The Drs. Rogers

Samuel Wheat Rogers was born in New York in 1805. He trained
as a physician and arrived in Quincy in 1829 with his wife, Mary J. Rogers. Collins
& Perry’s History of Adams County says he was the second physician to
arrive in Adams County. Samuel and Mary had three children born in 1835, 1837,
and 1840. Only one child, daughter Isabella, lived to be an adult. Dr. Rogers
is mentioned in early newspapers for his work with Dr. Joseph Ralston of Quincy
to stem the Cholera epidemic of 1833. He is also listed in Matthew Bayne’s
census of heads of families in 1834-35 according to Quincy historian Henry
Asbury.

Some local histories say his brother Hiram Austin
Rogers, also a physician, arrived in Quincy in 1843. The Memorial Panels, which
hung in the John Wood Mansion for many years, also say Hiram arrived in 1843. However,
other records say Hiram married a local woman named Mary P. Pease in 1836 in
Quincy. An ad from 1835 in the Illinois Bounty Land Register said, “Docts.
Ralston & Roge [rs] continue the practice of their profession as usual….
Their office is on Main street, west of the public square, where they have, and
intend to keep, a general assortment of DRUGS AND MEDICINES for family use, on
as good terms as can be had in town.” Which
of the Rogers brothers ran the drug store?

The Bodley Masonic Lodge No. 1 was instituted in 1834
in Quincy. The petition to form the
lodge was signed by both Samuel and Hiram Rogers. Therein lies the conundrum.
When did Hiram arrive and which newspapers and histories are accurate?

What is not in doubt are the many contributions those
two brothers made to the community.
Samuel was a major in the 37th Regiment Illinois Militia. John
Tillson Jr.’s History of Quincy implies he was with the militia during the
Black Hawk War. He owned a building on the west side of the square and in June
1834 he became one of the trustees of the town. He practiced medicine and was
listed in the 1848 City Directory as a physician as was his brother Hiram. Samuel
was also an entrepreneur who built a brick block on the north side of the square
in 1850. He is listed in a short Quincy
Whig article on July 16, 1850, that stated, “…new buildings are going up, evincing
that improvement is the order of the day in our city, and that her march is
upward and onward.”

Samuel Rogers was a stockholder of the telegraph
company and in 1848 was elected a trustee of that organization. Their initial
goal was building a telegraph line between St. Louis and Quincy. His business
acumen did not stop there as in 1853 he was one of the organizers and
stockholders of the Quincy Gas Light and Coke company. He also served briefly
as a postmaster in Quincy succeeding his brother Hiram.

At the same time Samuel Rogers stayed active in his
profession. He owned a drug store with his brother Hiram in 1854, which was not
unusual for physicians of the time. He chaired the first meeting of the Adams
County Medical Society in 1850, served as president in 1856, and remained a
member throughout his medical career. In 1870, he told the census takers he was
a retired physician.

One of the more interesting things about Dr. Samuel Rogers
was his participation in the California gold rush in 1849. Hiram stayed in
Quincy, but Samuel left his wife and three children in early February 1849 with
the first party of Quincyans headed to California. John Wood and his two sons
were part of that party of 18 as was Samuel’s nephew George Rogers.

Gold was discovered in California 1848, and news of
that caused thousands of Americans to make the trip west. Many traveled
overland but the Wood party took the water route from Quincy to St. Louis, to
New Orleans, to Chagres in Panama. They crossed the Isthmus of Panama, and then
traveled north to San Francisco. The trip continued over mountains and on the
Sacramento River. They reached the gold fields after five months of travel.

The gold seekers wrote letters home, and these letters
appeared in Quincy newspapers almost daily. Every writer was sure to talk about
anyone they met from Illinois, so the Wood family and Dr. Rogers were
frequently mentioned. The letters also spoke of the hot weather, hard work,
expenses of the gold towns, and the small amount of gold found.

Most of that first group of gold seekers returned home
by February and March of 1850. None had made their fortune but considered it a
grand adventure. Dr. Rogers was home in time to chair the first official Adams
County Medical Society meeting on March 28, 1850. Hiram never joined the
organization.

Though Dr. Hiram Rogers continued as a physician and in
the drug store business, he became more active in the civic realm. He was appointed by President Polk (1845-1849)
to the officer of receiver of public moneys in the Quincy land office while
also serving as acting postmaster. He was elected secretary of the public meeting
to plan for a plank road to be built through the Missouri bottoms opposite
Quincy. In 1852, he served as a director of the Northern Cross Railroad company
in Quincy whose goal was to get the railroad line to extend to Quincy.

Throughout the 1850s Hiram served as a director of the
Exchange and Banking House of the Quincy Savings and Insurance Company. At the
time of his death in 1866, he was also vice president of the First National
Bank. As stated in the newspaper announcement of his death, “One by one like
the stars at night, the old pioneers of the West go out.”

Sources

Asbury, Henry.

Reminiscences of Quincy, Illinois, Containing
Historical Events, Anecdotes, Matters

Concerning Old
Settlers, and Old Times, Etc.

Quincy IL: D. Wilcox & Sons, Printers,
1882, 42.

Ancestry.com.

[database
on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com
Operations Inc, 1997.

“Death of Hiram Rogers.”

Quincy
Whig

, February 17, 1866, 3.

“Docts. Ralston & Roge.”

Illinois Bounty Land Register

, Apr. 17,
1835, 3.

. Find
A Grave.

. (Mary–Woodland)

“From John Wood & Co’s California Company

.” Quincy Whig

, August 7, 1849, 2.

The History of Adams County,
Illinois: containing A History of the County—Its Cities, Towns, etc

.
Chicago: Murray, Williamson
& Phelps, 1879.

Illinois Bounty Land Register

,
October 23, 1835, 3.

“Local Matters.”

Quincy Whig

,
July 16, 1850, 3.

“Medicine.” In

People’s History
of Quincy and Adams County, Illinois

, edited by Rev. Landry Genosky, O. F. M., 297-331. Quincy
IL: Jost & Kiefer Printing Co., 1970.

“The Physicians.” In

Quincy and
Adams County: History and Representative Men,

edited by David F. Wilcox. Chicago:
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1919.

“Plank Road Meeting.”

Quincy Whig

,
August 30, 1852, 2.

Tillson, Col John. “History of Quincy.” In Past

and Present of the City of Quincy and Adams County,

Illinois

, By William Collins and Cicero
F. Perry. Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1905

United States Census, 1850, database with images, Family Search (

Ware, Dr. J. S.

A Directory for
the City of Quincy

. Quincy IL: Printed and Published for the Compiler, 1848.