The Rogers and Clarke Families

J. Harris Rogers in his workshop

Mrs. James Webb Rogers of Beall's Pleasure, Maryland, has donated a valuable array of family archives, totaling some 30 linear feet of correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, blueprints, and related items, dating between the 1850s and the 1960s, as well as some 500 books and journals. Much of the early material deals with the first James Webb Rogers (1822-1896), an energetic author, lawyer, and clergyman who during the Civil War served on the staff of General Leonidas Polk as chaplain. He later converted to Catholicism and traveled widely in Europe where his children were educated.

Besides his papers, the collection contains those of his sons: the scientist J. Harris Rogers (1850-1929) of Hyattsville, noted for his early experiments in electricity and inventor of an undersea wireless system of importance to American submarines in World War I; and James C. Rogers of Parthenon Heights, a prominent Maryland attorney. The brothers were also involved in the developing of Maryland real estate, and among their projects were Mount Rainier, Cottage City, Edmonston and Rogers Heights as well as sections of Hyattsville and Riverdale.

Much of this development work was later taken over by their brother-in-law, Phillips H. Clarke, and his children. Portions of their papers are present as well as the archives of their ancestor Rufus L. B. Clarke (1817-1910), D.C. Court of Appeals judge and a founder of the Republican Party.

Among the many correspondents in the collection are Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, poet Joaquin Miller, and writer Grace Greenwood.