Table of Contents

 

 

 Ch 1 Yorkshire Rogers: Weavers of A Legacy.................................................................... 3

 John Rogers and Elizabeth Squire Family Group Sheet ................................................... 11

 William Rogers and Elizabeth (unknown) Family Group Sheet.......................................... 12

 Benjamin Rogers and Ann Pearson Family Group Sheet.................................................. 13

 Joseph Rogers and Elizabeth Holmes Family Group Sheet............................................... 14

 Samuel Rogers (1) and Ann Gaunt Family Group Sheet................................................... 16

 

 Ch 2 Immigrant Rogers: Early Settlers of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania....................... 18

 Samuel Rogers (2) and Mary Akroyd Family Group Sheet................................................ 32

 

 Ch 3 Pioneering Rogers: Westward Migration................................................................... 34

 Samuel Rogers (3) and Elizabeth Harding Family Group Sheet........................................ 53

 Jeremiah Rogers and Martha Bennett Family Group Sheet............................................... 54

 Jeremiah "Jay" Rogers and Bessie Cummings Family Group Sheet.................................. 55

 Edna Rogers and Earl Peterson Family Group Sheet....................................................... 57

 

 Ch 4  Harding, Warren & Allied Families: England to Pennsylvania................................... 58

 James Harding Family Group Sheet.................................................................................. 69

 John Warren Family Group Sheet..................................................................................... 70

 William Molyneux Family Group Sheet............................................................................... 72

 Powell Bird Family Group Sheet........................................................................................ 73

 

 Ch 5 Bennett: English Ancestors in Colonial America........................................................ 75

 John Bennett and Ursula White Family Group Sheet......................................................... 86

 John Bennett (2) and Elizabeth Parke Family Group Sheet............................................... 87

 Thomas Bennett and Jemima Harrington Family Group Sheet.......................................... 89

 Josiah Bennett and Susannah Bates Family Group Sheet................................................ 90

 Josiah Bennett (2) and Sarah Baker Family Group Sheet................................................. 92

 Ichabod Bennett and Nancy Peterson Family Group Sheet............................................... 94

 George  Bennett and Martha Wilcox Family Group Sheet................................................. 95

 Solomon Bennett and Lydia Thurber Family Group Sheet................................................ 96

 Outline Descendant Tree of John Bennett......................................................................... 98

 

 Ch 6  Thurber: More English Ancestors in Colonial America ............................................ 99

 John and Priscilla Thurber Family Group Sheet.............................................................. 111

 James Thurber and Elizabeth Bliss Family Group Sheet................................................. 112

 Samuel Thurber and Rachel Wheeler Family Group Sheet............................................. 114

 Daniel Thurber and Lois Peck Family Group Sheet......................................................... 116

 Nathaniel Thurber and Polly Shores Family Group Sheet............................................... 118

 Alfred Thurber and Celia Bennett Family Group Sheet................................................... 119

 

 Ch 7  From Weavers to Building Movers:  Benjamin Rogers Descendants..................... 120

Descendant Report of Benjamin Rogers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

 

 

Appendix A: Samuel R. Rogers (4) Family Group Sheet................................................... 133

Appendix B: Descendant Report of Joseph Rogers.......................................................... 134

Appendix C:  Outline Descendant Tree of Richard Harding.............................................. 141

Appendix D: Notable Thurbers.......................................................................................... 143

Appendix E: Outline Descendant Tree of John Rogers to Edna Maethorne Rogers......... 145

 

Index................................................................................................................................. 146

Chapter 1 

 

 

 

 

 

Yorkshire Rogers: Weavers of A Legacy

 

It is indeed a desirable thing to be well-descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors. ~~~ Plutarch (c. 46-125 A.D.) Greek essayist, biographer ~~~

 

Because most of us have not had the opportunity to visit the English Yorkshire country that was home to our Rogers ancestors, perhaps a brief sketch of the various political and religious divisions of English counties is in order.  Yorkshire was the county unit of government located in north-central England. The counties were further divided into administrative local units of government called ridings. Our Rogers lived in West Riding. Churches were the primary recorders of the vital statistics so the division by parish is of paramount genealogical significance in locating family records.

Leeds, the largest town of Yorkshire, was the capital of West Riding. The map below shows the parishes/villages/suburbs of Calverley, Bramley and Stanningley in relation to the City Centre of Leeds. These parishes are where the christening, marriages and burials of our ancestors are recorded. Calverley, where the bulk of parish records were found, was adjacent to the River Aire and to the Leeds and Bradford railway. 

 

Leeds was the chief seat of the woolen industry in the 1700-1800's, an industry which was significant in the history of the Rogers both in England and in America. Commerce flourished at Leeds because of its inland navigation to both eastern and western seas via canals and navigable rivers as well as its modern railway system.^[1] The name Leeds is the modern version of 'Leedes', 'Leodis' and 'Loidis which may have originally come from a Celtic word, Ladenses, meaning people living by the strongly flowing river.

 

Does our family descend from John Rogers, the Martyr?

 

In 1970 Rogers family historian, Myron Northrup, employed an English professional genealogist, D. H. Barron, from Yorkshire, England, to try to trace the Rogers line back to John Rogers, the Martyr (circa1501-1555), who was burned at the stake for heresy at Smithfield on February 4, 1555 during the bloody reign of Queen Mary. Heresy, among other acts as ruled by the Catholic queen, included refusal of the mass and marriage of the clergy.

 

Our immigrant ancestors probably had very good reason to believe that they descended from John, the Martyr; however this lineage still remains unproven. The ascendancy from the Bible of Samuel (2) reads:

 

“My father Samuel Rogers born at Standah, a town between Leeds and Bradforth on the 1^st of May 1760; Joseph Rogers, my father’s father born in 1732. His father’s name was William Rogers. His father’s grandfather was a son of one of the sons of John Rogers, the martyr.” ^[2]

 

Assuming that Standah^[3] is a misspelling of the town Stanningley where Samuel (1) was born, it seems a bit strange that Samuel (2) would have made such an error since he also lived in the Leeds area until he emigrated at the age of 18. A family Bible that belonged to Joseph Rogers (birth year for Joseph listed as 1732 date in Samuel’s Bible) is also referenced, but the family record contained therein was lost by the time Rogers descendants began seriously trying to make the connection to the Martyr.^[4] Note that the 1732 birth year for Joseph Rogers conflicts with his actual christening record of December 25, 1735 unless Joseph was three years old when he was christened which is not likely.

 

Mr. Barron’s research proved that Joseph’s father was Benjamin Rogers (1705-1792) rather than William Rogers (circa 1669-1740) as noted in Samuel’s Bible. Barron also added the parents of William Rogers as John Rogers (circa 1645-1711) and Elizabeth Squire (? - 1713).^[5] This still leaves about 150 years gap between the birth of John Rogers of Pudsey, Yorkshire, and John Rogers, the Martyr. Myron Northrop writes that he could not afford to continue paying Mr. Barron to try to search any further, and that it was Mr. Barron’s opinion that older records would be very difficult to prove with any degree of integrity.

I spent one of my annual pilgrimages to the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City a number of years ago duplicating the research of Mr. Barron through the English parish records in that library’s holdings.  With only a few minor exceptions my work verified that done by Mr. Barron. For any Rogers descendants who might wish to continue this research, I recommend a review of the Bishop's Transcripts, 1600‑1834; Church of England, St. Peters Church, Leeds, England (Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1977), and The Registers of the Parish Church of Calverley, Volumes II and III by Samuel Margerison, Bradford: G. F. Sewell, Printer, 1887 available at the LDS Family History Library; the Sullivan County Genealogical Web Page at www.rootsweb.com/~pasulliv; and “History of the Family ROGERS” available on CD at GenealogyCDs.com,

 

Let’s begin our genealogy journey now with the earliest confirmed Rogers ancestor.

 

Generation 1: John Rogers and Elizabeth Squire

 

John Rogers lived in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. Assuming he was in his early to mid-20's at the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Squire on September 23, 1668,^[6] we can estimate his birth year between 1643 and 1648. Elizabeth undoubtedly was also born in Yorkshire. John and Elizabeth were the parents of William (this writers direct-line ancestor) born 1669, John born 1672, Anne born 1674, Richard born 1677, Elizabeth born 1679, Susannah born 1681, and Marmaduke born 1683 all of whom were born in Pudsey.^[7] John Rogers was buried on August 13, 1711 in Pudsey, Yorkshire, England. Elizabeth Squire Rogers was buried on October 29, 1713 also at Pudsey.^[8] 

 

Generation 2: William Rogers and Elizabeth (surname unknown)

 

William Rogers, christened May 5, 1669,^[9] was married to Elizabeth, maiden name unknown, about 1692.  The English genealogist, already identified, found records of the following children born to William and Elizabeth: John born 1699, Joseph born 1702, Benjamin born 1705, Ann born 1708, James born 1710, John born 1713, George born 1715-1716, Frances born 1717, and Martha born 1719. In addition to these children the Calverley parish records include Martha with a father William Rodgers, baptized on September 10, 1693, and another child with the same father (child’s name not recorded nor the sex) baptized on March 22, 1695.^[10]  It is likely that these children belong in this family. Martha could have died in infancy or early childhood since there is another Martha born in 1719. Of the remaining children, James died at age 3, George died at 4 months; and it is assumed that John who was christened July 1,1699 died before his brother’s birth in 1713.  William Rogers was buried on June 8, 1740. Elizabeth was buried on June 16, 1748 or 1749.^[11]  A OneWorldTree source, not documented, shows wife of William Rogers as Mary rather than Elizabeth.

 

Generation 3: Benjamin Rogers and Ann Pearson

 

Benjamin Rogers, christened September 23, 1705 in Pudsey, Yorkshire, England,^[12] married Ann Pearson on August 17, 1735 in Calverley Parish, Pudsey.^[13] Benjamin and Ann were the parents of Joseph born 1735, Benjamin born 1737, Reuben born 1739-1740, Ann born 1742-1743, William born about 1744, Hannah born about 1745 and Ann born 1750.  D. H. Barron’s research shows William christened September 27, 1745 and Hannah christened December 27, 1745 which adds some confusion to the birth years for William and Hannah.  Possibly William and Hannah were twins and either the September or December month is in error. Although no record was found for the death of Ann born 1742-1743, she would have died before her sister, Ann, was born in 1750. Benjamin was buried on November 21, 1792 in Pudsey, Yorkshire, England; and his wife, Ann, was buried on June 22, 1793 in Pudsey.

 

Generation 4: Joseph Rogers and Elizabeth Holmes

 

Joseph Rogers, christened December 25, 1735,^[14] married Elizabeth Holmes on April 17, 1755 in Calverley Parish (banns posted April 2, 1755.^[15]  Joseph and Elizabeth Rogers of Stanningley, Yorkshire supposedly had 17 children, of whom only six survived their parents according to the Rogers biography, “John Rogers, the English Martyr, and His Descendants in America.”^[16] The six who survived their parents were Samuel (l), Margaret, Joseph, Mary, Sarah and George.  Since D. H. Barron's family chart ends with Joseph Jr. born about 1772, one would wonder if Joseph and Elizabeth moved to a different parish after 1772 where four additional children were born.  At any rate, if there were 17 children, four have still not been accounted for.

 

The Now and Then Rogers biography states that Elizabeth died soon after the birth of George in about 1782 and that the oldest son, Samuel (1), raised his youngest brother. Research by D. H. Barron, however, gives the burial date of Elizabeth as August 17,1794, and this date is more likely to be correct. That would mean George was 12 years old when his mother died. His brother, Samuel (1) was married and already had a large family of his own so he could very well have taken George into his family. No death record has been found for Joseph Rogers, but he likely died before his wife.

 

Our primary interest will be the biography of Joseph and Elizabeth’s son Samuel (1), but let’s recap what little is known about Samuel’s surviving siblings, all of whom eventually came to America:^[17]

 

George came with his brother Samuel (1) in 1801. He resided near Baltimore and died there about 1845 (or later) without issue.

Margaret married Jeremiah Akroyd and they emigrated in 1802. Margaret and Jeremiah settled at the Forks of the Loyalsock Creek in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania (now Sullivan County). After the great flood in 1816 they moved to Muncy, Pennsylvania.  Both Margaret Rogers and Jeremiah Akroyd carry the blood line through the marriage of their daughter, Mary Akroyd, to Samuel Rogers (2) (1782-1857).                      

Sarah emigrated during the turbulent War of 1812, leaving her husband to wait out the war in England. She lived with her bachelor brother, George Rogers, near Baltimore until the war was ended and her husband, George Beecroft, was able to join her. They then settled in Trenton, New Jersey where Sarah died in 1867. Sarah and George were the parents of seven children. Some of their descendants carried on the manufacturing of woolen goods.

Joseph emigrated in 1812 and settled in New Jersey where he worked in the woolen goods business.

Mary emigrated with her brother, Joseph, in 1812.

 

Generation 5: Samuel Rogers (1) and Ann Gaunt

 

Samuel Rogers (1), christened June 11, 1760 at Stanningley, Yorkshire, England,^{[18] [19]} will be briefly introduced in this chapter as the primogeniture of the English-American Rogers. We will pick up his emigration story after we’ve crossed the Atlantic Ocean in chapter 2.   Samuel (1) married Ann Gaunt on January 1, 1783 at St. Peters Church (Church of England), Leeds Parish, Yorkshire, England.^[20]  Samuel (1) and Ann were the parents of Samuel (2) born 1782, Joseph born 1784, Jonathan born 1785, John born 1787, William born 1788, Hannah born 1790, Richard born 1791, David born 1793, Abram born 1794, Elizabeth born 1795, Martha born 1796, Benjamin born 1797, Reuben born 1798 and Jacob born 1800 in Yorkshire, England; and George born 1802, Isaac born1804, Moses born 1806, and Mary Ann born 1808 in Pennsylvania. 

 

Samuel Rogers (1) was a cloth weaver by trade in Leeds, England. Leeds has been the home of many industries, but wool was its first industry of significance. If readers are interested in the details of the early woolen factories where our Rogers were trained and worked, they may wish to read The Leeds Woolen Industry 1780-1820, W. B. Crump., Ed., Leeds, England: The Thoresby Society, 1931. 

 

It is likely that the earlier Rogers ancestors were among the pre-industrial clothiers who carried out almost all of the processes in the manufacturing of the cloth in their own homes including the carding, dyeing and weaving. These early domestic factories usually included a workshop, a loom house and dye house, and every member of the family starting at a young age would have been involved in learning the trade.

 

By the 1770's, the Industrial Revolution was beginning to profoundly change the face of the woolen industry. Mechanical inventions were replacing water power with steam engines and hand labor with machinery.  Sir Richard Arkwright is noted for several inventions or adaptations of previous inventions that he modified for the woolen mills including a carding engine, a spinning frame and the slubbing engine. Two other inventions borrowed from the cotton industry, the fly shuttle and the spinning jenny, were used in the Leeds woolen factory by 1780. The fly shuttle doubled the previous output at the broad loom, and the spinning jenny greatly increased the spinning speed.  In 1792 a firm of merchants—Wormald, Fountaine and Gott–built a “state-of-the art” woolen factory powered by a James Watt rotative steam-engine for the first time instead of water power.^[21] The new factory mill offered employment to the residents of Bramley and Pudsey, Yorkshire where our ancestral Rogers resided.

 

The woolen factory at Leeds is noted for the creation of the earliest example of twilled cloth. The twill was a diagonal rib across the cloth produced by dividing the warp equally so that two threads were above and two below the shuttle as it passed through the shed.^[22] 

 

Americans were still spinning and weaving woolen goods by hand as indicated by the 1810 census returns recording 315,000 hand looms.  Samuel (1) and his sons had learned the most up-to-date techniques of cloth milling and weaving at Leeds and would introduce that technology in Delaware and Pennsylvania.  It seems the Rogers were in the right place at the right time with their skills when the War of 1812 led to a very profitable contract with the United States government manufacturing Kersey (twill) cloth uniforms. The contract timeliness may not have been entirely serendipitous though. Eldon “Bud” Rogers, Hermiston, Oregon, researching the historical framework for the Rogers emigration, noted the link between Alexander Hamilton and the promotion of the textile industry in the New World. Taking editorial liberties, I have excerpted parts of Bud’s research paper below:

 

A biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow may answer the question of, “Why did the Rogers come to America?” In order to paint the picture for the reason Samuel (I) and Samuel (2) may have emigrated from England, it will be necessary to review some historical events.

 

In the 1760's there were many technological developments in England. Among them was the technique for rapid production of textiles. Hamilton saw the great need to diversify the economy of the United States from a purely agrarian society and add industrial activity if this country was to ever become the economic power house he visualized. Chernow writes, “No industry was being transformed more dramatically than British textiles. Sir Richard Arkwright had devised a machine called the water frame that used the power of rushing water to spin many threads simultaneously. By the time Hamilton was sworn in as treasury secretary, Arkwright’s mill on the Clyde in Scotland employed more than 1300 hands.”^[23]

 

Before the Revolutionary War, England forbade manufacturing in the colonies. Chernow notes, “The colonists had rebelled against an imperial system that restricted their manufactures and

forced them to hawk their raw materials to the mother country, stifling their economic potential. England had imposed a law banning the export to America of any tools that might assist in the manufacture of cotton, linen, wool and silk. Skilled mechanics who worked in textile factories were forbidden to emigrate upon pain of fine and imprisonment–for even if they couldn’t smuggle out blueprints, they could memorize methods and peddle this valuable information abroad...a young man named Samuel Slater slipped through the tight protective net thrown by British authorities around their textile business. As a former apprentice to Sir Richard Arkwright, Slater had sworn that he would never reveal his boss’s trade secrets.”^[24] But he lied. Hamilton teamed up with Tench Coxe, assistant treasury secretary, and planned the Society for the Establishing Useful Manufactures. Coxe lured a George Parkinson who had studied with Arkwright to develop the town of Paterson, New Jersey for various kinds of manufacturing activities.^[25] Although Hamilton retired from his post as secretary of the treasury in 1795, his successor, Oliver Wolcott Jr., was heavily influenced by Hamilton’s philosophy about industrialization of the nation.

 

Bud offers the following speculation about the possibility of a connection between Alexander Hamilton and our Rogers ancestors:

 

It is documented that Samuel (1) and Samuel (2) were in the textile business in England. Upon arriving in the United States, it was a short time before property was acquired that had the desired water source to build a water-powered textile mill in Delaware. The expense would have been rather large. Could Hamilton have “encouraged” the government to support Samuel (1) and his sons in this endeavor? Could Samuel have even been recruited to set up shop in this country?

 

There is no indication that the Rogers were wealthy people when they emigrated from England, and the question of how they had the financial resources to establish a major industry so soon after emigration lends intrigue to Bud’s questions. In the next chapter we will explore how the Rogers wove their legacy as early settlers in Pennsylvania with or without pre-arranged financial backing.

The Leeds Woolen Industry 1780-1820, The Thoresby Society, Leeds, England, 1931, Plate III

 

The Leeds Woolen Industry 1780-1820, The Thoresby Society, Leeds, England, 1931, Plate III

 

The Leeds Woolen Industry 1780-1820, The Thoresby Society, Leeds, England, 1931, Plate III, Plate V

 

 

Chapter 2 

 

 

 

 

 

Immigrant Rogers: Early Settlers of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania

 

Generation 5: Samuel Rogers (1) and Ann Gaunt

This generation continues from chapter 1.

 

Samuel Rogers (1) with his wife, children and brother, George, immigrated from Liverpool in the summer of 1801 and joined his son, Samuel (2), in Pennsylvania. The sea voyage was rife with danger and tragedy. The calamities of the voyage as told by Ann Gaunt Rogers have been preserved in The Now and Then Rogers biography as footnoted.^[1] Ann related that when her little ones cried for water, she gave them bits of hard, dry toasted bread to chew and abate their thirst. She told of the death of baby Jacob, 5 months old, who died from the dreaded smallpox outbreak and was buried at sea. After the ship had anchored about three miles from shore, some drunken sailors accidently set a fire and nearly burned down the ship. The rendition in the above source states that Uncle George had his leg badly scalded during the fracas. Four-year old Benjamin was missing when the family was ready to disembark. Joseph, 17, rushed back to the berths and found his brother asleep. Finally, the family arrived on American soil with 10 of their 14 children. Besides the child who died at sea, they had buried Abram, Elizabeth and Martha in England. Four more children would be born in their new homeland.

 

Samuel (1) did not stay long on the rented farm near Philadelphia. In 1802 he entered into a lease agreement with land agent Joseph Priestley, son of the eminent Dr. Joseph Priestley of Leeds, whom the Rogers would have known before immigration as the Priestley families were woolen cloth workers and dressers of West Riding. The elder Priestley was the discoverer of oxygen, a friend of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, and the pastor of a congregation at Northumberland where he had settled in 1794.^[2] The lease agreement with Joseph Priestley, Jr. was for 145 acres of choice land at the Forks (of the Loyalsock Creek) for $2.50 an acre for a period of five years without paying either rent or interest.^[3] At the end of the five years Samuel Rogers (1) formally purchased the land from Joseph and Eliza Priestley by deed dated August 15, 1807. The legal description of the land is typical of such transactions in the 1700's and early 1800's referencing trees, stone heaps, posts and the middle of a creek. Samuel (1) cleared the land and built a cabin with the help of his 16-year old son, Jonathan, and moved his family into the cabin in the spring of 1802. The original house was located below what is now the Forksville Cemetery and was the first dwelling in the community that would later become the town of Forksville.

Although Samuel (1) apparently did not pursue the milling and weaving industry after emigration, he did deed land to his sons, Samuel (2), Jonathan and William, on the Loyalsock Creek for the purpose of building a woolen mill. The deed for this transaction was dated June 22, 1810 between “Samuel Rogers of the township of Shrewsbury in the county of Lycoming in the state of Pennsylvania and Ann his wife of the one part and Samuel Rogers, Jr., Jonathan Rogers and William Rogers of Mill Creek Hundred, Newcastle County, State of Delaware of the other part.” The three “boys” paid their father $40 for this tract of land which was “part or parcel of a tract of land conveyed by Joseph Priestley and wife of the town and county of Northumberland...to Samuel Rogers (1) by Indenture on the 15^th day of August 1807, recorded in Book F, page 243, Recording of Deeds office, County of Lycoming. In this deed Samuel (1) reserved for himself the right of a road and ferry directly across the creek from his dwelling house. The Rogers brothers first erected a saw-mill, constructed a dam and then built the first woolen factory in that part of the country on their newly purchased parcel of land. This mill and factory provided employment for the English settlers and established communications with other nearby settlements on the route to Philadelphia.

 

Imagine, if you will, the pioneering experience of our Rogers in this yet untamed, virgin land–a land where there were yet no bridges to cross the many creeks, no stores, no churches, no mills, and, of course, no woolen factory. Before the first roads, settlers often traveled on the Loyalsock by canoe to visit their neighbors. The first roads were wagon trails. One of the early Loyalsock settlers, Samuel Wallis, built a pack horse road in 1793 known as the Corson Road to transport supplies to the first surveyors along the Loyalsock. This road started at Muncy, climbed to the summit of the Allegheny Mountains and then to the Loyalsock at Hillsgrove and up the Loyalsock to the Forks. Other roads in that early time frame were named for the settlers who carved out the first trails such as Hill’s Road, French Road and “Road to Eldred’s.” The roads connected the various settlements to taverns, grist mills, saw mills and distilleries. The first significant road into the area was the Gennessee Road between Muncy and Monroeton which connected central Pennsylvania to the Gennessee River. By 1806 the Susquehanna and Tioga Turnpike was under construction which connected with the Gennessee Road. Another road of particular interest to this family history was a road built in 1810 from Forksville to the Edkin Farm on Muncy Creek. It is this road that the Rogers brothers traveled by horse, wagon and sled to transport goods and supplies from Philadelphia to build their woolen factory at Forksville.^[4]

 

The Baptist Church known as the “Little Muncy Baptist Church” was organized in 1817 and formally established October 7, 1822. The original members included “Samuel Rogers (1) and Nancy Guant, (sic) his wife, Richard Rogers and Harriet Stanley, his wife, and Gittyann Rogers and Isaac Rogers.”^[5] This same source claims that Samuel Rogers was a Baptist when he emigrated from England. This is probably true since the family was active in that denomination. It should be noted that Samuel Rogers (1) and Ann Gaunt, however, were married in the Church of England so it is unknown when they switched denominational loyalties.          

Ann Gaunt Rogers died May 24, 1823 and Samuel (1) died January 29, 1828. Samuel’s obituary reads: "Samuel Rogers, died on the 29th ult., after a lengthy illness, at the Forks of Loyalsock Creek. On the following day a funeral sermon was delivered upon the occasion by Rev. Clark, after which his remains were interred in the family burying ground at that place. He, during the latter period of his life, held the responsible station of Deacon of the Forks of Loyalsock Particular Baptist Church."^[6]

Frontier Adventures

 

J. M. M. Gernerd, editor of The Now and Then, interviewed Richard Rogers (son of Samuel I) in 1874 when Richard was 83 years old. Gernerd captured some of Richard’s memories and escapades as a child growing up in the wilds of the virgin Pennsylvania forests. Richard’s stories of encounters with wild animals give us a vivid picture of just how dangerous life could be on the frontier. Three of Richard’s adventures are noted below:

 

He (Richard) related with great minuteness how he went out one morning on the flat below the Forks to bring in the oxen, with his rifle on his shoulder, as was then the common custom, when leaving the house, and had a most terrific encounter with a deer. He said he found a large doe with the cattle and shot her. Just as he fired she slightly changed her position, in consequence of which the ball merely stunned her. When he went to bleed her she was almost instantly on her feet again, and attacked him with great fury. He undertook to hold her, but her strength surprised him. The combatants now rolled over each other, back and forth, in the savage struggle for life. She fought him until, as he said, his “shirt was torn into ribbons,” and he was “almost naked.” When he at last succeeded in using his knife, he was himself so nearly exhausted that he was for some minutes hardly able to move.

 

Once he killed a wolf on the same flat below the Forks with a hemlock knot. He said he was driving some young cattle through the woods, along the creek, when the wolf jumped from behind a tree and started for the stream. He managed to get between the animal and the creek, and just as it raised to attack him, with bristles up and mouth open ready to bite, he struck for its head. Overreaching his mark, he hit it a stunning blow on the back, but before the enraged beast could recover, he dispatched it with a blow on the head.

 

When nearly grown up Richard went one day with several of his younger brothers to inspect a bear trap that they had set several miles away in the forest. On returning it began gradually to grow strangely and unaccountably dark. He said “a queer feeling” came creeping over them. They saw a flock of seventeen deer; the nimble-footed creatures did not seem anxious to get away, but appeared to be, as they were themselves, strangely disconcerted. The boys stopped at a corn field some distance from the house to do some hoeing, but the mysterious darkness continued to increase, and they could not work. The younger brothers began to cry. Richard now said, “Come, boys, I guess we might as well go home,” with all the apathy he could muster, but secretly he himself was no less strangely affected. They went home and were soon comforted. The darkness was caused by a total eclipse of the sun.^[7]

 

Eighteen years after the above interview (and 90 years after settlement of the area), J. M. M. Gernerd was still writing about the life and customs of these Pennsylvania pioneers. Let’s enjoy a bit more of Mr. Gernerd’s engaging writing style:

 

Here and there a rude log cabin stood in the midst of a little clearing, the beginnings of a civilization that would amaze the early foresters could they wake up from their long sleep and see what changes ninety years have wrought. Chopping down trees, burning brush, grubbing out roots and stumps, splitting rails, making fences and providing for the immediate necessities of their families was about all that the first settlers could for some years think of doing. Adventures with wild animals were of frequent occurrence and sometimes of a perilous and exciting nature.

 

An interesting chapter might be written on the habits and custom of these primitive times. Then the women kept house without stoves. The cooking was done in fireplaces; the baking in iron bake-kettles, or in stone bake-ovens. Then “johnny cakes” and other dishes were baked in long-handled frying-pans, and in long-legged spiders. Then fire was produced with flint, steel and punk, as matches were not yet invented. The pitch-pine splinters and knots were used for candles. Then the sweeping was done with splint brooms made of hickory saplings. Then the boys wore “yellow muslin galluses,” and both boys and girls went barefooted the greater part of the year. Then most of the hats worn were made of straw, or woolen cloth, knit yarn or coon skins. Then, browned corn, rye, chestnuts, peas and beech-nuts were common substitutes for coffee. Then, the fat of bears and raccoons was used to fry doughnuts and for shortening. Then nearly everything–farming, cooking, dressing, visiting, entertaining, doctoring, burying the dead, even courting and marrying–was done differently from the way such things are done today.^[8]

 

Generation 6: Samuel Rogers (2) and Mary Akroyd

Samuel Rogers (2) was born at Bramley, three miles west of Leeds, Yorkshire, England on December 6, 1782 and christened on December 25, 1782. His birth date was taken from his family Bible, and the christening date is from parish records researched by Mr. D. H. Barron of Yorkshire.^[9]

Samuel (2) emigrated from England in 1800, one year before the emigration of his parents and siblings. He arrived at the Port of Philadelphia on the ship Molly from Liverpool, England, Nathaniel Calvert, Master, on October 4,1800.^[10] At the age of 18, Samuel apparently was already quite an enterprising young man. He found employment in Philadelphia, and in May of 1801 rented 103 acres from William Parkinson in Blockley Township, Philadelphia County “the greater part of Mill Creek Farm.”^[11] This piece of property had well-constructed buildings and established fruit trees. It must have been a very welcome sight to his parents and siblings who arrived in the summer of 1801 after their nearly 3-month sea voyage.

Samuel (2) married his first cousin, Mary Akroyd, on March 13, 1808 at Christiana, New Castle County, Delaware^[12] where he and his brothers had been operating a woolen factory at Mill Creek Hundred, New Castle County for several years. Ten children were born to Samuel (2) and Mary:

Hannah born and died in 1810 in Delaware

Mary born 1811 in Delaware or Pennsylvania married John Woodley and died in 1872 in Columbia County, Wisconsin

Margaret born 1813 married Amasa Benjamin Winchell and died 1880 in Franklin County, Iowa

Jacob born 1815 married Almira Santee and died 1870 in Reynolds County, Missouri

Samuel (3) the direct-line ancestor born 1817 married Elizabeth Harding

Elizabeth born 1820 married William VanDyke and died 1875 in Reynolds County, Missouri

Richard Gaunt born 1822 married Mary Bly and died 1874 in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania

Jeremiah Akroyd born 1826 married Phebe Salmon and died 1877 in White Pigeon, Michigan

John born 1828 and died in 1828 in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania

George born 1829 and died in 1847 in Centre County, Pennsylvania

By 1810 Samuel (2) had moved from Delaware to Lycoming County, Pennsylvania and built a woolen mill, a dam and sawmill at the Forks of the Loyalsock Creek. It isn’t clear just when Samuel moved his family from Delaware–certainly not until he had built a house for them; thus the confusion as to whether Mary was born in Delaware or Pennsylvania. The woolen mill was built near the abutment of the covered bridge at Forksville. Seven houses were also constructed for the Rogers families and employees. Jonathan and William remained in Delaware until they were able to close the business there in 1813 and then rejoin Samuel (2) at the new plant on the Loyalsock.^[13]

During the War of 1812 the Rogers brothers had lucrative government contracts to supply Kersey cloth for the army uniforms as previously noted. To expand on this story, it is reported that they had used several teams to transport their fabrics to Philadelphia and bring back raw material and merchandise–a six-weeks round trip. Brothers Richard and David were the chief teamsters and were on the road both winter and summer. They each had a heavy Canistoga wagon with a team of eight horses. There were few bridges on the creeks and rivers that had to be crossed and none at all on the Loyalsock. Between Hillsgrove and Forksville, a distance of nine miles, they had to ford the Loyalsock Creek 16 times. The horses were never blanketed and seldom enjoyed the luxury of a stable. We might assume that living conditions for Richard and David while on the road were not much better than that of their horses.

In 1816 the Rogers’ sawmill and factory were swept away by a ravaging flood of the Loyalsock Creek. This flood was so devastating that the only remnant ever found was a large dye kettle used for dyeing the blue Kersey cloth. It was discovered several months after the flood in a deep hole about a mile below the Forks which became known as the “Dye Kettle Hole.” The old dye kettle itself was hauled by oxen teams to the new woolen factory below Forksville.^[14] Today it is housed at the Sullivan County Historical Museum in Laporte, Pennsylvania.

In 1817 Samuel (2) and Jonathan bought property on Muncy Creek near the borough of Muncy in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania where the enterprising brothers built a frame building to house a new woolen factory. They also built a grist mill, plaster mill and sawmill all of which were operated in connection with the woolen mill.^[15] In 1826 the woolen mill was destroyed by fire. After this disaster Samuel (2) and Jonathan dissolved their business relations, and Samuel bought out Jonathan's interest. Jonathan returned to the Forks where he established another woolen factory that same year. He operated that factory until his death in 1830.

After the fire, Samuel (2) immediately turned his attention to building an even larger, 3-story woolen factory on Muncy Creek, this time of brick. The Muncy Mills consisted of a corn, plaster and sawmill as well as the cloth factory. He was engaged in that operation from about 1827 until 1840.

Samuel suffered his most devastating loss on December 17, 1836 with the death of his wife, Mary. She had punctured her wrist with the tongue of a Jew’s harp. Although the wound itself was seemingly minor, it apparently became infected and resulted in her death.^[16]

 

Samuel Rogers
1782-1857
Photo Courtesy of Mavis Rogers

In 1841 Samuel (2) moved to Hightown in Union County, Pennsylvania where he managed and operated the White Deer Woolen Mills for about five years.^[17] A news clipping, dated September 27, 1845 from an unidentified newspaper, notes “a fire at Samuel Rogers woolen factory at the mouth of White Deer Creek totally consumed the factory. The machinery was insured by Lycoming County Mutual in the amount of $1800.” I can find no other record of this second fire, but the account in the newspaper is most likely correct and would account for Samuel (2)’s move to Brier Creek, Columbia County, Pennsylvania in 1846. There he leased a woolen mill with his sons, Richard G. and Jeremiah A., and continued the business for another eight years until his retirement in 1854. He returned to his farm at Carpenter’s Run in Muncy Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania where he owned 1800 acres of timberland on Bear Creek. At the east and south branch junction of this creek, Samuel’s sons, Richard and Jeremiah, built a woolen mill in 1854. Richard’s sons, George, Samuel and Judson, continued that business through another generation of woolen mill workers.

Although most of the literature review about Samuel (2) deals with his woolen mill endeavors, there are also references that give us clues about his other interests and his personality. Several sources refer to him as a highly esteemed citizen. It was also noted that he was a close observer, thoughtful, kind-hearted, and possessed good judgment.^[18] He had a massive frame, but it was his social abilities that commanded respect and attention. He was the originator and one of the first directors of the Lycoming Mutual Fire Insurance Company, an institution organized in 1840. In a few years it had developed into one of the foremost mutual fire insurance companies in the whole country. After Samuel’s personal experience with fire loss, it is hardly surprising that he would be the director of a fire insurance company.

Generation 8: Jeremiah Rogers and Martha Bennett

 

Jeremiah “Jerry” Akroyd Rogers, was born May 4, 1849 at Muncy, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. Jeremiah was known by his nickname and will be referred to as Jerry in this narrative. His childhood years were spent with his family in Columbia, Juneau and Vernon Counties in southwestern Wisconsin. This was during the same time frame as Solomon and Lydia Bennett lived in Iowa County, Wisconsin also in southwestern Wisconsin. Although Iowa County does not border any of the counties where the Rogers lived, the geographic barrier apparently was not a huge obstacle to the romance between Jerry Rogers and Martha Bennett, daughter of Solomon and Lydia Thurber Bennett. The Rogers and Bennett families were related, and Jerry and Martha were third cousins. They married October 10, 1875 at Red Mount, Vernon County, Wisconsin. (Solomon Bennett’s ancestry is the subject of chapter 5, and Lydia Thurber’s ancestry is the subject of chapter 6.)

 

Jerry and Martha were parents of James born 1876 , George born 1877, and William born 1879 all in Wisconsin; Jeremiah, Jr. (Jay) born 1884 in Iowa; and Edna (this writer’s paternal grandmother) born 1888 and Paul born 1893 in Dakota Territory. Paul died in infancy. The biographies of the Rogers will, for the most part, end with the generation of Jerry and Martha.  The story of their son, Jay, will be the exception because his life lends insight into the history of the life and times of hardy pioneers of the South Dakota homestead era. The biography for their daughter, Edna Rogers, who married Earl Peterson, will be taken up in A Legacy of Courage, a book still in progress as of this writing.

 

Since Jerry was a lumberjack, the family almost always lived near a river. Their first three children were born in Wisconsin. In 1880 or 1881 Jerry moved the family to Panora, Guthrie County, Iowa on the Middle Raccoon River. By 1885 the family was living in Charles Mix County, Dakota Territory. That territorial census for enumeration district 127 lists the family as Jeremiah Rogers age 36, Martha 37, James 9, George 7, William 5, and Jerry Jr. age 1.

 

On April 2, 1885 Jerry formally applied for a homestead at the Mitchell Land Office for 160 acres at a cost of $1.25 per acre in Brule County, Dakota Territory.^[6] Witnesses to the application were Fred Jones, David Miller, Charles C. Sower (spelling questionable), and John H. Richardson all of Bijou Hills, Dakota Territory. Other papers in the homestead file give the occupation date of the homestead as September 25, 1885.

 

Neighbor Fred Jones notes in the “testimony of witness” form that he can see Jeremiah’s house from his own house, and that he sees Jeremiah an average of once a month.  In answer to the statement, “Explain how you know he has resided there,” Fred Jones writes, “I see them there and seeing is believing.” Another neighbor, Charles Lowe, who also completed the “testimony of witness” form noted, “I see claimant perhaps an average of three times a week. He comes to the post office at Bijou Hills for his mail, and my house is about 1/4 miles from the post office. I also see him haul wood past my house. Sometimes I pass his house and see him at work on his farm.”

 

Jerry’s “testimony of claimant” form confirms that the family had lived in Guthrie County, Iowa before their move to Dakota Territory. His family consisted of his wife and four children. The improvements on this homestead were listed as a 20 x 30 frame house one story, shingle roof, a 14 x 24 foot cattle shed with pole sides and hay roof, a 14 x 23 stone stable with hay roof, 40 acres under cultivation and two good mules. Farm implements were a wagon, 2 plows, 2 harrows and other small articles; domestic animals were 5 horses, 2 cows, 4 yearlings, 6 hogs and 40 chickens. Furniture consisted of 2 beds, 1 stove, 1 bureau, 1 cupboard, 1 sewing machine, 8 chairs and “other articles too numerous to mention.” The crops were 20 acres of wheat, 5 acres of corn, 15 acres of flax in 1886 and 15 acres of wheat in 1887, 5 acres of flax, 10 acres of oats and 10 acres of corn. In answer to the statement, “Explain what you mean by actual continuous residence,” Jerry wrote, “I live, sleep and eat there.”

 

Jerry’s brothers, Samuel R. Rogers (4) and William G. Rogers, also homesteaded in Brule County, South Dakota.            On November 17, 1894 Jerry bought more land in Brule County, South Dakota.^[7] Whether Jerry ever lived on that land or just farmed it is unclear.

 

The Rogers had a nomadic reputation which the paper trail seems to confirm. In 1900 they lived in Clark County, South Dakota per the federal census. This was some distance from their homestead in Brule County. Jerry, James, George and William were working as day laborers according to that census.

 

By 1905 the state census shows Jerry Rogers in Charles Mix County, LaRoche Township, post office Chandler. He was working as a herder as was 21-year old Jay. The only other child still at home was Edna working as a housekeeper. In 1909 Jerry homesteaded 80 acres in Charles Mix County, Patent #98931 dated December 23, 1909.^[8] This parcel of land was on the northwest border of the county which joins Brule County opposite LaRoche Island (later renamed Colombe Island). The December 23, 1909 date appears to be the Final Proof date rather than application date on this land record so Jerry must have moved to Charles Mix County sometime before the 1905 census.

 

Oral history as preserved by several Rogers family historians adds some colorful threads to the Rogers saga. Following is an interview by Eldon “Bud” Rogers with Henry “Hank” Rogers (1916-2006).^[9]

 

On the trail to South Dakota, probably between 1884 and 1886, Jeremiah “Jerry” Rogers, Martha, his wife, and their four children were coming from Iowa to Dakota. Jerry always carried several rocks under the seat of the covered wagon in which they traveled. The purpose was to throw rocks at stray dogs that would at times harass the team of horses pulling the wagon.

 

As they were going through one small village, a couple of men who had come from the saloon and were obviously badly overly filled with alcohol, thought they would have some fun with these travelers. So each of them took hold of the two rear wheels of the wagon, and were attempting to stop the wagon. Apparently the drunks were laughing and yelling and having a real good time, they thought. But Jerry wasn’t amused so he reached down and got a good-sized rock from under his seat, reached around the side of the wagon and threw the rock at the one on his side. As luck, or maybe skill, would have it the rock found its target. It happened to be the mouth of the reveler. At that point the merry making ceased, and Jerry looked around the side of the canvas of the covered wagon to see the unhurt drunk helping pick up the other drunk’s teeth.

 

After settling in South Dakota, Jerry often would seek employment away from home. Having lived in Wisconsin in prior years, he must have been familiar with opportunities in that state. On one occasion he was in Wisconsin helping move log rafts down river, probably to a sawmill. Men would ride on the logs in order to keep them from jamming. They would use pike poles to guide the logs and help keep their balance. One of the men was a smart aleck and took his pike pole and rolled the log Jerry was riding causing Jerry to fall into the water. To make matters worse, it was winter and the water was very cold. Fortunately Jerry was able to regain his position on top of the logs rather than under them. Now, Jerry has been reported to have a short fuse, but he kept his composure until he was in a position to return the favor. The smart aleck, however, wasn’t as adept at recovery. Apparently it took Jerry’s nemesis some time to get his head above the water surface just before his air supply was totally depleted. In any event, Jerry didn’t have any further difficulties from his fellow log roller.

 

In another instance involving water, Jerry was working on a bridge construction project. The boss was on one end of the bridge and Jerry had some tool on the other end of the bridge, and the boss wanted the tool on his side. It seemed as though the boss wasn’t overly polite in requesting the tool be brought over to him. Of course, Jerry was getting a little “warm under the collar” from the boss’s verbiage, but started across to meet the boss. They met somewhere in the middle and one thing led to another and both men fell into the river. The water was ten to twelve feet deep and had a silty, gravely bottom. When they next appeared above the water’s surface, the boss’s head was rather bloody. Jerry was able to get a handful of the river bottom and apply the same to the head of the boss. Unfortunately for the boss there were a few rocks in that hand full of river bed. At that point, Jerry’s boss had lost his desire to fight. There had been a “meeting of the minds” so to speak.

 

Jerry took his son, Jay, to work on a wheat harvester. Their job was to remove the straw from the thrasher after the wheat had been separated from the heads. The amount of wheat wasn’t very great when compared to the amount of straw; consequently the removal of straw was a huge part of the operation. Jerry was working very hard. Although Jay was in his mid teens, he was not adept at doing physical work according to Hank.  Anyhow, the straw pile was getting bigger and bigger. The man running the thrashing crew was getting a little unhappy so he proceeded to call on Jerry to increase his output. The only problem, the boss used some descriptive words that Jerry was not willing to accept. Jerry with pitch fork in hand proceeded to chase the boss all around the threshing machine including under the long belt from the steam engine to the thresher all the while yelling and screaming bloody murder. Needless to say, that was the last day Jerry and Jay participated on that harvest crew, but that evening and night they walked 17 miles to another harvest crew and went to work the next morning.

 

On the subject of harvest equipment, the power to operate a thresher came from a steam engine. They were huge, cumbersome and slow moving. A fellow whose name has been lost in the oral history operated a moonshine still on the big island in the Missouri River. There was about 70 acres of farm land on that island. Staying ahead of the “revenuers” was always a challenge for a still operator. One way to eliminate smoke from the process was to not use a fire to heat the water to make steam, but to use a steam engine which was piped from the engine to his still. Smoke from a steam engine wasn’t as likely to attract attention. The steam volume, however, was too great for the capacity of the still and there was a huge explosion. The moonshiner was injured but lived.

 

The story is told that there was a “still hog” living at this particular island still house. It was the hog’s job to eliminate the waste material (the mash). Of course, there was enough alcohol left in the mash so that hog would eat until he passed out. After a few hours the hog would regain consciousness, go back to the feeding trough, eat his fill, pass out and continue this routine ad infinitum.

 

Jerry was likened to a “river rat,” living near the water and at one time on the “big” island. The Missouri River flooded while Jerry lived on the island. He dug his home into the side of a bank on the highest point of the island, and lived like the cave dwellers of old. He was safe from the rushing waters but not from a passing dead cow that he caught in the rushing flood waters. From the dead cow Jerry caught anthrax which in those days was certain death. Jerry was a mighty tough hombre and even survived anthrax.

 

He rarely dressed warmly in the winter. His usual attire consisted of a vest which he held together with a large horse blanket type safety pin even though the vest had buttons and button holes.^[10]

 

Hank said his granddad often found things. At a 4^th of July party at the Snake Creek Ferry in about 1921, Jerry offered Hank a vest that smelled like camp fire smoke and Hank turned it down. At the same time he offered Hank’s brother, Clease, an old WWI flat brim campaign hat which Clease also refused. Jerry ranted at the boys for being ungrateful. Hank recalls that the articles smelled like smoke because of Jerry’s dugout home which was heated somewhat like a tepee. He was also suspicious of how Jerry may have obtained the loot.

 

Jerry Rogers died July 10, 1929 from chronic nephritis (kidney disease). He is buried in the Rogers family plot in Union Cemetery, Bijou Hills, South Dakota with his wife, Martha Bennett Rogers, who died of cancer on October 16, 1922. Martha Bennett Rogers’ ancestry–Bennett and Thurber–continues in chapters 5 and 6 respectively.

 

 

Jerry Rogers (1849-1929)

George, Jim & Jay Rogers - c. 1887

                                                                                                                                                     

Generation 9: Jeremiah “Jay” Rogers , Jr. and Bessie Cummings

 

Jeremiah Rogers, Jr., as far as any of the living relatives know, was known as “Jay” and will be so referenced in this biography. Jay married Bessie Leona Cummings on May 1, 1911 at Bijou Hills, South Dakota. Jay and Bessie were the parents of Ferne born 1912, Vernon born 1915, Helen born 1917, Ruby born 1919, twins Dorothy and Doris born 1921, Phyllis born 1924 and Evelyn born 1925. All of the children, as of this writing, are deceased except Helen who lives in Pierre, South Dakota and Phyllis who lives in Texas.              

 

Just three months after the death of his father, Jay lost his wife, Bessie, who died on October 31, 1929 at Snake Creek. Her death left Jay with eight children to raise, the youngest only four years old. Jay did not remarry. He did not “farm out” the children. He did not have emotional support from a widower’s grief group or Parents Without Partners. His children probably had to grow up very fast, and the older ones cared for the younger ones.

 

Jay played an historical role in early Missouri River navigation as the owner and pilot of a ferry which crossed the Missouri River linking the east bank of Charles Mix County with the west bank of Gregory County. There were no bridges across the river at that time. The first known ferry on the Missouri River in this area was a rope pull ferry located at Ft. Randall in Charles Mix County. A cable was anchored on each bank and the cable ran through rings on the side of the ferry. The boat was pulled, oared and pushed across the river.^[11] That first boat was sold to a Donald Slate who put a tread power on the ferry that was powered by horses. In 1898 a gas powered sternwheeler, “The Nellie L,” replaced the tread power boat at that crossing. 

 

The Snake Creek ferry crossing was on the east side of today’s Platte/Winner bridge between Charles Mix County on the east bank and Gregory County on the west bank. Jay Roger’s involvement with that ferry crossing is noted below in his own words with editorial comments in parentheses:

 

The first ferry at Snake Creek was owned by Guy Federli when Gregory County was opened up to homesteaders (1901 per Jack Broome). Guy went down and bought a ferry in the city of Vermillion (the boat was called the “City of Platte”). He knew there would be a rush of land seekers for homesteads when the time came. Guy Federli ran the boat through the land seekers rush that year or maybe two. Guy sold the boat to a man named Drake who had come up the river on the old snag boat, “Mandan.” He ran it one year; another guy bought it but only ran it for a short time. He sold the ferry to Alfred Johnson and Jacob Hammer. The old boat became pretty old and was about to sink. Alfred and “Jake” had to build a new “City of Platte” which I ran for seven years. When Alfred had his ranch sale, he said if I would do the crossing for the sale, he would give me his share. This is how I came to own “The City of Platte.” In 1918-1919 I sold out to Eldon McMullen and his father. Eldon and I became partners. We built a new boat in 1920-1921. It was christened the “Snake Creek Ferry.”

 

Local Gregory County educator and historian, Jack Broome, provides a bit more family history related to the Snake Creek ferry crossing:

 

Rogers Ferry, Snake Creek Crossing, Missouri River, Charles Mix County, SD (Photo from scrapbook of Ferne Rogers Roggow)

Mrs. Allie Trewartha and son, Orrie, built the Snake Creek store at the crossing in 1910. (Allie was Alma Ann Bennett Trewartha, a sister of Martha Bennett, and an aunt to Jay Rogers.) The store also provided travelers with lodging and a barn. Jay Rogers and Eldon “Squire” McMullen were pilots of the boat, but assistants included George Gordon, George Harding, George and Ewald Roggow. The ferry crossing fare was $1.25 plus 25 cents for an auto. Business was brisk, especially on weekends, with many fishermen on the west side of the river heading to Red Lake.

 

In 1921 McMullen bought out Jay Rogers and continued navigation of the ferry until 1931. George and Ewald Roggow piloted the ferry until ‘34 along with Wilbur “Boom” Slagel and Paul Rogers (nephew of Jay Rogers). Paul Rogers was the last pilot of the ferry which was sold at the McMullen farm sale.^[12]

 

Paul’s son, Eldon “Bud” Rogers, adds that his father had been the youngest person to receive a river captain’s license at the time.

 

Jay’s daughter, Ferne Rogers Roggow, penned her rendition of the family history on September 26, 1975:

 

My father, Jay Rogers, was born to Jerry and Martha Rogers, January 1, 1884 in Panora, Guthrie County, Iowa. Their family consisted of George, Jim, William, Jay and Edna. Jim and Will passed away years ago. Edna Rogers Peterson is 86 years old and in very poor health. She lives in Ridgefield, Washington. Jay is 91 years old and in fair health. He lives at Pierre, South Dakota with his daughter, Mrs. Helen Byrum.

 

Jay Rogers and Bessie Cummings were married May 1, 1911 at Bijou Hills and lived there the first years of their married life. Jay and his dad, Jerry Rogers, bought a threshing machine together and threshed grain a couple of years around Geddes, South Dakota.

 

Our mother passed away on October 30, 1929 (sic October 31) leaving Dad to raise eight children and he did. He kept us all together; went through the dirty 30's. He fished and sold fish, trapped animals, sawed lumber, cut wood and worked for different ones to make a living.

 

Back in 1914 he took over the Snake Creek ferry and ran it 7 years, built a new one and he and Eldon McMullen worked together. In 1921 or 1922 he sold out to McMullen and moved to a farm we called the “Turgeon Place.” Now they call it the Rogers Draw. We lived there two years and moved to Iona on the ice in January and went into partnership with George Tagtow to run that ferry boat called the Phyllis-Lorraine. We lived right on the river by the ferry landing. We lived there one year and moved back to the farm at Platte, or Turgeon Place in 1925. We lived there until 1937 when we all decided to go to Oregon. During this time on the farm we never raised many good crops. We lived in a log cabin; they are warm homes.

 

In 1937 Dad had a sale and sold out, bought an International truck and put a cover over it, and we all went to Oregon. The girls and Dad picked berries during the summer, also hops. In August they all came back to South Dakota.

 

After Dad got back to South Dakota, he and the girls cut wood and sold it. He was offered a good job cutting lumber north of Iona for George Hammerbeck. Was there for awhile, went on up to Oacoma, South Dakota, and from there to Pierre. Finally settled down by Rousseau^[13] where he lives today.”

 

Another daughter, Phyllis Rogers Grimshaw, wrote a short autobiography in November 1999 of her growing up years in Rogers Draw along the Missouri River. Excerpts from her story follow:

I don’t hardly remember my mother–she died in October 1929, I was five. My Dad raised us girls.

We had a good life in the old draw, lived in a house partly made of logs and partly boards with tar paper on the outside. We all learned to milk cows and ride horses and drive a team of horses. Hauled our water in barrels in a wagon pulled by a team from the Missouri River.

We had a lot of fun when we was kids. Pa made sleds for us and we would slide down hill in the winter seems like mostly in Trewartha’s pasture. We skated on the river in the winter. We swam in the river in the summer and Pa fished and sold them in Platte.

Pa also farmed with a team. We all helped in the field since we was little. We drove the team (Dolly and Bonnie) we used a drag to smooth the ground and sometimes we had to cultivate.

Pa ran a ferry boat to get cars across the river at Snake Creek, but that was before my time. We kids always was outside. We rode everything that had four feet–the horses, cows, pigs, calves, goats.

Dorothy, Evelyn and I helped Pa get wood up for winter. We would go to what we called Sabin’s timber up the river from where we lived maybe 5 miles with a team and wagon and brought the logs home on the wagon, then sawed the logs into stove size pieces. Pa made the stove out of a barrel.

Doris liked to play with dolls. Pa made those too and she liked to cut people out of an old catalog then cut out clothes to put on the people like paper dolls. She liked to stay in the house but she could drive a team or milk a cow or anything else like the rest of us.

Thomas Grimshaw, son of Phyllis Rogers Grimshaw, adds his personal memories of his Grandfather Jay:

Jay injured his knee when jumping onto or off the ferry as a young man, and he limped and suffered from chronic pain for the rest of his life as a result. He treated it with liniment, and I remember as a child that he usually smelled of liniment.  

Grandpa was able to make or repair almost anything. He used to whittle a great deal, and I still have a toy he carved–with a rectangular four-posted cage containing a round wood ball, carved in place within the cage, and with a human head on top–all carved from a single piece of wood. He used to make great slingshots for me, too!

The childhood memories of Jay’s children, who lived under conditions that we would label as deplorable today, are a tribute to the courage and tenacity of not only Jay Rogers, but of all prairie pioneers. Let’s take a short diversion to explore just one of the many prairie hardships endured by all early pioneers of the South Dakota homestead era–housing.

Prairie Housing                       

 

The humble little dirt-floor log cabin where Jay lived was actually quite “modern” for its time. Prairie housing was more typically tar paper shacks, dugouts and sod houses.  Homesteaders such as the Rogers, who lived near a river, hauled logs up from the river bottom to construct their log houses.

 

Tar paper shacks were framed with twisted planks and then covered with black tar paper. Such a crude shelter was only intended as temporary housing during mild weather months, but in reality often became a permanent dwelling place for impoverished settlers. The dugout consisted of a hole literally dug out of the side of a hill sometimes with an open roof covered with brush and sod. Often the only visible sign of a dugout was the stove pipe sticking out above the sod roof.

 

Sod was plentiful, but digging and plowing of the virgin prairie grass with its deep, tangled roots was arduous. The sod shanty, referred to as a “soddy,” nevertheless, was the most common architecture of the day. Furrows were turned over with a plow from approximately one-half acre of thick sod and then cut with a spade into blocks of three foot lengths. The blocks were stacked on top of each other with every third layer laid crosswise for stability. The roof was usually constructed of willow branches or planks and then covered with sod. Many houses were only 10 x 12 foot structures, but the more pretentious soddies were 16 x 20 feet. The sod house was fairly durable, cool in the summer and warm in the winter, but often had a leaky roof and afforded little protection against mice and other prairie vermin. It had poor lighting and ventilation and was impossible to keep clean. A sod house usually didn’t last more than six to seven years.^[14]

 

The poem to follow is a humorous tribute to all of our pioneer ancestors who endured the hardships of the soddy.

 

My little old sod shanty on my claim

 

I am looking rather seedy now while holding down my claim,

And my victuals are not always served the best

And the mice play slyly round me as I nestle down to rest

In my little old shanty on the claim.

The hinges are of leather and the windows have no glass

While the roof it lets the howling blizzard in,

And I hear the hungry coyote as he slinks up through grass

Round the little old sod shanty on my claim.

 

Yet I rather like the novelty of living in this way

Though my bill of fare is always rather tame,

But I’m happy as a clam on my land from Uncle Sam

In the little old sod shanty on my claim.

But when I left my eastern home, a bachelor so gay

To try to win my way to wealth and fame

I little thought I’d come down to burning twisted hay

In my little old sod shanty on my claim.

 

My clothes are plastered o’er with dough, I’m looking like a fright,

And everything is scattered round my room.

But I wouldn’t give the freedom that I have out in the west

For the table of the eastern man’s old home.

Still, I wish that some kindhearted girl would pity on me take

And relieve me from the dreadful mess I’m in,

The angel, how I’d bless her, if this her home she’d make

In the little old sod shanty on the claim.

Author: Annie Chamberlain

 

Jay and Bessie Cummings Rogers with children -- Helen, Vernon and Ferne -- 1917 (Photo from scrapbook of Ferne Rogers Roggow)

Although the descendants of the emigrant woolen weavers branched out into many other vocations, some of them were still weaving in one fashion or another in the 20^th century. Jay Rogers and his daughter, Ferne Rogers Roggow, and possibly the other children as well, wove fish nets traps which they used for their own fishing and marketed to other Missouri River fishermen. Ferne was also known throughout the neighborhood as a skilled seamstress and quilter.

 

I am indebted to Ferne, as the Rogers-Roggow historian, for her records and photos that have graced this chapter plus her personal encouragement through the years. She died January 13, 2000 at Burke, South Dakota and is buried with her husband Robert “Bob” Roggow at Lucas where she and Bob spent most of their married life about seven miles from their beloved Missouri River. Ferne’s father, Jay Rogers, died January 16, 1978 at Pierre, South Dakota, and is buried in the Rogers family plot at Bijou Hills Union Cemetery with his wife, Bessie Cummings Rogers.

 

 

 

Log Cabin where Jay Rogers lived for many years at Rousseau near the Missouri River (Photo from scrapbook of Ferne Rogers Roggow)

Rogers Fish Nets (Photo from scrapbook of Ferne Rogers Roggow)

 

Homestead Country of Rogers, Bennetts and Petersons in South-Central South Dakota

Still Dakota Territory During Settlement By These Ancestors