The Philadelphia Origins of the Rogers Family of Vancouver, Canada

The Philadelphia Origins of the Rogers Family of Vancouver, Canada By Mark Cherniavsky* A LMOST EXACTLY 100 YEARS AGO an abstract was prepared for jLi-the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania of the baptismal records for St. Michael’s and Zion’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Philadel¬ phia. In a very clear hand, the copyist recorded that one Joseph Rogert and his wife Hanna had their son Thomas baptized on 5 January 1766. Through a transcription error, the infant’s last name was entered in the abstract as Regert. Hence, in John T. Humphrey’s recent compilations »i this record is entered under the variants “Regert/ Rogert. In a recent review of the original record, which the Lutheran Archives Center in Philadelphia vouchsafe is in the hand of Pastor Henry Mel¬ chior Muhlenberg, both John Humphrey, compiler of the Pennsylvania Births series, and Jeffrey L. Scheib, chairman of the PGM Publications Committee, judge the last name to have been neither Rogert nor Regert, but simply Rogers, the “s” being in the Gothic script that can easily enough be mistaken for a “t.”2 On this basis the original record reads: Joseph Rogers and h. Wife Hanna Thomas born 29 Sept a pr. bapt 5 Jan Jacob Jung u fr. Juliana A modern rendering would run: “Thomas, born the previous 29 Sep¬ tember, baptized 5 January [1766]. [Father] Joseph Rogers, and his wife Hanna. [Sponsors] Jacob Jung and wife Juliana.” *Editorys Note: The author; a graduate of Oxford and Harvard universities, worked for many years at the World Bank. He would like to acknowledge the vital contribution of genealogist Vivian F. Taylor of Norristown, Pennsylvania, in researching the early Rogers generations in the Philadelphia area. The correspondence address for the author is Box 25574, Washington, DC 20007. 5 6 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine Seven years later, on 5 April 1773, the young Thomas was indentured as an apprentice weaver to Jacob Young for 13 years, 5 months, and 22 days. There can be no mistaking Thomas’ identity, as the term of the indenture would bring him precisely to his twenty-first birthday on 29 September 17S6. Moreover, another record tells us that Thomas was indentured “with consent of his father Joseph.”3 The baptismal sponsor JacobJung is, of course, none other than Jacob Young of the indenture. These are the earliest records for this particular Rogers family, one of several living in and around eighteenth-century Philadelphia. This study will look primarily at the male descent from Joseph and Hanna Rogers, a line that over four generations hung in the balance. Time and time again there was only one male with further male issue (a single side-stream from a second marriage excepted). In the Philadelphia years lasting until the 1870s, each succeeding Rogers struggled to improve his lot, while marrying into better established local families (Lawrence, Woodward and, notably, Dupuy). It was left to a great-great grandson of Joseph and Hanna, Benjamin Tingley Rogers (1865-1918) to realize the American dream, albeit in western Canada rather than in his native Pennsylvania. First Generation Joseph and Hanna Rogers The origins of Joseph and Hanna Rogers are likely to remain a mys¬ tery. We know that they had four children— Thomas, Mary, and twins Salome and Rebecca— all baptized at St. Michael’s and Zion Church 4 between 1766 and 1771. There were no sponsors listed for the twins’ baptism, but the sponsors at Mary’s baptism were Georg Gassner and Ann Marg. Klemmer. Presumably, like the Jungs, they were from the German-speaking community5; perhaps the Jungs were relatives, given Jacob Jung’s presence as Thomas grew from infant to young boy. One theory— that Joseph Rogers came from the Low Countries as a direct descendant— can be found in a Camden (New Jersey) history, where it is reported that Thomas Rodgers [MC] came to America having “fled from Flanders to escape religious persecution.”6 At best this is a garbled account, because it cannot have been the unbaptized infant Thomas who fled from persecution, at least not without his parents. Use of the term “Flanders” to describe an emigrant’s origin is unusual; today, Bruges and Ghent are at the center of this small province but, histori- Rogers Family of Vancouver 7 tally, Flanders has been more expansively defined. As in the Palatinate, the broader area lived through disturbances during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). In a recent book, John T. Humphrey points out that “baptism as practiced by the Swedish and German Lutheran churches in Pennsyl¬ vania was very open. In fact, early Pennsylvania Lutheran records con¬ tain no evidence to suggest that obstructions were raised to limit its availability.”7 It is therefore possible that neither Rogers parent had a Lutheran connection. However, given the secondary evidence of spon¬ sors with German names, the use of the same church over five years, and the reference to Flanders, this is debatable. While the name “Rogers” is distinctly Anglo-Saxon, cognates such as “Roger” are com¬ mon enough in French, German, or Dutch-speaking areas of Europe. If Joseph and/or Hanna Rogers were themselves emigrants, no land¬ ing record has been found that matches the little that is known about them. While the occasional Joseph Rogers features in Philadelphia area records during the mid to later 1700s, none can be positively associated with the father of Thomas. All that is certain is that Joseph was dead, but Hanna still living, when their daughter Mary married Thomas Hurley at Gloria Dei (Old Swedes) Lutheran Church in 1794.8 Second Generation Thomas Rogers Thomas’ indenture would have ended in September 1786, but it is questionable how long he served it out, as at the time of the 1790 Philadelphia census he is listed as a brassfounder living on Fourth Street. His induction into a trade that was strongly associated with seafaring and his marriage to Martha Lawrence on 22 April 1790 at St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church9 may have been interconnected, since Martha’s father had been a shipbuilder, sloop captain (shallopman) and holder of a letter of marque (see Lawrence and Wallace lines below), On examining Rogers’ business dealings in Philadelphia and Cam¬ den, it becomes clear that his brother-in-law, Thomas Hurley, played a major role in keeping him afloat. Rogers seems to have been rather more interested in property speculation than in forging brass, and for many years Hurley provided Rogers with the cash he needed to cover his losses, The 1785 City Directory lists Hurley as an upholsterer and 8 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine subsequently (1793) as a paperhanger. He was apparently successful in this business and by the early 1800s had become a manufacturer of his own paper hangings, with “an establishment of large size in the district of Southwark [with] colorists, printers, print cutters and designers.” At the time of his death in 1817, Hurley “owned some Fine property.”10 Between 1796 and 1816 Rogers was involved in about a dozen buy/ sell transactions in and around present-day Philadelphia and Cam¬ den. His first known deal (3 November 1796) involved “1,000 milled silver dollars” for a messuage on the “E side of 10th St. from the Dela¬ 1 ware between Spruce and Locust.”1 By 1802 Rogers had raised a $4,000 loan on this property from one Mary Bier, Thomas Hurley being a joint guarantor. Eventually, in 1807, the property was sold but the net pro¬ ceeds for Rogers were only $800 after redemption of the Bier loan.12 At much the same time Rogers was selling a property on the “E side of Delaware 2nd St. between Mulberry and Sassafras” for $4,200, barely a fraction over the $4,130 he had paid for it in 1801.13 The purchaser was one Jacob Stremback; simultaneously Stremback sold to Rogers a “plantation and tract of land” totaling 160 acres located in Waterford Township (today’s Pennsauken, New Jersey). By 1813 this property was sold to help pay off debts totaling $7,800, of which no less than $6,300 was owing to Thomas Hurley. Hurley was the successful bidder and paid $4,500, which was $500 short of the sum that Rogers had paid Strem¬ back in 1807.14 All the while Rogers is described as a brassfounder, although it would appear that he also tried his hand at farming when he acquired the Waterford Township plantation in 1807. From then on Rogers was based in Camden, his house being “on the NE corner of second and Market. [He had] a shop at the rear of his residence . . . [and] to the rear of the shop was a large pond where the boys of the neighbourhood sought catfish and eels, with which it was plentifully stocked,”15 Rogers’ financial problems continued, with the loss of some of the Market Street property to a sheriff sale in 1823 to help pay off debts owing to Thomas Wallace, who, if of the same Wallace family as his wife’s mother, would have been his uncle by marriage. Further help came from the family in 1832 when, presumably under financial pressures, Rogers sold further Camden land parcels to his son and to one of his son-in-laws.16 The Camden Mail of July 25 1838 reports that a Thomas Rogers had died on July 15 “aged 72, »17 which is consistent with a birth date of 29 September 1765. Moreover, Thomas’ only son, also named Thomas, promptly dropped the qualifier “junior” from his name, notably in an Rogers Family of Vancouver 9 important deed dated 30July 1839 in which the children of the deceased Thomas and their spouses, as well as the widowed Martha, agreed to a division of the Market Street block.18 These deeds and subsequent New Jersey population censuses, burial records, etc., suggest the following profile for Thomas’ and Martha’s children: Harriet (ca. 1792-1855), unmarried; Sarah (1795-1873), married William Sexton19; Thomas, Jr. (see below); Mary (ca. 1805-1883), mar¬ ried Samuel Lummis of Camden City Council, “a Justice of the North Ward and supporter of Whig principles”20; Catherine (ca. 1812-1897), married Solomon Gerhard; Lavinia (also Lovina), born ca. 1817, mar¬ ried William Parker; and Ann, bom about a year later, married Andrew Oakley and died in 1882. Thus Martha had six daughters and one son, excluding two infant sons (Andrew and Thomas) who were buried in 1793 and 1795 at Christ Church, Philadelphia. Thomas’ widow, Martha, remained in Camden until she died there, probably in the late 1840s.21 Camden was also home for all the daugh¬ ters and their families at that time. Only their brother Thomas remained on the other side of the river, and even he was destined to soon move out of Philadelphia and make his home at Montgomery Square. Several family members are buried in Old Camden Cemetery at Old Haddon and Mount Vernon streets. The Lawrence and Wallace Lines Martha Rogers’ maternal (Wallace) and paternal (Lawrence) lines can be briefly reconstructed. The marriage of her parents, Andrew Lawrence and Sarah Wallace, is recorded as having taken place in Burlington, NewJersey, in 1774. Therefore, Martha was probably barely fifteen when she married Thomas Rogers in 1790. It may also be in¬ ferred that Martha was the only surviving child of the marriage, as under a deed dated 19 September 1799 the interest her deceased mother would have had in a Wallace family property sale went in its entirety to Martha as her sole heir.22 Sarah Wallace’s family lineage can be traced to her father, John Wal¬ lace, and to her grandfather, Philip Wallace, who was born in 1666, came from England, and purchased land on Pennsauken Creek. Philip Wallace died on 26 February 1746; when St. Mary’s Church (Coleston, 23 there. 1751, his body was reinterred NewJersey) was completed in From the will of Philip’s son, John Wallace, it would appear that he 10 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine (John) had three sons— John, Samuel, and Thomas— and three daugh¬ ters— Sarah (Lawrence), Martha (Rush), and Mary Wallace.24 Andrew Lawrence was born “Lawrenson,” as evidenced by the will of his father, Peter Lawrenson, to which both Andrew and Sarah swore on 12 November 1782.25 Andrew was executor of the estate, the main beneficiaries of which were Andrew’s mother, his brothers Simeon and Samuel, and unnamed sisters. This Peter Lawrenson was a son of Andrew Boore alias Lawrenson, who from a deed dated 24 May 177426 can be identified as a son of Lars Larsson Boore, also known as Laurence Laurenson, Laers Laerson alias Boore, and other variants. The direct family line goes back one additional generation— to Lars Thomasson, Andrew Lawrence’s great-great grandfather, who landed at New Sweden in 1641.27 Peter Lawrenson also used the last name “Boor” and is so recorded at his marriage to Mary Hall at Gloria Dei (Old Swedes) Lutheran Church on 6 December 1775. In subsequent property deeds he is usu¬ ally described as “Peter Lawrenson alias Boor, shipright.”28 This is the trade which his son Andrew took up, apparently in association with another shallopman, Isaac Pearson, with whom Andrew shared some property in 1777.29 On 14 September 1780 Andrew, as “master and commander of the sloop called Ranger . . . mounting two carriage guns and navigated by four men” obtained a letter of marque, in effect an authority to raid ships belonging to the British crown. 0 The 1790 Philadelphia census lists Andrew Lawrence as an innkeeper on South Street; it is very unlikely that this is another person, as the forename “Andrew” with the surname “Lawrence” seems to have been unique in the Philadelphia area. Andrew died around this time but there is now no trace in the Philadelphia City Archives of the letters of administration issued in his name in 1792. In any event, when his widow died in that year and was buried at Coleston on 28 December, she was described as “Andrew Lawrence’s widow, Sarah.”31 Third Generation Thomas Rogers, Jr. According to Rogers family records,32 Thomas,Jr., was bom in 1804. As a young man he must have been trained in foundry techniques by his father, as Thomas, Jr., was to set up on his own in Philadelphia as a coal grate manufacturer. Given the contemporary revolution in iron Rogers Family of Vancouver 11 and steel manufacture, as well as the increasing importance of coal, no doubt Thomas believed that his own forge would be on a sounder footing than his father’s brass foundry. Evidently Thomas, Jr., was not satisfied by coal grate manufacture; like his father, he had a keen taste for property speculation, being involved between 1832 and 1840 in at least fourteen buy or sell trans¬ actions in and around Philadelphia.33 Presumably these speculations were unsuccessful, as by 1841 Thomas had moved to Montgomery Square, where his father-in-law, Charles Woodward, had purchased some 215 acres of land. The farm was held “in trust to Martha wife of »34 Thomas Rogers and to the children of Thomas and Martha Rogers, Thomas and Martha had been married at the Seventh Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia on 13 November 182835 and, fortunately for Thomas, Martha’s father was a prosperous city tobacco merchant. It would seem that things did not go very well in Montgomery Square, because when Charles Woodward died in 1851, there was an accumu¬ lation of debt and interest owed by Thomas and Martha which were expressly forgiven in the Woodward will. Toward the end of his life, in the early 1870s, Thomas Rogers was Postmaster at Montgomery Square.36 Thomas and Martha Rogers had six children . Martha M. (born ca. 1830) whose husband, William Harrar, worked with her brother Samuel Blythe in Louisiana (see below); Emma Matilda (1832-1921) who mar¬ ried Louis M. Teel (also known as Marshall L. Teel) and was living in Phillipsburg, NewJersey, in the 1870s; Samuel Blythe (see below); Mary A. (1837-1918), unmarried; Amanda (1839-1903) who married Rev. Harry B. Townsend, also living in Phillipsburg in the 1870s; Clara L. (born 1844) who married Joshua Bishop, a naval man who was based in Norfolk, Virginia, in the 1870s. The graves of Emma, Mary, and Amanda still stand at Montgomery Square Methodist Church beside those of their parents; the church site was originally donated by Thomas Rogers.38 Martha Rogers died in 1852, and in 1855 the widowed Thomas mar¬ ried Martha M. Carter (daughter of John Carter of Horsham Township, Pennsylvania) by whom he had two more children, Harry Montgomery (born 1858) and Anna Margaret (born 1861). Harry Rogers was living in Philadelphia in the 1880s and by 1887 had setded in Dubuque, Iowa. Anna Margaret moved to Chicago with her mother and is last in evidence in 1886 as the wife of Hamilton H. Joslin of Marshall, a town¬ ship in Calhoun County, Michigan. 12 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine Thomas Rogers died at Montgomery Square on 6 December 1877, Only part of the 215 acres acquired in 1841 was still in family ownership, and the remainder was sold a few years later when the family from the 9 second marriage moved away. The Woodward Line Charles Woodward, son of William and Mary (Hayward) Woodward, was born in England on 26 September 1772. The family had roots in Leicester, but apparently moved to Cheapside where both father and son were in the hat and hosiery business, Charles married Martha Warner at the Old Church of St. Pancras in London on 20 November 1798. Martha is said to have been the daughter of a sea captain from Lynn, presumably King’s Lynn in Norfolk. Rogers family records indicate that Charles and Martha Woodward came to America in 1801, settling in Philadelphia after having lived for a short time in New York. They had one son, Charles, born in England, then another son, Samuel, born in New York. Charles was to marry Mary Wilson and Samuel, Ann Pierce. Then four daughters followed, all born in Philadelphia; besides the eldest, Martha, there was Anne, who married Rev. W. Olmstead; Mary, who married Isaac Waterman; and Sarah, who married Ferdinand L. Wagner. Charles Woodward’s wife Martha died in 1815 and he later married his housekeeper named Louise; they had a son Gavin and two daughters whose married names were Caroline Newbold and Amanda Taber. Charles Woodward was a very active Presbyterian, and on arrival in Philadelphia lost no time in splitting off from the Second Presbyterian Church, Along with six other members, on 26 September 1804, Wood¬ ward joined in addressing a letter to the Moderator requesting authority to establish the Seventh Presbyterian.41 A successful businessman, Woodward was generous in his donations to this church and was an Elder or many years. He died in Philadelphia in 1851. Fourth Generation Samuel Blythe Rogers The Reverend Samuel Davies Blythe baptized Samuel at the Seventh Presbyterian Church on 17 July 1835, and in his honor the infant was given the middle name Blythe, which Rogers descendants have used Rogers Family of Vancouver 13 ever since.42 Nothing is known about Samuel’s schooling, but it is evi¬ dent from his business correspondence that he was a man of education. Rogers probably entered the grocery trade in his late teens, as by June 1858 he had been working “for some years” with Thomas R. Bitting, a Philadelphia wholesaler. At that point he joined forced with H. H. St. John and William McKeever to establish the wholesale grocery of St. John, Rogers and Co. (subsequently Rogers and McKeever) with which Rogers was actively associated until at least 1866. Rogers is then found writing to his brother-in-law, Henry Shelton Sanford, the American Minister in Brussels (both Rogers and Sanford were married to Dupuy sisters). His letter, quoted below, was handwritten on stationery bearing the Rogers & McKeever letterhead:43 Rogers 8c McKeever Wholesale Grocers 130 North Third St. Philadelphia Sept 20th 1866 My Dear Sir Mr Dupuy informed me that he has sent to you for your inspec¬ tion, a certain charter granting extraordinary privileges in the State of Arkansas for 99 years. My attention has been drawn to this charter & upon reflection it seems to me that if it is all right, it must be very valuable, in affording the basis for many important enterprises. I understand that large land grants have been given for Rail Road purposes & as the people of these States are seeking help, State bonds might be loaned toward the construction of Rail Roads 8c. I have some friends (men of large means) who would probably take hold of it & I may take an interest myself but before doing so, would be glad to know your views. I understand that you have had some experience in matters of the kind. Yours very truly S. B. Rogers Hon. H. S. Sanford Brussels 14 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine Sanford was from a wealthy Yankee background and had done well in diplomatic postings in Europe, notably in St. Petersburg and Paris. In 1861 President Lincoln appointed Sanford (still a youthful 38 years of age) U. S. Minister to Belgium, although Sanford continued to spend so much of his time in Paris that he was dubbed “the Minister to Belgium who lives in Paris.” There was good reason for this in that Secretary of State William Seward, who regarded Sanford as a confidant, secretly directed him to organize a surveillance and espionage network in Europe (above all in London and Paris) to give Washington the best intelligence on Confederate purchases of war materiel, and to frustrate enemy activity by all possible means.44 Sanford married Philadelphian Gertrude Dupuy at the American Embassy in Paris in 186446 and continued as Minister to Belgium until 1870. Throughout this period Sanford, who was soon to acquire the honorific “General” or “Colonel,” was also engaged in various business endeavors in the United States, notably in sugar and the development of orange groves in what was to become Sanford, Florida. Compared to Sanford, with his direct line to the rich and powerful, brother-in-law Samuel B. Rogers was small fry. It would appear that Sanford, who had had dealings in sugar as early as 1854— well before Rogers— helped him into a managerial position as President of the Co¬ lumbia Steam Sugar Refinery at 221 Vine Street, Philadelphia.46 Rogers’ partner was a Colonel Mitchell, who was to be United States Provost Marshall during the Civil War for the district of Louisiana and was most likely a connection of Sanford’s. The “men of large means” that Rogers refers to in his letter to Sanford must have been the Havemeyers, the family that was developing an iron grip on sugar refining in America. Quite possibly Rogers and McKeever were Philadelphia wholesalers for Havemeyer’s sugar. Certainly, Rogers was to be associated with the Havemeyers not only at Columbia Steam but also at two other Philadel¬ phia refineries, Keystone and Franklin, with which he was intermittently involved in the ’60s and ’70s.47 Arkansas dropped out of Rogers’ and Sanford’s view in favor of an investment in a Louisiana sugar plantation near San Gabriel called Oakley, which was purchased in 1869.48 The ups and (mainly) downs of this endeavor increasingly consumed all of Rogers’ energies as well as those of his brother-in-law, William Harrar. The venture was a disas¬ ter, a long chronicle of acute labor troubles, massive floods, bad living conditions, and, fatally, prices and yields for sugar that were far too low Rogers Family of Vancouver 15 over the years to make the plantation profitable. Rogers' voluminous correspondence with Sanford from 1869 to 1876 is characterized by monotonous pleas for more cash, to which Sanford had little choice but to accede if his investment was to be saved. It was all to no avail. In 1876 the partnership broke up acrimoniously, Sanford calculating that he had lost $75,000. Rogers did not have that money to lose, but had worked tirelessly at Oakley under terrible conditions trying to make his brother-in-law’s capital earn a return for two. Thankfully removed from Oakley, Rogers turned to the sugar busi¬ ness in New Orleans, where he became President of the Planters Sugar Refinery. He died there in 1883, aged forty-eight, of a cerebral hemor¬ rhage said to have resulted from injuries received when militant strikers threw bricks in the manager's direction.49 The widowed Clara promptly removed herself to the family summer home at Fairhaven, Massachusetts.50 At that point, the Rogers' ties with Philadelphia, already loosened by the years of living in the deep south, ended for good. By 1894 all the family’s surviving members had fol¬ lowed the money-maker of the next generation, Benjamin Tingley Rogers, to Vancouver, which by then was already home to the British Columbia Sugar Refining Company. The Dupuy Line Clara Augusta Dupuy, a daughter of John and Mary Haskins Dupuy, married Samuel Blythe Rogers at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Philadelphia on 16 April 1863, She came from a well-documented family line, counting among her direct forebears the well-known New Jersey entrepreneur, William Richards, who was Clara’s mother's ma¬ ternal grandfather,52 There was also Govert Loockermans, who had 53 1633, landed in New Amsterdam in Bartholomew Ennalls,54as well as several early Swedish settlers along the Delaware from the Cock, Helm, Rambo, and Dalbo families. In the Dupuy line itself, the first settler was the physician Dr. John Dupuy, who was born in France in 1714. A fragment of his tombstone is displayed in the All Saints Chapel of Trinity Church at Broadway and Wall streets, New York. The Dupuys became active in business and the professions over sev¬ eral generations in Philadelphia. Two of them also made their mark in nineteenth-century Europe. One was Gertrude Sanford (Clara Rogers’ 16 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine youngest sister) who, at age twenty-five, caught the attention of the famous French diarists and literary lions, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, at an 1867 dinner in Rome. April 23 - Dined at our Embassy last night and sat beside the wife of the United States Minister to Brussels, an American woman. Watching the play of this free and victorious grace, the indomitable spirit of this young race, this potential coquetry that retains the charm and domination of flirtatiousness in these young girls become spouses, and remembering meanwhile the go of cer¬ tain Americans I know in Paris, I said to myself that these men and women seemed destined to be the future conquerors of the 55 world. That young American women captivated European society— and indeed often became part of it through marriage, as in the case of the Churchills— was much remarked at the time. Another Dupuy, Maud (a niece of Gertrude and Charles) did just that, settling in Cambridge, England, after marrying George Darwin (son of Origin of Species Charles Darwin) in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1882. Lady Darwin, as she later became, is charmingly portrayed in one of the most enduring of post¬ war memoirs, Period Piecet written by her artist daughter, Gwen 5 6 Rave rat. Philosopher Bertrand Russell also gives a lively sketch of Maud Darwin in his Portraits from Memory5': Sir George Darwin was famous as a mathematical physicist. One day when I went to lunch with him I found him and another famous mathematician, Sir Robert Ball, bending over a calculating machine that wouldn’t work. After they had tinkered with it for a long time, Lady Darwin, who was American, came in and said, “All it wants is a little sewing machine oil.” And she was right. Fifth Generation Benjamin Tingley Rogers Benjamin Tingley Rogers (his forenames honored Dr. Benjamin Tingley, a Philadelphia physician) was born at 118 South 18th Street on 21 October 1865. While his elder brother, Samuel Blythe Rogers, Jr., took well to a classical education— he attended Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, for four years, then studied for the bar and Rogers Family of Vancouver 17 became a New York attorney— Ben spent only one year at Andover. Following his father’s unexpected death in 1883, he joined the Havemeyer and Elder sugar refinery in Brooklyn. Eager to develop his own business, within a few years the young man set his sights on western Canada as a promising location for a sugar refinery. Vancouver looked good not only commercially but also in the sense that a refinery in western Canada would be no threat to the Havemeyers. Indeed, as a first priority Rogers got Havemeyer backing for his plans; then, with their blessing, he presented his project to Mont¬ real’s railroad and banking grandees. Rogers was only twenty-five at the time. Within a year, in January 1891, he had B. C. Sugar up and running on the Vancouver waterfront, ready to receive its first raw sugar from Java. The following year he married Mary Isabella Angus who had been bom in Manchester, England, and came with her parents to Victoria, Vancouver Island, in 1884.58 Where did Benjamin Tingley Rogers’ passion to succeed come from? Possibly his father had had the same drive,59 but he had had no luck in the sugar business. None of B. T. Rogers’ Dupuy relatives could be described as movers and shakers. Indeed, one would have to go back several generations to William Richards to find one. If Rogers looked up to anyone, it was to the Havermeyers. Perhaps it was this combina¬ tion of nature and nurture that propelled Rogers into the front as one of Canada’s foremost businessmen, his relatively short life notwith¬ standing.60 Genealogical Summary First Generation 1. Joseph1 Rogers. No information has been found about the European background of Joseph Rogers and his wife Hanna (d. ca. 1840). It is possible that Joseph either emigrated from the Palatinate or was a Protestant from the Low Countries. Hanna’s maiden name is un¬ known. 1 No other reference has so far been found for Joseph Rogers except a record for the marriage of his daughter Mary on 16 November 1794 that describes Joseph as deceased but Hanna as still living. Known children of Joseph Rogers and Hanna ( ) Rogers: + 2. i. Thomas; b. 29 Sep. 1765; bp. 5 Jan. 1766 at St. Michael’s and Zion Lutheran Church, Philadelphia; d. 15Jul. 1838. The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine 18 3. u. 4. •* m. 5. IV, ** *ÿ Mary; b. 30 Sep. 1768, bp. 8 Feb. 1769 at St. Michael’s and Zion Lutheran Church, Philadelphia; m. Thomas Hurley, 16 Nov. 1794. Rebecca (twin); b. 6 Mar. 1771; bp. 10 Jul. 1771 at St. Michael’s and Zion Lutheran Church, Philadelphia. Salome (twin); b. 6 Mar. 1771, bp. 10 Jul. 1771 at St. Michael’s and Zion Lutheran church, Philadelphia. Second Generation 2. Thomas Rogers (Joseph1) was married on 22 Apr. 1790 to Martha Lawrence, the only child of Andrew Lawrence and Martha (Wallace) Lawrence, All of Thomas’ and Martha’s children lived in the Camden area when their father died in 1838— except Thomas,Jr,, who had a coal grate manufacturing business in Philadelphia. Known children of Thomas Rogers and Martha (Lawrence) Rogers: 6. i. Harriet62; b. ca. 1792; d. 1855; unmarried, 7. n, Andrew; d. in infancy; bur. 1793. 8. iii. Thomas, Jr.; d. in infancy; bur. 1795. 9. IV. Sarah; b. 1795; d. 1873; m. William Sexton. + 10. v. Thomas, Jr.; b. 1804. 11. vi. Mary; b. ca. 1805; d. 1883; m. Samuel Lummis. 12. vii. Catherine; b. ca. 1812; d. 1897; m. Solomon Gerhard. 13. viii. Lavinia/Lovina; b. ca. 1817; m. William Parker. 14, ix. Ann; b. ca. 1818; d. 1882; m. Andrew Oakley. *v Third Generation 10. Thomas (Thomas,Joseph1) Rogers, Jr., married (1.) Martha Wood¬ ward, daughter of Charles and Martha (Warner) Woodward, in 1828. Thomas, Jr., and Martha moved in 1841 from Philadelphia to Mont¬ gomery Square, where Martha died in 1852. In 1855 Thomas, Jr., married (2.) Martha M. Carter of Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. Known children of Thomas Rogers, Jr., and Martha (Woodward) Rogers: i. Martha M.; b. ca. 1830; m. William Harrar. 15. Rogers Family of Vancouver 16. + 17. ii. **i in. 19 Emma Matilda; b. 1832; d. 1921; m. Louis M. Teel (also known as Marshall L, Teel). Samuel Blythe; b. 1835; d. 1883. Mary A.; b. 1837; d. 1918; unmarried. Amanda; b. 1839; d. 1903; m. Rev. Harry B. Townsend. Clara L.; b. 1844; m, Joshua Bishop. 18. iv, 19. v. 20. vi. Known children of Thomas Rogers, Jr., and Martha (Carter) Rogers: 21. vii. Harry Montgomery; b. 1858. 22. viii. Anna Margaret; b. 1861. Fourth Generation 17. Samuel (Thomas,Jr.,3 Thomas,Joseph1) Blythe Rogers (1835-1883) was baptized on 17 July 1835 at Seventh Presbyterian Church, Philadel¬ phia by the Rev. Samuel Davies Blythe, whose surname became the child’s middle name. In 1862 Samuel Blythe Rogers married Clara Augusta Dupuy, daughter of John and Mary (Haskins) Dupuy. Children of Samuel Blythe Rogers and Clara (Dupuy) Rogers: 23. i. Samuel Blythe, Jr.; b. 1864, Philadelphia; d. 1893; unmarried. + 24, 25. 26. 27. 28. Benjamin Tingley; b. 1865; d. 1918. Clara; b. 1867; d, 1944; m. Leslie Wright; two daughters; one son. iv. Lawrence Thornton; b. 1868; d. 1949; m. Katherine Segleken; no issue. v. Theodore Havemeyer; b. 1873; d. 1894; unmarried. vi. Emma Louise Rogers; b. 1875; d. 1926; m. Lewis McPhillips; no issue. ii. iii. Fifth Generation 24. Benjamin (Samuel,4 Thomas,Jr.,3 Thomas,2Joseph1) Tingley Rogers was born 21 October 1865 at 117 S. 18th St., Philadelphia. In 1890 he moved to Vancouver, Canada, and founded B. C. Sugar within a year. In 1892 he married Mary Isabella Angus (1869-1965), who was born in England but had moved with her parents,James and Mary (Fairweather) Angus, to Vancouver Island in 1884. Benjamin died in 1918. The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine 20 Children of Benjamin Tingley Rogers and Mary (Angus) Rogers: i. Blythe Dupuy; b. 1893; d. 1920; m. Anne Wilson; 29. one daughter. 30. ii. Mary Angus; b. 1894; d. 1980; m. Mischel Cherniavsky; five sons, one daughter. 31. iii. Ernest Theodore; b.1897; d. 1939; m. Irene Cowan; three daughters, two sons. 32. iv, Elspeth; b. 1900; d. 1984; m. Jan Cherniavsky; one daughter; one son. 33. v. Philip Tingley; b. 1908; d. 1961; m. Jean Thomas; three sons; one daughter. 34. vi. Margaret Forrest; b. 1910; m. Reginald Clark; two sons; two daughters. Forrest; b. 1912; d. 1987; m. Gwynneth Thomas; one daughter, two sons. Currently there are about 150 descendants of these seven children, living primarily in western Canada, with others scattered elsewhere in North America or Europe. 35. vii. Notes 1. Baptism abstracts for St. Michael’s and Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, Philadelphia. Vol. 36, Collections of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1898); handwritten MS, unpaginated; see also, John T. Humphrey, Pennsylvania Births, Philadelphia County, 1644-1765 (Washington, DC, 1994), 399, (hereafter cited as Humphrey, Phila. 1644-1765) and John T. Humphrey, Pennsylvania Births, Philadelphia County, 1766-1780 (Washington, DC, 1995), 431. 2. Further examination of the original baptismal records for St. Michael’s and Zion Church might help to establish whether it was the practice to pen an entry in English where the infant was non-Lutheran or, certainly, non-German. If so, the fact that Pastor Muhlenberg used English both for the baptism of Thomas Rogers, and for his sister Mary, could be a further indication that neither parent was native to the European continent. The baptismal entry for the Rogers twins, Rebecca and Salome, appears in handwriting other than Muhlenberg’s. 3. Record of Indentures, etc., published by the Pennsylvania German Society (reprint, Baltimore, 1973), 208-9. See also, Michael Tepper, ed,, Emigrants to Penn¬ sylvania, 1641 1819 (Baltimore, 1975), 217. - Rogers Family of Vancouver 21 4. The St. Michael’s and Zion baptismal record for Mary Rogers is dated 8 February 1769» and for Salome and Rebecca Rogers, 10 July 1771. The twins are not subsequently traceable. 5. Humphrey (Phila. 2644-1765, 278) records the birth of Anna Margaret Klemer (sic) on 27 April 1749, so this could possibly be the person who was witness to the baptism of Mary Rogers in 1771. Humphrey (Ibid., 261-62) also records the birth of several children toJacob andJulianaJung, who were Thomas Rogers’ senior by only a few years and, like him, were baptized at St. Michael’s and Zion Church. The family names Jung, Gassner, and Klemmer are featured several times in the Muhlenberg journals, but not the individuals cited above; the only mention of a Rogers dates to 1779 and is in respect of one William Rogers living in Vincent Township. The “Mrs. Klemmer” to whom Muhlenberg refers in his entry for 18 July 1763 was a midwife, but clearly cannot be the same Anna Margaret Klemer who was born in 1749. See Theodore G. Tappart and John W. Doberstein, trans., TheJournals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (Philadelphia, 1942), I: 652 (entry for 18 July 1763), and III: 212 (entry for 23January 1779). 6. G. R. Prowell, History of Camden County (n.p., 1886), 595 (hereafter cited as Prowell). Prowell reports William Sexton, Jr., (see note 19 below) as saying that his mother’s father (i.e., Thomas Rogers) came from Flanders. Note that the alternative spelling of the name Rogers was commonplace. 7. John T. Humphrey, Understanding and Using Baptismal Records (Washington, DC, 1996), 29. 8. Vol. 531, Collections of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania (Philadel¬ phia, 1924), handwritten MS, unpaginated. The marriage abstract for 16 November 1794 reads: “Thomas Hurley, son of the deed. Michael and Catherine Hurley, heretofore of Ireland, thirty six, widower. Mary Rogers, d of the deed. RogersJoseph, and his relict Hanna, now of Philadelphia, twenty six. Both of Philad.” 9. This marriage was found in the microfilm copy of the original church records in the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (hereafter HSP). The abstracts of this same record at the same society do not include a record of this marriage. 10. “Memoir of the Very Rev. Michael Hurley, D.D., O.S.A.,” record of St. Augustine's Catholic Church, Philadelphia, 1801-1830, in the collections of the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. (Printed page numbers for this source are 173-75; page numbers on the HSP copy are crossed out and handwritten numbers 127-29 have been substituted.) The Hurleys were Irish Catholic, and the Rev. Michael was the son of Thomas Hurley by his marriage to his first wife, Catherine Fogarty. Thomas Hurley's children by his marriage to his second wife, Mary Rogers, included Catherine, who married Augustus Taney, a brother of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who wrote the Supreme Court’s notorious Dred Scott decision (1857). Justice Taney was also at loggerheads with President Lincoln at the start of the Civil War. 11. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Deed Book EF-6: 337; hereafter cited as Phila. Deed Book. 12. Phila. Deed Book EF-28; 589. Mary Bier (or Beere) died before the loan was redeemed. Her will, proved 10 September 1804, where she is described as the relict of Jonathan Beere, provides that “Money lent by her to Thomas Hurley and Thomas Rogers, she bequeaths to granddaughters Elizabeth and Ann Beere.” Mary Beere may have been a relative (aunt?) of Rogers or Hurley, but this relationship has not been established. 22 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine 13. Phila. Deed Book EF-20: 61, and Phila. Deed Book EF-27: 215. 14. Gloucester County, New Jersey, Deed Book L: 132 and Deed Book R: 247; hereafter cited as Gloucester Co. Deed Book. 15. Prowell, 447. 16. Gloucester Co. Deed Book Pp: 55; Gloucester Co. Deed Book F3: 106; Gloucester Co. Deed Book E3: 537. 17. The Camden Mail, 25 Jul. 1838; this newspaper record can be found at the Camden County Historical Society. 18. Camden County, New Jersey, Deed Book L: 434. 19. This William Sexton had a son, William, Jr. (see note 6 above) who was the "intelligent and able superintendent” of the Gloucester Iron Works in Camden, New Jersey, founded in 1864 (see Prowell, 595). 20. This information is taken from vital record cards held by the Camden County Historical Society. 21. The Camden section of McElroy’s Philadelphia City Directory (Philadelphia, 1846), 406, lists a Martha Rogers as residing on “Market [Street] ab 4th” in 1846. 22. Quite possibly Martha Rogers had been born out of wedlock and was older when she married Thomas Rogers. The fact that Martha’s given name was Lawrence and that she substituted for her deceased mother in a Wallace will (see original “Deed 744” at the Camden County Historical Society) seems to make it unlikely that she was anyone other than a child born of the union of Andrew Lawrence and Sarah Wallace Lawrence. Note, however, that Martha’s last child was born ca. 1817 (possibly later), so there is not a wide margin for suggesting that Martha herself was born well before 1775, 23. Woodward and Hageman, History of Burlington and Mercer Counties in New Jersey (Philadelphia, 1883), 293, The first burial at Coleston was probably that of Philip Wallace (see Historical Tours of Camden County, 1974-1976 at Camden County Historical Society); many other Wallaces were also buried there in the late 1700s and early 1800s, as detailed in T. Chalkley Matlack, Coleston Cemetery in Camden, New Jersey, (n.p., 1931-1932), TS, 12, 17-21, 25-26, 32, 35, 39, 48, 51, 56, 67, 69, 77-78, 81; call no. NJ CiE at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (hereafter cited as Matlack Abstracts). Unfortunately, most of the early tombstones at Coleston, which surrounded the church until it was destroyed by fire in 1899, are now illegible. 24. New Jersey Colonial Documents, Calendar of Wills, 1771-80, entry for John Wallace (1 April 1776). The will provides £250 for “daughter Sarah, wife of Andrew Lawrence.” 25. Philadelphia City Archives, Will Book S: 190; also accounting statement for Will 179 (1782). 26. Phila. Deed Book 1-12: 369. 27. Peter Stebbins Craig, The 1693 Census of the Swedes on the Delaware, (Winter Park, FL, 1993), 53 (entry for Boore family). 28. Philadelphia property deed dated 20 May 1761 (Deed Book 1-12: 221-22); see also Phila. Deed Book I-10: 86. 29. Phila. Deed Book D-l: 203-4. 30. Index: The Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774-78, s.v. “Lawrence, Andrew,” references three microfilm records at the National Archives, Washington, DC. The second entry merely records Lawrence as a witness to a letter of marque executed Rogers Family of Vancouver 23 on the same day as his own grant. The third entry for an Andrew Lawrence is unrelated. Note that in Pennsylvania Archives (5th ser., 1: 621) the record of Andrew’s letter of marque is partly miscopied, identifying the sloop owner as Andrew Lawrence, but the grantee of the letter of marque as “Robt Lawrence.” This is a misreading of the abbreviation “Andw” on the original document. 31. Matlack Abstracts, 34. 32. The repository for the following two privately printed family histories is the Archives, B. C. Sugar, Rogers Street, Vancouver, Canada: Mary Angus Cherniavsky, / Remember.; I Remember (1959), and Michael Kluckner, ed., M. I. Rogers, 1869-1965 (1987). The B. C. Sugar Archives also holds the 1958 business history, The Story of the B. C. Sugar Refinery. 33. Among others, see Phila. Deed Book AM-30: 105; Ibid., AM-43: 467; Ibid., AM-50: 8; Ibid., AM-67: 295; Ibid., SHF-3: 51; Ibid., SHF-5: 584, 586; Ibid., SHF-22: 695. 34. Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Deed Book 58: 533 (herafter cited as Montgomery Co. Deed Book). 35. Records at the Presbyterian Historical Society for the Seventh Presbyterian Church show that between the 1820s and 1840s the Woodward family as a whole was closely associated with this church. 36. Thomas’ son, Samuel Blythe Rogers, interceded with his brother-in-law, Henry Shelton Sanford in a letter dated 16 March 1874: “My father Thomas Rogers is P.M. at Montgomery Square Pa. and he writes me they have a petition out to remove the office. He has always been a main supporter of Grant’s. I don’t think they are likely to remove him, but if you can say a word for him without prejudice to any of your other matters, I shall be obliged.” 37. Montgomery Co. Deed Book 245: 143 (indenture dated 15 April 1878). 38. Chauncey B. Knapp, “Montgomery Square and its Traditions,” in Bulletin of the Historical Society of Montgomery County; read before the Society 25 April 1936. 39. Montgomery Co. Deed Book 314: 80 (15 June 1887); Montgomery Co. Deed Book 315: 245 (20 August 1887); Ibid., 416: 25 (19 June 1896). 40. Entry no. 935, parish registers of the Old Church of St. Pancras, London. 41. This letter can be found at the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. 42. Baptismal record book of the Seventh Presbyterian Church, in the collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. There was an unrelated James Blythe Rogers living in Philadelphia at the time, one of three distinguished scientist brothers whose mother was born Hannah Blythe (see Dictionary of American Biography [1935], s.v. “James Blythe Rogers”). 43. This letter is from the S. B. Rogers correspondence in the Henry Shelton Sanford papers (General Sanford Memorial Library, Sanford, FL), Box 59. For a detailed description of this collection, see Harriet C. Owsley, Register, Henry Shelton Sanford Papers, MS (Nashville: Tennessee State Library and Archives, I960). 44. For a full account of Sanford’s activities in Europe, see Harriet C. Owsley, “Henry Shelton Sanford and Federal Surveillance Abroad, 1861-1865,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 48 (September 1961), 211-28. 45. “Marriages in the American Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity, Paris, 1856-1910,” New York Genealogical and Biographical Record (January 1996), 9. 24 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine 46. The refinery building is now part of a small river-front apartment complex. 47. Henry Osborne Havemeyer (1847-1907) was to create the American Sugar Company (which became known as the “Sugar Trust”), an industry-wide combina¬ tion of previously competing refineries that by 1903 was reckoned the sixth largest business in the United States. Having divorced his first wife, Mary Louise Elder, Havemeyer married her niece, Louise Waldron Elder (1855-1929), and the two of them amassed the art collection now found in the nation's major museums, notably the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. See Frances Wetzenhofler, The Havemeyers-Impressionism Comes to America (New York, 1986), and Daniel Catlin, Jr.t The Sugar Business Career of Horace Havemeyer,; 1903-1956 (New York: Privately printed, 1988). No threat to the Havemeyers, S. B. Rogers was on friendly if deferential terms with the family, particularly with H. O. Havemeyer’s brother, Theodore. (Rogers gave his youngest son, born in 1873, the forenames Theodore Havemeyer.) 48. For a detailed account of the Sanford-Rogers partnership as reflected in Sanford’s correspondence archive {see note 43 above) consult Richard J, Amundson, “Oakley Plantation: A Post Civil War Venture in Louisiana Sugar,” Louisiana History 9 (Winter 1968): 21-40. 49. This story cannot be independently verified but was the account given by Rogers’ successful son, Benjamin Tingley Rogers. Possibly he needed to justify his own obsessive hostility to strikers at the sugar refinery he had established in Vancouver. 50. Fairhaven was at the time a fashionable resort largely developed by (the unrelated) Henry Huddleston Rogers, the Standard Oil magnate. Both Samuel Blythe Rogers and his widow Clara, who died in Vancouver in 1910, were buried at Fairhaven’s Riverside Cemetery, as were their sons Samuel Blythe Rogers, Jr. (1864-1893) and Theodore Havemeyer Rogers (1873-1894). Subsequently, B. T. Rogers placed a window in his parents’ memory in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, New Orleans. 51. Charles Meredith Dupuy and Herbert Dupuy, A Genealogical History of the Dupuy Family (Philadelphia, 1910). This is a well-researched work on the Dupuys and their collateral lines in America, though the authors had no grounds for claiming descent from illustrious Dupuys in France and Del Poggios in Italy. As Huguenots, the family may have had a connection with Le Puy in central France, once a center of Protestantism but now better known for its dried lentils ( Lentilles du Puy). 52. Arthur D, Pierce, Family Enterprise in Jersey Iron: the Rickards Enterprises in the Pine Barrens (Rutgers, NJ, 1964), 246. Given that two generations of Rogers had been active as metal founders, albeit on a minor scale compared with the Richards, this may explain how Samuel Blythe Rogers and Clara Augusta Dupuy met, despite their contrasting social backgrounds. 53. Annie Jump Cannon, “The Loockermans Manor House Near Dover,” Dela¬ ware History 3 (September 1948), 97-104. 54. “The Ennalls and Waggaman Families of Maryland,” William and Mary College Quarterly 2 (1893-94): 98-105. Colonial and Revolutionary Lineages, 3: 287-88 states that Bartholomew Ennalls (1643-1688) was the son of Cecilius Ennalls. See also Clement S. Henry, The Henrys of Maryland and Related Families (Vantage Press, 1982). Rogers Family of Vancouver 25 55. Lewis Galantiere, ed., The Goncourt Journals, 1851-70 (New York, 1968). The original text in French carries an additional comment by the de Goncourts about Americans: “They will become the Barbarians of civilization* devouring our Latin world much like die ancient Barbarians from North Africa." 56. With its charming illustrations by the author, Period Piece (London, 1952) has never gone out of print and is likely to remain a classic. Gwen Raverat’s maternal grandmother, Philadelphian Ellen Reynolds Dupuy, had a sister, Caroline Reynolds, who preceded her niece (Maud) to Cambridge, England. A widow of civil war veteran General Adam J. Slemmer who died in 1868, her second husband was the prominent university personality, Sir Richard Jebb. See Mary Reed Bobbin, With Dearest Love to All: The Life and Letters of Lady Jebb (London, 1960). 57. Bertrand Russell, Portraits from Memory (London, 1956), 62. 58. B. T. Rogers’ life and the development of the business is documented in John Schreiner, The Refiners: A Century of B. C. Sugar (Douglas and McIntyre, 1989). Mary Isabella Angus was a niece of R. B. Angus, who was one of the financiers backing B. T. Rogers. (Angus later became President of the Bank of Montreal and of Canadian Pacific Railways.) Both QP her paternal and maternal (Fairweather) side, Mary Isabella Angus was Scottish through and through, but unusually a number of forebears lived in Russia (her mother was born in St. Petersburg) where the Scots played an important role in the country's early industrialization, particularly before the Crimean War (1853-56). 59. Apropos of the Oakley plantation venture, Amundson comments (see note 48 above) that “Rogers' desire to get rich exceeded Sanford's." 60. B. T. Rogers died in 1918 at age fifty-two. His widow survived another fortyseven years, suffering some poignant tragedies (three of her four sons, each in turn President of B. C. Sugar, predeceased her) but enjoyed recognition for her contri¬ butions to Vancouver’s cultural life, notably its symphony orchestra, of which she was Honorary President. When she died in 1965, aged ninety-six, Mary Isabella Rogers had over sixty living descendants, of whom the author is one. 61. There is a faint suggestion in Rogers family records that the family had ancestors called Thornton, which may be the reason Lawrence Rogers (fourth generation) was given this middle name (his first name presumably recalls the Rogers’ Lawrence ancestors). If this Thornton hypothesis is correct, then the first paternal or maternal forebear whose (unmarried) family name cannot now be identified is Hanna, wife of Joseph Rogers. There is, therefore, a chance that Hanna Rogers was nee Thornton, but a birth or marriage record from either side of the Atlantic which might prove this supposition has so far not been found. 62. The name “Harriet” was highly unusual in late-eighteenth-century Philadel¬ phia, which may suggest that Thomas and Martha Rogers gave their eldest daughter this name because of a possible English or Irish connection. It would seem likely that Harriet Rogers ran a boarding house, as the Philadelphia Public Ledger (5 December 1853) carries a death notice for one Benjamin Avise of Quincy, Illinois. Relatives and friends were to gather at “the residence of Harriett (sic) Rogers, in Market St., second door above Fourth, Camden.” So far as is known, the Avise and Rogers families were unrelated.