Harrisonburg City

Rockingham County, Virginia

The Harrisonburg Municipal Building is located at 345 South Main Street, Harrisonburg VA 22801.
Phone: 540‑432‑7701.

Neighborhoods

Harrisonburg, an independent city, serves also as the seat of government for Rockingham County.

Harrisonburg was founded by Thomas Harrison, who, with his wife Sarah, had settled about 1739 at this point where the Indian Road crossed the Spotswood Trail. In 1779 the couple conveyed land to the county for the erection of a courthouse, and the following year Harrison procured the passage of an act establishing the town. Popularly known in its infancy as Rocktown, the settlement grew rapidly, fostered by Harrison's sons Reuben and Robert, who supplied lands in 1797 for municipal expansion. In 1794 Bishop Asbury started a Methodist school here, in which not only were gaming and 'instruments of music' outlawed, but no scholar was 'permitted on any account whatever to wear Ruffles or powder his hair.' [1]

1. Works Progress Administration, Federal Writers' Program, Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion, American Guide Series, New York, Oxford University Press, 1940.