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PAUL CORRELL, president of the State Bank of Vinton, has been a prominent factor in the business affairs of Benton county, Iowa, since he established himself at the head of a general merchandise store in Vinton some fifty years ago.
Mr. Correll was born in 1828 in Northampton county, Pennsylvania, where he received a common school education and where he spent the first twenty-five years of his life. When he started out for himself he left home with scant means, indeed, not sufficient for expense money. At Easton, Pennsylvania, he found work in a store, and clerked there five years, until 1853, when he came west as far as Chicago. There he was employed as clerk in Potter Palmer's store, and at the end of five years of service, when he resigned, he was at the head of the retail department. From Chicago he came in 1860 to Vinton, Iowa, to take possession of a general store which had already been rented for him. He carried a stock of dry goods, boots and shoes, and sold in one year no less than sixty-five thousand dollars worth of goods, which in those days in a small town and a new country was considered an immense business. Closing out the mercantile business, he turned his attention to farming and dealing in stock, buying, feeding and shipping. He had land in Big Grove and Taylor townships, at one time owning and operating about a thousand acres, and this business he continued for a number of years. Of late years, however, banking has claimed his attention, and he has disposed of his land holdings, also his real estate in Vinton, and has given a large amount of property to his nephews and nieces here and in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Correll has been a loyal Republican from the time he voted for John C. Fremont up to the present. He has never missed a national election and rarely has been absent from the polls at county and state elections. When a. young man, in Pennsylvania, he joined the Reformed church. As showing something of the public spirit and generous nature of Mr. Correll, we record that the court house clock and bell, placed in their position at a cost of two thousand dollars, were a gift from him.
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