Capts. Moses Rogers b 1779 & Stevens Rogers b 1789 New London, CT
I came across this article in the Savannah Morning News: Tuesday, May 21, 1935, which my grandmother had saved among her Rogers family articles. Her grandfather was a James Rogers of Cheraw, SC, so I presume she saved it thinking he might be of her family line.This is a message from the mayor of Savannah, GA to the mayor of Cheraw, SC on the occasion of Maritime Day, because the grave of Capt. Moses Rogers, of the steamship Savannah, lies in Cheraw.While the article is too long to quote in entirety, I shall quotes parts which may be of interest to genealogists.
"It is with a great degree of pleasure that Savannah unites in spirit with Cheraw on Wednesday, May 22, in its memorial celebration at the as yet unmarked grave of Capt. Moses Rogers, in old St. David's Church yard, a celebration of the outstanding part that skilled and valorous and far-seeing seaman, more than a century ago, played in carrying the American flag across the Atlantic, on the first vessel using steam as a motive power in addition to sail in a voyage to Europe, displaying the Stars and Stripes in leading ports, winning international attention and admiration.....Savannah, with consent of proper officials of St. David's Church, wishes to later place at the head of the grave of this intrepid navigator and typical American of his period, a dogwood tree, bearing a suitably engraved plate, such as was recently sent from Savannah to New London to be planted by the grave of Stevens Rogers, cousin of Moses, and his associate in 1819 in the voyage of the steamship Savannah from this port to Liverpool, Stockholm, and St. Petersburg.........
"In far away Connecticut, from whose soil they came to Georgia, there lie the ashes of Stevens Rogers, navigator of the Savannah.A splendid memorial of marble tells to all the story of his part in that venture.On the waters of Long Island Sound he and his cousin, Moses Rogers, as boys, had their first lessons in seamanship.Capt. Moses Rogers was born at New London in 1779, his cousin was born there in 1789.From boyhood their lives were spent upon the water.In 1807 when 28 years of age, we find Moses Rogers commanding Robert Fulton's Clermont on her early voyages on the Hudson.Then there came to him another exceptional honor, for we are told he commanded in 1808 the Phoenix on her voyage from Sandy Hook to Cape May, the first voyage of a steam-propelled vessel on ocean waters.Five years later he was entrusted with command of the Eagle on her first run from New York to Baltimore.But there still remained the greatest honor that came to him; the c
ommand of the Savannah on the historic voyage that has won for him a secure place in the maritime annals of our country and the world.........Moses Rogers had faith in the enterprise.He was not only supervisor of the machinery of the vessel and her captain.He likewise was an incorporator and a stockholder in the company that financed the enterprise.We can well dwell on the point that he backed his seamanship, his courage, his faith, with his money.His cousin, Stevens, superintended the hull and the rigging as they grew to final form.Moses selected and supervised the building and installation of her boilers and engines..........It is only sad to know that as a result of the losses her owners experienced in Savannah's $5,000,000 fire of 1820, and as they had found no profits in the vessel's operations, the Savannah was sold, her engines and boilers removed, and that for some months she ran as a fast sailing packet between Savannsh and New York.In a great storm in 1822 she went ashore on the south beach of Long Island and became a wreck.
"Capt. Moses Rogers did not live to knowthe fate of the vessel over whose building he had hovered like a loving mother over a child.In 1820 he and others built a steamer to operate on the Great Pee Dee between Cheraw and Georgetown.Yellow fever claimed him as a victim and in the forty-second of his life he died.".
A later article appearing in the Atlanta Journal on Thursday, Sept. 18, 1952 goes into greater detail of the ship and its voyage to Europe. If anyone is interested you may contact me at [email protected]