Dallas County, Arkansas

Page 731
Spirous ROGERS, one of the old and much esteemed citizens of the county, was originally from Tennessee, his birth occurring in Bedford County, April 10, 1816, and is the son of Henry and Sarah (JOHNSON) ROGERS, natives of North Carolina. Henry ROGERS died in Madison County, Tenn., in 1860, when seventy-five years of age, and his widow died in Dallas County, Ark., in 1867, when not less than one hundred fifteen years of age, he being the younger by many years. They were married in North Carolina, but moved to Middle Tennessee, and thence to Madison County, where the father died. The mother then came to live with her son, Spirous, and passed her declining years in his home. She was a very bright, intelligent woman, and could tell all about her childhood days, but remembered little or nothing of what happened in later years. She was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church for ninety years or more, could remember the Revolutionary War, and that her father, Jonathan Johnson, participated in it, and remembered all the first Presidents, etc. She was the mother of eleven children, but only one now living, besides our subject, who was the tenth in order of birth. The latter was reared to an early knowledge of the farm, and received his education in Madison County, where he remained until twenty-one years of age. He then started out as an agriculturist, and this has continued ever since, first in Hardeman County, Tenn., and finally in Arkansas, whither he moved as early as 1845. In 1848 he moved to Dallas County, and settled on his present farm, which was then in the woods. He is now the owner of 500 acres of land, and has 100 acres prepared for cultivation, etc. In 1837 he married Miss Elizabeth F. CASEY, of Hardeman County, Tenn., who was born in 1817, and who died in Dallas County, Ark., in 1875. Seven children were born to this marriage, three sons and two daughters now living. In March, 1877, Mr. ROGERS married Miss Mary PORTERFIELD, a native of Tennessee, who bore him three children—two daughters and a son. During the late war Mr. ROGERS served in Flippin’s regiment, Confederate army, and served as lieutenant and first orderly. While in Tennessee he was lieutenant of militia. He has served eighteen years as constable, and it is hardly necessary to ad that he filled that position in a highly credible manner. He is a Democrat in politics, is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and he and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Sampson ROGERS, brother of our subject, is now over one hundred years of age, but looks as young as a great many men who are fifty or sixty years of age. He is a farmer.