California Biographies

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

Source:
History of the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin 
Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from 
its earliest settlement to the present time.
Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905
Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176


JAMES R. ROGERS, a valued citizen of Merced county, Cal., and one of the successful 
fig-growers of the state, of which he is a pioneer of 1850, was born November 14, 1826, in Old- 
ham county, Ky. In tracing the ancestry of Mr. Rogers it is found that he is a descendant of dis- 
tinguished families of Virginia on both paternal and maternal sides. His father, Thomas Rogers, 
was born in Spottsylvania county, of that state, and his mother, Priscilla Chancellor, was a Vir- 
ginian and a sister of Sanford Chancellor, a wealthy miner and a member of a prominent 
family of Virginia. Thomas Rogers followed farming for a livelihood and as early as 1812 
moved to Kentucky, and in that state the family made their home until James R. was sixteen 
years old. In 1842 they removed to Missouri, the father becoming prominently identified with 
that community, remaining there until his death at the age of seventy-eight years. Four of his 
children are still living, namely : Winslow, a resident of Missouri, now eighty-eight years of 
age; William, a retired rancher of Santa Rosa, Cal. ; George, a resident of Solano county ; and 
James R. 

The boyhood days of Mr. Rogers were spent on a farm and at sixteen he accompanied his 
parents to Missouri, where he lived until his twenty-fifth year. In 1850 he came overland to 
California, the train of which he was a member consisting of about forty people. His first month 
in California was spent in the mines; he then went to the entrance to Grass valley and con- 
ducted a hotel for a year and a half, after which he spent some time in both the northern and 
southern mines. Before the close of 1852 he was homeward bound and while crossing the 
Isthmus of Panama saw for the first time a railroad. The following year he again left Missouri 
with the Williams party for California, and upon his arrival, was married in Sacramento to Polly 
Ann Williams and took up his residence in Sonoma county, near Santa Rosa. He afterward 
bought four hundred acres of land in Solano county near Vacaville, which he put out in or- 
chard and lived upon it for forty years. 

In 1896 Mr. Rogers came to Merced county and August 15 of that year he purchased his 
home place of fifty acres four and a half miles northeast of Merced, in partnership with his son, 
S. M. Rogers. Mr. Rogers has his entire place planted in figs, having six hundred and fifty-two 
trees which are now thirteen years old. These trees yielded in 1902 twenty tons and the fruit 
was sold on the trees for $750. In 1903 the yield was the same, but $100 additional was realized 
for the sale of the fruit in the same way. Mr. Rogers has upon this place a comfortable resi- 
dence containing eleven rooms, and fitted throughout with all modern improvements. His 
wife died in 1865, leaving three children, Commodore P., Seldan M., and Zilla, deceased. By 
his second marriage, in 1866, he was united with Laura Church, a native of Pontiac, Mich., who 
was born in 1844, and came to California in 1865. Two children were born of this union, 
namely : Celia May and Bertie Agnes, the latter the wife of Bert Hatch. The family unite in 
worshipping at the Christian Church, of which Mr. and Mrs. Rogers are active members. Mr. 
Rogers is a member of Merced Lodge No. 97, F. & A. M., having been made a Mason in Vaca- 
ville Lodge No. 133, F. & A. M.