John Wayland, the dean of Shenandoah Valley historians, was commissioned to assemble this collection of sketches of Rockingham County natives and other persons who had become identified with the county or the City of Harrisonburg by a considerable period of residence. The subjects of the biographies, most of which are illustrated, reflect a wide variety of occupations, achievements and interests inasmuch as they include farmers, businessmen, educators, preachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, jurists, statesmen, soldiers, writers, and so on. Part I, the larger of the two components of the volume, consists of extended biographical sketches, with accompanying portraits, of Wayland's contemporaries. The subjects' careers and civic interests are covered in some detail, as is each individual's date and place of birth--and sometimes death-- and the names and dates associated with the subject's marriages and children. Part II features shorter, un-illustrated essays of a few hundred Rockingham County luminaries of bygone years, any number of whose lines are extended back to the 1700s.