Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/335

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
ROGERS
ROGERS

to visit a relative in another part of the city. She requested her accepted suitor, who boarded with her mother, to come for her in the evening; but, as it rained, he concluded that she would remain over night, and did not call for her. The next day she failed to return, and it was ascertained that she had not visit t-d her relative. Four days later her body was found floating in Hudson river, near Weehawken, with marks that showed beyond doubt that she had been murdered. Every effort was made to determine by whom she had been killed, but without success. A few weeks later, in a thicket on the New Jersey shore, part of her clothing was found, with every evidence that a desperate struggle had taken place there ; but these appear- ances were believed, on close inspection, to have been arranged to give it that aspect. Subsequent ly it was shown that she had been in the habit of meeting a young naval officer secretly, and it was alleged that she was in his company at the time of her first disappearance. He was able to account for his whereabouts from the time of her leaving home until the finding of her body, and the murder would have been forgotten had not Edgar Allan Poe revived the incident of the crime in his " Mys- tery of Marie Roget." With remarkable skill he analyzed the evidence, and showed almost conclu- sively that the murder had been accomplished by one familiar with the sea, who had dragged her body to the water and there deposited it. Many persons were suspected of the crime, and, among others, John Anderson, whose last years, he claimed, were haunted by her spirit.


ROGERS, Nathaniel, clergyman, b. in Haverhill, England, in 1598 ; d. in Ipswich, Mass., 3 July, 1655. He was the son of the Rev. John Rogers, of Dedham, who has been supposed, but on insufficient evidence, to have been a grandson of John the mar- tyr, was educated at Cambridge, and preached in flocking, Essex, and Assington, Suffolk. Through the influence of Thomas Hooker he came to Massa- chusetts, 16 Nov., 1636. In 1637 he was a member of the synod that met in Cambridge to settle the Antinomian controversy. He was invited to Dor- chester, but found his followers could not be accom- modated there, and went to Ipswich, where he was ordained on 20 Feb., 1638, with Rev. John Norton as colleague, serving until his death. Cotton Mather said that Mr. Rogers "might be compared with the very best of the true ministers which made the best days of New England," and his son-in-law, Thomas Hubbard, said " he had eminent learning, singular piety, and zeal." He published a letter on the " Cause of God's Wrath against the Nation " (Lon- don, 1644), and left in manuscript a vindication in Latin of the Congregational form of church gov- ernment, of which Cotton Mather has preserved a considerable extract. His son, John, clergyman, b. in Coggeshall, England, in January, 1631 ; d. in Cambridge, Mass., 2 July, 1684, came with his father to New England, was graduated at Harvard in 1649, and studied both medicine and theology. He first preached in Ipswich in 1656, and subse- quently shared the duties of the ministry there. From 1682 till 1684 he was president of Harvard. The provincial records say that in December, 1705, the legislature ordered two pamphlets, that were sent them by John Rogers and his son John, to be burned by the hangman in Boston. These prob- ably expressed disapproval of the opposition of the legislature in regard to the governor's salary.


ROGERS, Nathaniel, artist, b. in Bridge- hampton, L. I., in 1788 ; d. 6 Dec., 1844. He was apprenticed to a ship-carpenter when he was a boy, but, having been disqualified by an accident for such a trade, turned his attention to art, for which he had always had a predilection. After painting by himself for some time, he went to New York in 1811 and became a pupil of Joseph Wood. Not long afterward he opened a studio for himself, and soon took high rank as a painter of miniatures. Among these were admirable por- traits of the friends and literary partners, Fitz- Greene Halleck and Joseph Rodman Drake. His professional life was spent principally in New York, and he was one of the founders of the National academy in that city.


ROGERS, Nathaniel Feabody, editor, b. in Portsmouth, N. II.. 3 June, 1794: d. in Concord, N. H., 16 Oct., 1846. He was graduated at Dart- mouth in 1816, and practised law until 1838, when he established in Concord, N. H., the "Herald of Freedom," a pioneer anti-slavery newspaper. He also wrote for the New York " Tribune " under the signature of " The Old Man of the Mountain." His fugitive writings were published, with a memoir, by the Rev. John Pierpont (Concord, 1847).


ROGERS, Randolph, sculptor, b. in Waterloo, N. Y., 6 July, 1825 ; d. in Rome, 15 Jan., 1892. Un- til twenty-three he was engaged in mercantile pur- suits in Ann Arbor, Mich., and in New York city. He then went to Italy and studied with Lorenzo Bartolini. at Rome, from 1848 till 1850. On his return he opened a studio in New York, where he remained until 1855. In that year he returned to Italy, where he had resided since that time. Among his earlier works are " Ruth," an ideal bust (1851) ; ' Nydia " (1856) ; " Boy Skating," " Isaac," full- length, and the statue of John Adams, in Mt. Auburn cemetery (1857). One of his best-known works, the bas-reliefs on the doors of the capitol at Washington, representing scenes in the life of Columbus, was designed in 1858, and cast in bronze at Munich. In 1861 he completed the Washington monument at Richmond, which had been left un- finished by Thomas Crawford, adding the statues of Marshall, Mason, and Nelson, for which Craw- ford had made no design, as well as some allegori- cal figures. His other works include " Angel of the Resurrection," on the monument of Col. Samuel Colt, Hartford, Conn. (1861-'2) ; " Isaac," an ideal bust (1865); mumorial monuments for Cincinnati (1863-'4), Providence (1871), Detroit (1872), and Worcester, Mass. (1874); "Lost Pleiad" (1875); " Genius of Connecticut," on the capitol at Hart- ford (1877) ; and an equestrian group of Indians, in bronze (1881). He hadalso executed portrait statin^ of Abraham Lincoln, for Philadelphia (1871), and William H. Seward, for New York (1876).


ROGERS, Robert, soldier, b. in Londonderry, N. H., in 1727; d. in England about 1800. He entered the military service during the old French war, for which he raised and commanded " Rogers's rangers," a company that acquired reputation for activity, particularly in the region of Lake George. His name is perpetuated there by the precipice that is known as " Rogers's slide," near which he escaped from the Indians, who, believing that he had slid down the steep defile of the mountain under the protection of the Great Spirit, made no attempt at further pursuit. On 13 March, 1758, with 170 men, he fought 100 French and 600 In- dians, and, after losing 100 men and killing 150, he retreated. In 1759 he was sent by Sir Jeffrey Amherst from Crown Point to destroy the Indian village of St. Francis near St. Lawrence river, which service he performed, killing 200 Indians, and in 1760 he was ordered by Amherst to take possession of Detroit and other western posts that were ceded by the French after the fall of Quebec. Ascending