Lucinda (Luci) Benson Gibbs Rogers

In honor of Women's History Month, March, here's another of my ancestresses.

Luci (Lucinda) Benson Gibbs Rogers was born on March 28, 1818, in Union District, South Carolina.

She moved with her family (though not all of them) to northwest Louisiana (Mount Lebanon, Bienville Parish) by 1846.  Others of her family settled in Mississippi.

Somehow in the mid 1840s, she and other family members met the Rogers family which was traveling from Sevier County TN to Huntsville TX.  She met a young man, George W. Rogers, who went to war in Mexico, then came back and married her and they moved to Huntsville TX. They apparently purchased property (1844) in Huntsville before he went to Mexico in 1846 where he contracted TB. 

George W. started building this house for his wife-to-be in 1845, then went to war, came home to recuperate, and married in 1848 in Bienville Parish LA. The house probably was finished by then, and they moved to Huntsville TX.

Even though they lived in a huge home, and were noted to be among the most well-to-do in town, when Luci was ready to give birth to all her children except the first one, she went back to Bieneville Parish, LA, perhaps because her older brother was a doctor (Dr. Jasper Gibbs.)  Her first child (my g grandfather George W. Rogers) was born in 1850 in the town of Huntsville.  Her father-in-law, Micajah C. Rogers had been appointed postmaster in 1850 in Huntsville, and later would hold a high position at the prison that was formed there.  He was also a founding member of the First Baptist Church of Huntsville.

And more background - Wikepedia said:

"In the 1830s, Ruben Drake moved his family from South Carolina to what he named Mount Lebanon, the first permanent settlement in the parish [to become Bienville.] As the Drakes were devout Baptists, they established a church and school, which evolved into Mount Lebanon University, the forerunner of Louisiana College in Pineville in Rapides Parish in Central Louisiana.^[4]

"On March 14, 1848, the Louisiana State Legislature created Bienville Parish from the lower portion of Claiborne Parish."

Ruben Drake's brother had a daughter Laura Jane Drake, who married (drum roll please) Dr. Jasper Gibbs, Luci's brother.  Ruben Drake's brother died early in Mount Lebanon, LA.  I am guessing that the Gibbs and Rogers families who settled there must have been attracted by the religious and educational community formed by the Drakes.

Gibbsland LA, Bienville Parish, was a small settlement, named after Dr. Jasper Gibbs, Luci's older brother.  I finally looked up the distance between Gibbsland and Huntsville, and its around 240 miles.  When people traveled by horseback or wagons on roads that were just tracks through the woods or swamps, with fords across streams and rivers, it probably took a couple of days to get back and forth.  But  Luci chose to go back to Gibbsland for each of those 5 births, of whom 2 babies died within their first year.  She was 42 when she gave birth the last time, 

Bienville Parish Louisiana

Walker County TX (where Huntsville is)

I've mentioned elsewhere that Luci's husband, George W. Rogers, died when still in his 40s in 1864. Luci, who had married at age 30, became a widow at 45.  That meant she had to have some assistance (probably relatives) to raise her children. Her mother lived only until 1864.
 
She herself lived until she was 66, and died and was buried in Huntsville TX in 1884.  She also outlived her oldest son, William Sandford Rogers, my grandfather's father, who died in 1879.  I wonder if she ever saw my grandfather George Elmore Rogers, who was born in 1877 in a nearby community in Texas.

That really brings this woman's life into my own, that she might have held her grandson, a man who  I knew and loved when he'd grown into an old man.

Another bit of trivia that belongs to my Rogers family. The first born sons... Micajah was first born of Elijah and Katharine, George W. was first born of Micajah and Cyntha. And W. Sam was first born of George W. and Luci. Then W. Sam's first born was my grandfather, George E. Rogers.  But my father wasn't born until the 4th child of George E. So the series lasted through 4 generations anyway.

Following the civil war, the freed slaves were living on their own, and their former owners were working harder to farm their own land. Luci Rogers and four of her children were on a farm in 1870 in Bienville Parish, LA while next door were black families also farming. 

But she moved back to Huntsville, before the 1880 census. There she lived with one servant and a niece. I wonder if they were still in the huge mansion. 

It's interesting to note that her husband was reinterred in Bienville Parish LA after having originally been buried in Huntsville TX. Then she herself was buried at Oakwood Cemetery - Huntsville, TX among three of her children, her mother, and various other members of her family.

I find her gravestone interesting, with her parents cited, but not her husband. I guess since their marriage was so short, she felt more a member of her family of origin.

Sharing with Sepia Saturday this week. No idea who these females are, and I don't have a photo of Luci Rogers. However, there is one of her husband, which I'll include at the last...

George Washington Rogers