Henry Rogers (1768 - 1825)

Born 1768 in Illogan, Cornwall, England.

Ancestors

Husband of Honour Pearce — married 1 Mar 1794 in Illogan, Cornwall, England.

Descendants

Died 25 May 1825 at about age 57 in Illogan, Cornwall, England

Biography

Henry Rogers, son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Wills) Rogers, was baptized 27 Mar. 1768 at Illogan, Cornwall, England.

Henry Rogers was the administrator of the estate of his father Samuel Rogers, who was buried 1 Dec. 1820 at Illogan (per OPC). The administration of the estate of “Samuel Rogers, yeoman” was dated 19 June 1821. Witnesses to the administration bond were Henry Rogers, James Phillips, and Matthew Rogers.^[1]

Cornish Miners

Cornish Miners

As shown in his marriage record, Henry Rogers was a miner. Here is a quote from "The Cornish Miner in America" by A.C. Todd (pp. 15-17), about what it was like to be a miner:

"The miner was the hunter; and his mine provided all the excitements of the chase as the lodes twisted and writhed and then disappeared. But the mine was also his father and mother, for his whole personal life was bound up with it as in no other industry. For some, mining was almost a religion; they really believed they were working for Providence and helping mankind; thus they referred to their earnings as 'clean money.'"

But... "For the miner life was nasty, brutish and short, with endless physical toil and often marginal poverty, eight hours a day being spent underground except mercifully on Sundays. The sun shone on them only infrequently; their complexions were wan and sallow; their bodies were stunted with crawling on their knees along the narrow galleries and in the same cramped position hammering through the granite at the rate of no more than a foot a day by the light of a single candle. No less exhausting was the effort expended in reaching the rock face. In the days before the man engine, the only means of ascent and descent was by almost vertical ladders that were always wet and slimy and often had rungs broken or missing, a method of locomotion which used up as much as one fifth of their energy.... After his long stint underground, confined within a narrow stope where the air was often fouled by the stench of human excreta, a miner's heart and lungs were never in good shape, and their gradual deterioration was a certain cause of accidents. Yet the loss of an arm or a leg might actually be welcomed since he then would be able to work at some surface job in the sunshine, whereas the alternative was a slow and cruel waiting for death sitting in front of an open window coughing and spitting his hours away, his lungs having been punctured by the granite's fine dust and further weakened by the damp Cornish air. Few constitutions could stand the strains of mining; more than half of the miners contracted silicosis; their working lives were finished before the were forty and few ever reached the age of sixty....Conditions were barely tolerable even when times were good; when they were bad the worn-out miner with heart disease dreaded the day when his only refuge would be the Workhouse.... For the most part a family's survival depended on every member working at the mine, even the young children."

Henry Rogers married Jane Pearce 1 March 1794 at Illogan: “Henry Rogers of this parish Miner and Jane Pearce of this parish Spinster were married in this church by Banns 1 March 1794.” Henry signed his name and Jane signed with a mark. Witnesses to the marriage were John Pearce and Grace Eustis; both witnesses signed their names.^[2]

Two couples named Henry and Jane Rogers

In the 1790s there were two couples living in Illogan named Henry and Jane Rogers. The Henry Rogers of this profile married Jane Pearce, while the other Henry Rogers married Jane Mill. Both couples had children baptized in Illogan, which requires sorting out the names of the two couples. Fortunately, one of the two Henry Rogers moved to Redruth, which makes it easier to sort out the later children.

(The Illogan baptisms for this period can be found in the OPC database, but the Redruth baptisms can't; they are in the IGI and also in the [Family History Society] database, as are the marriages of the two couples Henry and Jane Rogers.)

The challenge is to figure out which children are the children of which couple. Here is the list of all the children of the two couples:

Henry Rogers married Jane Pearce 7 Apr. 1794 at Illogan.

1. Samuel Rogers, bap. 21 Sept. 1794 Illogan

2. Grace, bap. 21 Aug. 1796 Illogan

Henry Rogers married Jane Mill 10 Dec. 1796 at Illogan.

3. Henry, bap. 21 May 1797 Illogan

4. Henry, bap. 8 Dec. 1798 Illogan

5. Mary, bap. 9 Dec. 1798 Illogan

6. William, bap. 9 Mar. 1800 Illogan

7. Mary, bap. 14 June 1801 Illogan

8. John, bap. 14 Aug. 1803 Redruth

9. Matthew Rogers, bap. 11 Nov. 1804 Illogan

10. Jennifer, bap. 21 Dec. 1806 Redruth

11. Thomas, bap. 9 Aug. 1807 Illogan

12. James, bap. 30 July 1809 Redruth.

13. Pearce, born 24 Feb., bap. 11 Mar. 1810 Illogan

14. Elizabeth, born 3 May, bap. 24 May 1812 Illogan

15. Elizabeth, bap. 18 Oct. 1812 Redruth

16. Philip, bap. 9 July 1814 Illogan

17. Edmund, bap. 30 July 1815 Redruth.

From an initial examination of this list, we can draw the following inferences:

1. Children #1(Samuel) and #2 (Grace) were born before Jane Mill was married, so they must be children of Jane Pearce.
2. Child #3 (Henry) was born eight months after child #2, so must be a child of Jane Mill.
3. Child #4 (Henry) has the same name as child #3 so, IF child #3 didn't die as an infant, child #4 has to be a child of Jane Pearce.
4. Child #5 (Mary) was baptized the day after child #4 so either they were twins or child #5 was a child of Jane Mill if child #4 was indeed a child of Jane Pearce.
5. Child #7 (Mary) has the same name as child #5, so either child #5 died as an infant or child#7 was the child of the opposite woman from child #5. If children #6 and #8 were indeed the sons of Jane Mill, then birth spacing makes it likely that child #7 was the daughter of Jane Pearce.
6. Child #6 (William) was given the name of Jane Mill's father-in-law.
7. Child #9 (Matthew) was given the name of the father-in-law of Jane Pearce, so assuming that child #9 was her child, then child #8 (John -- the first one baptized at Redruth) was a child of Jane Mill.
8. If child #8 (John -- baptized at Redruth) was indeed the child of Jane Mill, then children #10, 12, 15 and 17 (also baptized at Redruth) were most likely also the children of Jane Mill. This supposition is reinforced by the fact that the name of child #15 -- Edmund -- was the name of the father of Jane Mill.
9. This means that the remaining children, #9, 11, 13, 14 and 16, all baptized at Illogan, were the children of Jane Pearce. This supposition is reinforced by the fact that #9 (Matthew) was given the name of Jane Pearce's father-in-law, and #13 (Pearce) was given Jane Pearce's maiden name.

This preliminary analysis gives us the following conclusions about the mothers of the various children:

1. Samuel Rogers, bap. 21 Sept. 1794 Illogan (definitely Jane Pearce).

2. Grace, bap. 21 Aug. 1796 Illogan (definitely Jane Pearce).

3. Henry, bap. 21 May 1797 Illogan (definitely Jane Mill).

4. Henry, bap. 8 Dec. 1798 Illogan (probably Jane Pearce).

5. Mary, bap. 9 Dec. 1798 Illogan (uncertain; Mary the possible twin of #4).

6. William, bap. 9 Mar. 1800 Illogan (probably Jane Mill).

7. Mary, bap. 14 June 1801 Illogan (likely Jane Pearce).

8. John, bap. 14 Aug. 1803 Redruth (presumably Jane Mill).

9. Matthew Rogers, bap. 11 Nov. 1804 Illogan (presumably Jane Pearce).

10. Jennifer, bap. 21 Dec. 1806 Redruth (presumably Jane Mill).

11. Thomas, bap. 9 Aug. 1807 Illogan (presumably Jane Pearce).

12. James, bap. 30 July 1809 Redruth (presumbly Jane Mill).

13. Pearce, born 24 Feb., bap. 11 Mar. 1810 Illogan (almost certainly Jane Pearce).

14. Elizabeth, born 3 May, bap. 24 May 1812 Illogan (presumably Jane Pearce).

15. Elizabeth, bap. 18 Oct. 1812 Redruth (presumably Jane Mill).

16. Philip, bap. 9 July 1814 Illogan (presumably Jane Pearce).

17. Edmund, bap. 30 July 1815 Redruth (presumably Jane Mill).

Further information reinforces some of the above conclusions, as follows:

• Child #14 (Elizabeth) married Joseph Roberts and moved to Wisconsin, where her age as given on her gravestone shows that she was born in May 1812. Furthermore, Elizabeth Roberts had sons named Pearce and Philip, reinforcing the presumption that child #13 (Pearce) and child #16 (Philip) were the sons of Jane Pearce. This further reinforces the presumption that all of the children baptized at Illogan after 1801 were the children of Jane Pearce, and all of the children baptized in Redruth after 1801 were the children of Jane Mills.

• Child #4 (Henry) would have been 52 years old on March 30, 1851, when the 1851 census was taken. In Redruth in this census appears the family of Henry Rogers, age 52, born Illogan, with children including Samuel, Jane Grace, Thomas and Matthew. As seen above, Samuel, Grace, Thomas and Matthew were presumably children of Jane Pearce; and Henry's age in the 1851 census is an exact fit with child #4 (Henry). (It appears that child #3 was the Henry Rogers who was buried 30 Nov. 1828 Gwennap, where his widowed mother Jane (Mill) Rogers lived and where five of his siblings married -- see below.)

• Child #1 (Samuel), son of Jane Pearce, named sons Thomas and Matthew, reinforcing the presumption that children #9 (Matthew) and #11 (Thomas) were his brothers.

• Child #9 (Matthew) named sons Samuel and Pearce, reinforcing the supposition that he was the brother of children #1 (Samuel) and #13 (Pearce) -- sons of Jane Pearce.

• Jane Mill was born in October 1774 in Illogan, so she would have been 76 on March 30, 1851, the date of the 1851 census. Jane Rogers appears in Gwennap in the 1851 census, age 77, born at Illogan, as the head of a household including two teenage granddaughters named Kemp. Jane Rogers appears earlier in the 1841 census, living in Gwennap with daughter Elizabeth Kemp and four Kemp children. This means that Jane had a daughter Elizabeth who lived to adulthood and married a Kemp. And Indeed, Elizabeth Rogers married John Kemp 5 Nov. 1831 at Gwennap. As child #14 (Elizabeth) was the wife of Joseph Roberts, Elizabeth Kemp, daughter of Jane Mill, has to be child #15.

• As noted above, Jane Rogers and daughter Elizabeth Kemp were living in Gwennap in 1841. Both the mother and the paternal grandmother of Jane's deceased husband Henry Rogers were from Gwennap. There are records in Gwennap of the marriages of John, James, Jane, Elizabeth and Edmund Rogers -- presumably children #8, #10, #12, #15 and #17. The record for Edmund in particular states that he was of Redruth, son of Henry Rogers, deceased.

• This reinforces the earlier conclusion that children #9, #11, #13, #14 and #16 (baptized at Illogan) were children of Jane Pearce.

• As far as is known, none of the children of Jane Pearce named James or William. However, child #8 (John) named sons James and William, reinforcing the conclusion that he was the brother of child #12 (James) and child #6 (William) -- all sons of Jane Mill.

• Mary, daughter of Henry and Jane Rogers, was buried 7 Jan. 1799 at Illogan. This was evidently child #5 (Mary), raising the likelihood that child #7 (Mary) was the daughter of the same mother as child #5.

• Mary Rogers, age 22, living in the Highway neighborhood of Illogan, was buried in 1823 -- clearly child #7, who was baptized in 1801. Jane (Pearce) Rogers was living in the Highway neighborhood of Illogan in 1841, as were her eldest sons Samuel and Henry. Contrariwise, if Mary was the child of the same mother as child #6 (William), this would mean that Mary was baptized only 15 months after William, which violates the two-to-three-year birth spacing that is evident with all of the other children of both couples. The same applies to child #5 (Mary), baptized 15 months before William, leading to the conclusion that child #5 (Mary) was the twin sister of child #4 (Henry), and that both child #5 and child #7 (Mary) were daughters of Jane Pearce.

All this updates the list of children with their mothers as follows:

1. Samuel Rogers, bap. 21 Sept. 1794 Illogan (Jane Pearce).

2. Grace, bap. 21 Aug. 1796 Illogan (Jane Pearce).

3. Henry, bap. 21 May 1797 Illogan (Jane Mill).

4. Henry, bap. 8 Dec. 1798 Illogan (Jane Pearce).

5. Mary, bap. 9 Dec. 1798 Illogan (Jane Pearce).

6. William, bap. 9 Mar. 1800 Illogan (Jane Mill).

7. Mary, bap. 14 June 1801 Illogan (Jane Pearce).

8. John, bap. 14 Aug. 1803 Redruth (Jane Mill).

9. Matthew, bap. 11 Nov. 1804 Illogan (Jane Pearce).

10. Jennifer, bap. 21 Dec. 1806 Redruth (Jane Mill).

11. Thomas, bap. 9 Aug. 1807 Illogan (Jane Pearce).

12. James, bap. 30 July 1809 Redruth (Jane Mill).

13. Pearce, born 24 Feb., bap. 11 Mar. 1810 Illogan (Jane Pearce).

14. Elizabeth, born 3 May, bap. 24 May 1812 Illogan (Jane Pearce).

15. Elizabeth, bap. 18 Oct. 1812 Redruth (Jane Mill).

16. Philip, bap. 9 July 1814 Illogan (Jane Pearce).

17. Edmund, bap. 30 July 1815 Redruth (Jane Mill).

Henry and Jane had ten children baptized at Illogan between 1794 and 1814.

Henry Rogers, resident of the "Highway" area of Illogan, was buried at Illogan 25 May 1825, age 59 (per OPC). This would give a birth year of 1765 or 1766; he was baptized in 1768.

Jane Rogers appears in the 1841 census at Illogan ("Highway") as follows: Jane Rogers, 65; Grace, 40; William, 15, copper miner. In the 1841 census, everybody’s age was rounded off to the nearest “5,” so Jane was born somewhere around 1776.

Jane Rogers (resident of "Highway") was buried 12 June 1849 at Illogan, age 77. This would give a birth year of 1771 or 1772, but of course the ages of widowed parents in the burial records are often off by several years.

Details for children: See Jane (Pearce) Rogers' profile.

Sources

1. ↑ Research in Cornwall estate files by researcher Marion Walker of Illogan; results sent to John Schmeeckle.
2. ↑ Research in Cornwall estate files by researcher Marion Walker of Illogan; results sent to John Schmeeckle.

• Cornwall On-line Parish Clerk database

• IGI: The International Genealogical Index compiled by the Mormons; the separate batches of records for individual parishes in Cornwall are online at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers/CountyCornwall.htm

Acknowledgments

Thank you to John Schmeeckle for creating WikiTree profile Rogers-8331 through the import of mother_s mother.ged on Dec 3, 2013.