a community representative of the highest standards of American life and institutions, is the result of the enterprise and character of such active leaders as Mr. Horridge. During the half century of his residence here he has laid the impress of his personality on many affairs and has contributed from his means to many movements that directly concern the welfare of the community.
With the financial institution of which he is president he has been associated since 1878, having become president of the old Farmers Loan & Trust Company in that year, and having continued to head the official management when the bank assumed its present national charter in 1898.
When the Carnegie Library was founded in Vinton Mr. Horridge was one of the principal local contributors, and is still a member of the board of trustees. He has also served in the city council and as member of the school board.
He was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, May 26, 1833. George and Mary (Hamlet) Horridge, his parents, were natives of England, who emigrated to America in 1831, and after two years' residence in New York city settled in Washington county. In 1852 they moved west and located near Mt. Vernon, Linn county, Iowa.
The father died at the age of eighty-two and the mother at seventy-eight. They were members of the Methodist church. Only two of their ten children grew to maturity.
George Horridge grew up and received his education in Washington county. In 1851, at the age of eighteen, he came to Linn county, Iowa, and in the following year apprenticed himself to the trade of tinsmith with the firm of Rock & Brother. He located at Vinton in 1858, and in 1860 commenced business here in partnership with Mrs. Elizabeth Rock (whom he afterwards married), the name being Rock & Horridge. The original business was augmented with a complete stock of hardware, and this was one of Vinton's most successful hardware firms of that period. G. T. Rock, a son of Mrs. Rock, later became a partner, and the firm for some years continued as George Horridge & Company. In 1885 Mr. Horridge retired from the hardware business to give his chief attention to the bank of which he had been president since 1878. Mr. Rock then continued the business, and for several years past has been a successful hardware merchant at Lake Charles, Louisiana. Mr. Horridge likewise has financial interests in Lake Charles, having formerly spent some winters in that climate. He has been connected with the Calcasieu National Bank there since 1892, and is its vice president.
Mr. Horridge is one of the oldest Republicans of Iowa. His first vote was for John C. Fremont, in 1856, and he has never missed a county, state or national election from that time.
On October 29, 1863, Mr. Horridge married Mrs. Elizabeth Kock. She was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and died in 1900. By her marriage with A. H. Rock she had four children, two of them living: George T., previously mentioned and Mrs. N. D. Pope, wife of a wealthy lumberman and fence manufacturer at Lake Charles. The present Mrs. Horridge was before her marriage Miss Carrie Smythe, of Washington county, Iowa.
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