Harrisonburg Virginia

Biography of Samuel Bowman

Samuel Bowman, now of Coffeyville, where he is engaged in the real estate, insurance and loan business with his sons, is a Kansas resident of nearly thirty-five years and was long prominent in Labette County, where he served two terms as probate judge. His Bowman ancestors were German people who came to Pennsylvania in Colonial times. His grandfather, Benjamin Bowman, a native of Pennsylvania, was a farmer and cabinet maker, also a minister of the Dunkard Church, and spent many years in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he died some years before Judge Bowman was born. It was in … Read more

Biography of John Cravens

John Cravens, son of Dr. Joseph and Mary Cravens, was born in Harrisonburg, Rockingham county, Virginia, October 28, 1797, where he was reared and educated. He began the study of medicine under his father,, when in his nineteenth year, and began practice some six years later. After practicing with his father two years, he removed to Hardy county, Virginia now West Virginia, and began practice at Petersburg, but only remained one year, when he removed to Pendleton county, opened an office in Franklin, the county seat, and was an active practitioner in that county for ten years. In 1837 he … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Madison H. Bear

Madison H. Bear a farmer and dairyman near Newport, was born in Rockingham County, Virginia, December 6, 1841, the fifth child in a family of eight children of David and Maria (Anderson) Bear. Was educated in Harrisonburg and also worked upon his father’s farm until he was twenty-seven years of age, when he married Miss Cornelia Firebaugh, of Rockbridge County, Virginia, and a daughter of John and Ella (McCutchen) Firebaugh. Mr. Bear then bought 120 acres of land four miles west of Harrisonburg and managed a farm there four years; selling out then, he came, in November, 1873, to California, … Read more