Born in 1812 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, he was the son of Margaret Crawford and Edward Allender. Mr. Allender had two brothers, Ed and John, and a sister Nancy. In 1838, he married Mathilda Jane Speer. He and his wife moved to Van Buren County Iowa where his wife, Mathilda, later died. He remarried Ann P. Bonner in 1847. In 1844 George and his brothers moved to Van Buren County, Iowa and engaged in their father’s occupation of running a mill. The mill was used as a grist-mill until 1851 when the high water washed a channel through and left the old mill on an island. In 1852, the mill was brought to the shore and repaired, and, in 1857, George C. Allender started it as a woolen mill. After 1870, he moved to Boise Idaho where he became a Methodist clergyman The Rev. G. C Allender, of Methodist Church Boise Valley, died March 23, 1879.