Micajah's family

Let's look at another branch of my ancestors!
The Puritans of New England have captured my attention for weeks, from where grandmother Ada Swasey Rogers hailed!

How about the rest of the early immigrants?

The Rogers, mainly came into the Virginia colony.

The Booths of my mothers family however, also arrived in New England..

Where to next?  OK, throw a pin at the map?
And there are all those little green leaves all over my Ancestry trees.  So it will be easy. Except I was looking on a rainy Memorial Day, and Ancestry must not have been able to handle all the traffic that was coming through...slow!

Micajah Clack Rogers married Cyntha Cannon Rogers.  I've posted about both of them before, but let's look at all their children today.  Background may be found HERE or Here.

They certainly had a lot of children, but many died in childhood.

Micajah moved first to Texas from Sevierville TN by 1846 without Cyntha.  He and Cyntha had had 11 children, all born in Sevier County TN.  He brought the older children along to first Louisiana, then some continued with him to Walker County Texas.

More about Cyntha and the children was posted earlier Here. 

I just dug out boxes at the bottom of the closet, found the xerox copies of old letters saved first by my grandmother Ada Phillips Rogers, then my sister, Mary Rogers Miller. I knew there was one written by Micajah to Cyntha about how he was sending some of the younger children back to Sevierville , TN (?) because there was no school yet in Texas...a frontier if you will.  But alas, it has been lost in all the traveling around either by the letters themselves, or myself, a wandering Rogers.    And now that I think about it, perhaps Cyntha was in Louisiana by that time, and the schools that were set up by then were the attraction.

Micajah's oldest son married and lived in Bieneville Parish, Louisiana, the Gibbs family of South Carolina had 2 adults who married into Rogers family.

So who would have been the youngsters who might have still needed education? (And you can read from Micajah's letters that he was certainly well educated himself...though his father, Rev. Elijah Rogers, was spoken of by his descendants as being illiterate.)

1.) George Washington Rogers, (1820-1864) married Luci (Lucinda Benson) Gibbs in 1848, and their first son (my great grandfather William Sanford Rogers) was born in Walker County TX in 1850.

2nd son: William Lawrence Rogers (1822-1887) moved to Hamilton County TN by the time he started his family in 1844 (that's the Chattanooga area).  His 1850 census reports he is a farmer with a wife and 3 daughters, but by the 1860 census he is living by himself with a family named Powell and he was a Clerk of Court.  He died from diabetes apparently, in Knoxville in 1887.

3. Catharine Louisa, (June 1824- Oct. 1829), who only lived her 5 years in Sevier County TN.

4. Nancy Terrissa Rogers Gibbs, (1826-1856) married Thomas Gibbs in Huntsville, Walker County TX in 1847.  Thomas was the older brother of Luci who married George Rogers. He and Nancy had 2 children who lived to adulthood.  When Nancy died with the live birth of her third child in Texas, he married Mary Blake, and had 4-6 more children.

5.  Elijah Lafayette Rogers (1829-1850) moved to Texas with his father, and became the Postmaster of Huntsville, Walker County from July until Dec. when he died at age 21. His father, Micajah became Postmaster following him. Elijah didn't marry.

6. Amelia Amanda Adelia Rogers only lived 11 months, from 1831-1832.  What a lovely alliterative name!

7. Mary Narcisa Francis Rogers 1883-1858 moved to Texas by the time she was 17 for the 1850 census.  But she had a short life, and was buried in her family plot not in Walker County but in Mount Lebanon, Bienville, LA.

She is the first child that might have been considered to need to return to a place with a school.  The Mount Lebanon families also may have been starting some institutions of higher learning, as many of the church societies not only formed communities around their church, but started schools as well.

8. Cynthia Minerva Rogers (1833-1856) also moved south from Tennessee,  being in Texas for the 1850 census at age 15, but dying and being buried 6 years later in Mount Lebanon, Bieneville Parish, LA.  I think she also may have moved back to Mount Lebanon for educational purposes.

9. Next came the three infants who died very young: first poor little Henry Clay Rogers, who lived from 17 May 1838 until 4 Sept 1838.

10. Rebecca Emaline Josephine Rogers just lived from 4 July 1839 to 16 Oct 1839.

11. Guilford Cannon Harrison Rogers only lived from 1 March 1841 till 21 July 1841. 

I am so grateful that the Rogers Family Bible included all the births marriages and deaths of these ancestors in my family.