Johannesburg Johannesburg were destroyed and their people driven away during the wars emanating from Zululand during the late 18th and early 19th centuries (the mfecane or difaqane wars), and as a result, an offshoot of the Zulu kingdom, the Ndebele (often referred to as the Matabele, the name given them by the local Sotho–Tswana), set up a kingdom to the northwest of Johannesburg around modern-day Rustenburg. The main Witwatersrand gold reef was discovered in June 1884 on the farm Vogelstruisfontein by Jan Gerritse Bantjes that triggered the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the founding of Johannesburg in 1886. The discovery of gold
John S. Barbour power in Virginia for decades (J.S. Barbour Jr. serving in the U.S. House of Representatives 1881-1886, and in the U.S. Senate from 1889-1892). His namesake J. S. B. Thompson married his daughter Eliza Byrne Barbour in 1850, worked for various railroads (including the Southern Railway), and continued to exercise political influence (helping Thomas S. Martin win election as U.S. Senator in 1893 and accused of corruption in 1911). His grandson John Strode Barbour became a prominent lawyer, newspaper editor and Culpeper's mayor (although he later moved to Fairfax County, Virginia). John S. Barbour John Strode Barbour Sr. (August 8, 1790