Dr. Wm. R, Van Hook.
Dr. William R. Van Hook's ancestors came from Maryland and Virginia. His great grandfather on the paternal side was one of the pioneers who accompanied Daniel Boone on his second trip to explore the then wilderness of Kentucky. His father was born in Kentucky and his mother in Virginia.
Dr. Van Hook was born near Louisville, Ky. After attending the Academy he was a student at Asbury University, Greencastle, Ind., now known as Depaw University. He studied medicine at Indianapolis, Ind., and attended medical lectures at Louisville, Ky. Graduating at the breaking out of the rebellion, he entered the Union army as a surgeon and served until the close of the war. In the year 1867 he removed to Sangamon county, Illinois, where he successfully practiced medicine up to 1886. He then removed to Chicago, where he acquired a successful business, but for family reasons he returned to Sangamon county, locating in Springfield, where he practiced medicine up to the time of his removal to El Paso. Ten years ago he spent a winter in New York City hospitals, and two winters recently in the hospitals of Chicago.
Dr. Van Hook’s entire life since early manhood has been devoted to the
practice of medicine. He has acquired a successful and growing practice
in El Paso and vicinity, where he has made many personal friends. His office
is in the First National Bank building.
John M. Stonebraker.
John M. Stonebraker, of Panola, Ill., spent his early life in Maryland, but he has lived in this vicinity so long that he is numbered with the old settlers. He owns a fine stock farm out in Panola township, known as Duroc-Jersey stock farm, he having for the past ten years made a specialty of breeding and shipping Duroc-Jersey swine. He has been a hustler in everything he has undertaken, and his patronage in the swine business is bounded only by the extent of our great nation, some of the latest inquiries for stock coming from Alaska.
Mr. Stonebraker is a member of the family made famous by the Stonebraker
liniments, and Mr. S. traveled over all the states in the Mississippi Valley
a number of years in the interest of these medicines, giving him a wide
acquaintance, which has aided him no little in his subsequent undertaking.
He is a thorough believer in the use of printers’ ink, and besides the
large amount of advertising which he carries in the various stock journals
he issues a 50-page catalogue every other year devoted to the history of
Duroc-Jerseys and of his herd.
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