George Locke
George Locke [1]
a Methodist preacher, was born in Cannonstown, Pennsylvania, June 8, 1797, and reared in Kentucky. His early educational advantages were few, but he improved all opportunities to secure knowledge. His parents were Presbyterians, but George was made a Methodist through the preaching of Edward Talbot when a saddler's apprentice. In 1817 he was licensed to exhort, and soon began to preach. In 1819 he entered Tennessee Conference, and was successively appointed to Little River Circuit, to Powell's Valley, and to Bowling Green Circuit, Kentucky. In 1822 he located in Shelbyville, and engaged in secular business. His conscience forced him to re-enter the ministry, and he successively preached on Jefferson Circuit and Hartford Circuit (Kentucky Conference). In 1826 he was transferred to Corydon Circuit, Illinois Conference. In 1828 he labored on Charleston Circuit, and was the means of one of the greatest revivals that Southern Indiana ever witnessed. The same year he was appointed presiding elder of Wabash District, which embraced an area of territory in Indiana and Illinois of at least 100 miles from east to west, by 200 miles from north to south, on either side of the Wabash River. While on this district he contracted the consumption, and was obliged to become supernumerary. He died in New Albany, Indiana, in July, 1834. See Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, 7:608.
