Grayson County, Texas -- Samuel Bonham Obituary 
By Rusty Williams EBFMktg@aol.com
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Note: This obituary appeared in vol. XXX, August, 1922, p. 310 
of "The Confederate Veteran Magazine".


SAMUEL BONHAM.

     A life span of almost ninety years, sixty-three of which had been
     spent in Sherman and Grayson County, Tex., closed with the death 
     of Samuel Bonham on January 29, 1922, after two days' illness.  
     He was born in Clarke County, Va., February, 1832, and completed
     a college course at Berryville, making a civil engineer. He then 
     served Clarke County as county surveyor, but at the age of twenty-
     two he went to Missouri and there engaged in surveying. Going thence
     to Kansas, he was surveying for the State when he was captured by 
     the Pawnee Indians.  Leaving Kansas, he engaged in surveying in 
     Nebraska for three years, then went to Texas in 1859 and located
     at Sherman, then a village, where he continued his special work 
     until called to take up arms for the South. He joined a company 
     under Capt.  Ben McCulloch, Baylor's Regiment, W. P. Layne's 
     Brigade, and gave four years of service to the Confederacy.

     Returning to Sherman after the war was over, he again took up 
     surveying and was county surveyor for nearly forty years.  In that
     time he laid out hundreds of farms and many of the plats of Sherman
     and Denison, seeing these communities grow into their present-day 
     status from the trading stations of pioneer days.  He was a charter 
     member of the Grayson County Old Settlers' Association, and at the 
     time of his death dean of the Grayson County early settlers. He was
     active almost to the last, going about the city among his friends 
     when the weather was good.

     Comrade Bonham was married in 1863 to Miss Martha Ann Melton, daughter
     of one of the Sherman pioneers, and to them were born five sons and 
     three daughters, all surviving him.  After the death of his wife he
     lived with his children in New York and Knoxville, Tenn., eventually
     returning to Sherman as the home of his choice.