Huntsville TX grave marker

 Lucinda Benson (Gibbs) Rogers Grave

James O. PeaveyWalker County Historical Commission (2018 post on FB)

------------------

Lucinda Benson (Gibbs) Rogers is buried at Oakwood Cemetery - Huntsville, TX among three of her children, her mother, and various other members of her family. She was born March 28, 1818 in Union District, South Carolina to Hiram and Sabra Ann (Wilbourn) Gibbs.

She married Col. George Washington Rogers, a Mexican War hero, on September 14, 1848 in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. His name is inscribed in the Gillaspie Monument across the street from Sam Houston's grave. They settled in Huntsville, Texas where they became one of the wealthiest couples in town. The Rogers home was built in 1845 on a magnificent hill on as many as 600 acres that Rogers had purchased from Huntsville founder, Pleasant Gray. The home was considered one of the finest homes of its day and entertained Huntsville's most prominent citizens with its magnificent ballroom. Sam Houston was a neighbor and personal friend. This home, located at what is now 1418 University Avenue, has been preserved and is the oldest surviving home in Huntsville. (Link to my photo of the Rogers home:

https://m.facebook.com/photosbytown/photos/a.801526706692314.1073741834.801036196741365/890944211083896/?type=3&source=54#)

The five acre hill that was the original site of the Rogers home was donated by the Rogers to serve as the location of the new state capital, but instead became the home of Austin College. Today, the Austin College building, built in 1851-52, is the oldest building on the Sam Houston State University campus. The Rogers raised five children: William Sandford, Laura Terrissa, Alice Luella, George Henry, and George Washington Jr. A sixth child, Jasper Gibbs, died as an infant. Col. Rogers died in 1864 in Cotton Gin, Texas, at just 44 years of age and was buried there. Two years later, his remains were re-interred near his previous home in LA. Mrs. Rogers remained in Huntsville where she passed away in 1884 at age 66.

James O. Peavey

December 1, 2017

A Facebook post

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

Lucinda Benson Gibbs Rogers

Luci was born on March 28, 1818. In Union District, South Carolina.  As my great great grandmother's birthday approaches, I looked at some previous posts about her.
Here's a good one I think.

I noticed looking at the grave sites, that she outlived not only her parents, but all but one of her siblings, and even all but 2 of her children.  She died when 65 years old.

I've never been able to find out why her middle name was Benson.  Born in South Carolina, of parents from Virginia.  Maybe a famous politician or soldier that they looked up to. Maybe a famous Reverend of their faith, the Baptists. There was a Judge Gabriel Benson who was in the War of 1812, came from VA to Greenville, Spartanburg County SC,  and then was in Perry County AL.  Lucinda's father had followed a similar journey (living in Union District SC.) But Judge Gabriel Benson wasn't related, and wasn't a great soldier, just a private.  However, maybe their paths crossed and Hiram Gibbs and his wife, Sabra Ann Wilbourn Gibbs had a reason to remember a Benson by giving their daughter his surname for her middle name. Perhaps he was asked to be a godfather (if Baptists do that).

A lot of speculation.  I looked to see if he was in the SC area when Luci was born.  He had a daughter born the same year, but was living in Alabama most of his life and at that time as well.  He had several children who died in Union Parish LA,  however, but not for many years. Luci spent many years in Mount Lebanon, Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

And why is he on my family tree over on Ancestry? Well, he's the ancestor of someone who married into the Bass family, and Bettie Bass was my grandfather Geroge Rogers' mother. Ancestry says he was the father-in-law of my 3rd great uncle!

And perhaps it was a woman's name that was given to Luci after all! Often a grandmother's name, or great grandmother's surname might be given to a daughter at birth (like I was.) But Hiram Gibb's grandmother had been a Barnett!

I'll put this question in the back of my mind, and maybe wake up in the middle of the night with another Ah-Ha moment in a few years.

And just to give a bit more history about the family...here's a quoted article about George Washington Rogers and his wife, Lucinda.  I was thinking about how Luci had had her husband's body reinterred in Mount Lebanon, LA but she herself had died and been buried in Huntsville TX.  I dare say she would roll over in her grave that she hadn't also been taken to Mount Lebanon where she more connections!

Biography of George Washington Rogers 
    (Feb. 7, 1820-Jan. 26, 1864, buried at Mount Lebanon Cemetery in Bienville 
    Parish, LA.)

LUCINDA BENSON GIBBS (1818-1884) future wife of Colonel GEORGE WASHINGTON ROGERS
(1820-1864). 

G.W. Rogers served in the War in Mexico - under Captain Gillespie; Col. John C. 
Hays: 1st Regiment Texas Rangers, Gen. Zachary Taylor. He was wounded on 
assault on Bishop's Palace, Monterrey, Mexico. His name is on the Gillespie 
Monument in Huntsville, Texas. After the battle (from war department 1846) Col.
George Washington Rogers lay wounded on battle field all night, during icy 
storm. He contracted tuberculosis. After recuperating, he returned to his home
in Gibbsland, LA. Later he married Lucinda Benson Gibbs.

George Washington Rogers and his wife, Lucinda Benson Gibbs purchased 600 acres
of land in Walker county in 1844 from Pleasant Gray and his wife, Hannah. 
(This being out of their Headright.) Mr. and Mrs. G.W. Rogers were said to be 
the wealthiest family in town and their Greek-Revival style home on University
Avenue was the finest in its heyday. The aristocracy from East Texas were 
entertained there. (G.W. Rogers was Huntsville's first Treasurer.) One feature 
was a huge ballroom that occupied the southeast wing. In later years, the 
house served as the president's mansion for the third president of Austin 
College - Rufus Bailey. The house also became the home of H.H. Smith, the 
second president of Sam Houston Normal Institute. Other owners made changes in 
the house, but it has been restored and is still standing today.

Listed in 1850 Walker County Census as a merchant, 30 years old.

Died near Cotton Gin, Freestone, Texas. (After remaining in Texas for 2 years, 
remains were moved to Mount Lebanon, La., and interred by Mt. Lebanon Masonic 
Lodge #104.) 

Interestingly enough, she doesn't have herself listed as "wife of G.W. Rogers"

Lucinda Benson Gibbs

Today is the 200th birth anniversary of this interesting ancestor...here's the post from last year, focusing on the Rogers and Gibbs homes in Huntsville TX.

Luci 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.  Somehow at that time 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.

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.  Her first child was born in the frontier 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.

I have tried to determine if Luci's mother Sabra Anne Wilbourne Gibbs was in Mount Lebanon, as part of the support for her giving birth there. In 1850 there was a female W.S. Gibbs, age 58 (Sabra Anne Wilbourne Gibbs was born in South Carolina in 1792) living with Jasper's family. However she died in 1864 in Huntsville, and I don't know who she lived with (perhaps Luci)...but there are many gaps in her life. (Sabra Ann Wilbourne Gibbs was topic of my blog Here.)

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. As the Drakes were devout Baptists, they established a church and school, which evolved into Mount Lebanon University, the forerunner of Louisiana Collegein 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.  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 another 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.   Since only 2 of those children lived past their first year, she must have needed some special care that her brother could offer, though he couldn't provide whatever these children needed to live. She was 42 when she gave birth the last time.

Bienville Parish Louisiana

Walker County TX (where Huntsville is)

Laura Drake was Dr. Jasper Gibbs first wife, with whom he had 5 children. He remarried following her death in 1855, and had another 6 children.  But any descendants of Jasper and Laura would be cousins of mine, going back to Luci and Jaspar's parents (Hiram and Sabra Gibbs) as my great times three grandparents.

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.

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.

Stagecoach Inn, Mount Lebanon, Bienville Parish, LA

Here's a bit of information about the Stagecoach Inn and Mount Lebanon...from Ancestry member Donna Sutton, posted in 2010 as follows:
Stage Coach Inn 

Description: Largest residence in the area, this two-story, five-bay, frame clapboard house has a central hall double parlor plan on both floors and a front colossal gallery. House has original interior with original staircase and simple mantels. Front balcony and simple molded pillars are original. Structure is hewn.

Significance: This building is a local landmark, being the largest house in the area and having the only colossal order gallery in the parish. Built in 1847 by Reuben Drake, one of the founders of the town. In 1869 it was purchased by Jesse Smith and is still in the hands of his descendants. The house was used as a stagecoach stop for the regular stagecoach runs between Shreveport and Monroe.  

Mount Lebanon is an old community of approximately thirty buildings which vary in age from 140 years to 3 years. They are spread out along approximately three miles of La. Rt. 154 and La. Rt. 517, two roads which converge to form the center of the community. There is no potential district in Mount Lebanon. The buildings are widely spaced amid rolling countryside, in some cases as much as a quarter mile apart.

The town of Mt. Lebanon began in 1836 when a group of prosperous farmers from Edgefield District in South Carolina settled in the area. During 1836-1837 they established homes, cleared land, opened a post office and several stores, and organized a Baptist church. There were about twelve families in the original group, and at first the settlement was known as the Carolina Colony. Many persons of these original families were related to each other directly or by marriage, and this situation made for a close-knit community with a high degree of shared values. 

The community prospered and during the 1840's, other persons were attracted to Mt. Lebanon and its nice homes, expanding trade center, strong church, and congenial society. The village eventually numbered about fifty families, most of which were from South Carolina.

In 1851 a New Orleans newspaper predicted that Mt. Lebanon would become one of the most important towns in north Louisiana. The article said the town was pretty, healthy, and pleasant. In 1860, journalist J.W. Door gave the following description of the town:

It is a delightful town of about three or four hundred inhabitants. It is famous for health, wealth, educational institutions, and good people of South Carolina stock.

The town is well built with everything to indicate wealth and refinement. One is likely to want to prolong his stay indefinitely and if spurred by inevitable necessity leaves it with regret.

Mt. Lebanon has significance in the areas of religion and education, because it was a major center of Baptist activity in north Louisiana from the 1840's through the 1860's. It was under the leadership of Reverend George W. Bains in the 1840's that this period of religious significance began. Several other churches were established in the area due to the efforts of Bains and his congregation. In 1847 the Baptists in Mt. Lebanon began to take an interest in education. In 1848, the town hosted a large meeting of Baptists from many areas of the state which resulted in the formation of the Louisiana Baptist Convention, which had as its primary goal the promotion of Baptist education. In 1853 the Convention established Mt. Lebanon University, and an associated Female College, both of which functioned successfully until the coming of the Civil War. But neither institution ever really recovered its viability after the war. The Female College burned shortly after the war and went out of existence. The university struggled along for many years, eventually becoming coeducational, before it expired in the early twentieth century. Mt. Lebanon University was one of the direct ancestors of Louisiana College in Pineville. The town enjoyed a brief return to prosperity after the war, but this economic well-being faded after 1884 when the railroad by-passed it.

MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

Cook, Philip C., "Mt. Lebanon University in Peace and War," North Louisiana Historical Association Journal, Vol. 9 (Spring 1978), 55-64.

Files of Virginia Yardley and Mt. Lebanon Historical Society concerning history of Mt. Lebanon.

Martin, F. Lestar, "Mt. Lebanon's Historic Houses: A Presentation by Louisiana Tech University’s School of Architecture," North Louisiana Historical Association Journal, Vol. 9 (Spring 1978), 115-124.