Mary Elizabeth Rogers ^{1 2}

   Other names for Mary were Betsy Rogers, Elizabeth Rogers and Polly Rogers.

  Research Notes:

Polly Rogers is given in the following source as the wife of Rev. Mackinaw Boachman [see below], who was a daughter of Lewis Rogers Blackfish. Although there has been a mixup of the family history of Lewis Rogers and Henry Rogers, both white adoptees of Chief Black Fish, my research confirms that Mrs. Julia Ann Beauchmie Stinson was the granddaughter of Lewis Rogers & Parlie Blackfish through her mother, Mary Elizabeth Rogers. Rev. Mackinaw Beauchmie, father of Julia Ann Beauchmie Stinson, is mentioned toward the end of the account below, in addition to Mrs. Stinson's cousin Graham Rogers [Jr.], who was most likely the son of Mary Elizabeth's brother, Graham Rogers.

The following story about Lewis "Chinwa" Rogers refers to Blackfish's "only son" as the one who was killed, but since it is a story passed down through a couple of generations, that is most likely an error in the retelling or in Rev. Spencer's reporting.

From Find A Grave memorial # 19252252 - Lewis Chinwa Rogers (1764-1830), provided by Emily Benefield:

When Lewis Chinwa Rogers was born in 1764 in Virginia, his father, Benjamin, was 16 and his mother, Jane, was 16. He had four sons and four daughters with Parlie Chalakatha. He died in 1830 in Fayette, Missouri, at the age of 66.

Our Rogers family of Larkin Rogers his brother had been told this story for many years down through multiple lines of the family that settled in different places in Texas. With DNA we now know this is our relative. Specifically we match descendants of the [Thomas Nesbit] Stinson line. Lewis Rogers was named in his father's will in 1808. There has been speculation but so far I have seen no proof that when Lewis Rogers was stolen by Chief Blackfish he stole Lewis's brother Henry. There may have been a Henry Rogers stolen by Chief Blackfish but I do not believe it was a brother.

Below is a story told by Lewis [Henry?] Rogers' grand daughter ["Mrs. Stinson"].

CHIEF BLACKFISH AND HIS WHITE CAPTIVE.
BY REV. [Joab] SPENCER.

Late in the eighteenth century Blackfish, a Shawnee chief then living in Kentucky, lost his only son in a fight with the whites. To make up the loss, as far as possible, he ordered two of his braves, according to history, to capture a white boy to take the place of his dead son. We give the story that follows as told by Mrs. Stinson, a granddaughter of the stolen boy, in her own artless way:

"When the boy was brought to the chief, Blackfish showed the boy the arrows and other things that had belonged to his son, the lost Indian boy, and the father told him that these were his. He was to be brought up as a brave chief, as his own little boy [Chinwa] would have been. So my grandfather lived and grew up with the Indians. But he was always called by the name of Lewis Rogers.

"In course of time this Rogers married the chief's daughter, with whom he had been brought up as brother and sister. When the young man proposed to marry the girl, she still thought he was her own brother, and she felt insulted and told her mother of the strange talk of her brother. Her mother sent her to her father, who told her how it was and how the conduct of her brother was all right; that the young man was not her brother, and he advised her to marry him. She said she could not. She loved him as her brother, but could do no more than this. But her father persuaded her that she ought to marry the young man. She said she could not then consent; she must take time to think about it. So after a year she consented, and they were married.

"Rogers had three children by the chief's daughter. Then his brothers came to him from Virginia. They told him that his mother wanted him to return to her; that she was old and wanted to see her lost son before she died. So he went with his brothers to visit his mother. He was received with great rejoicing. A great many guests were invited to a grand celebration. He was treated with the utmost kindness and had given him everything for his enjoyment. They asked him to lay aside his Indian garb and again to take up his home with his kindred. His mother, who treated him with all the endearment of affection, told him that he must never go back to the Indian country. But he continued to wear his Indian garments, and could not be induced to discard them. He told them he was an Indian now; he had become a son of the chief; he was married to the chief's daughter, whom he loved; and he had three little boys, whom he loved with all the affection of human nature. 'Mother, I came just to visit you because I love you, and have not lost my affection for my brothers. But I have come just on a visit. My wife and children, whom I love more than all else; are still in the forest awaiting my return. I love my wife. We grew up together in the grand old forests. I love my three little boys. If you have invited me here to induce me to remain and live with you, I cannot do as you wish. I must return to my wife and children.'

"He arose early the next morning and called his servants to prepare his horse for a journey. The slave said: 'Massa Lewis, yo' ain' a-going away. Yo' is a-going stay heah.' Father Rogers was a wealthy slaveholder in Virginia, not long come from the mother country, England.

(Page 48)
"Lewis had been three months with his mother. His Indian wife's people told her that her husband would never come back, 'O no,' she said, 'he will come.' So one evening she heard his whoop. She called her children and said: 'I believe I hear your father. ' And then another whoop was heard, and he appeared in sight riding swiftly into the settlement. It had taken him three days to come from Virginia on horseback. Then the mother and children rushed to greet him. He jumped from his horse and embraced his wife and children, exclaiming: 'O Parlie, I will never leave you again!'

"Lewis Rogers, Jr., died in Fayette, Howard County, Mo. One of his sons, Henry Lewis, was educated in Kentucky. He brought about the establishment of the Methodist Mission, of which Thomas Johnson became the superintendent. He loaned Thomas Johnson $4, 000 to go on with the mission. The Rogerses of the Shawnee tribe were sons or descendants of Henry Rogers.

"My mother was a Rogers; Betsy Rogers was her name. She married Mackinac Beauchmie. He was born at Mackinac Strait. He belonged to the American Fur Company. In trapping and hunting among the Indians he traveled down the Ohio River. There he found my mother among the Shawnees and married her. He then continued to live with the Shawnees but he was for several years with the trappers in the Missouri River country toward the mountains. Then he came back and joined the Shawnees in Kansas, about the time they came to Kansas, about 1832. He then joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, and never went back to the Fur Company. He learned to speak good English with the Fur Company, and he became the interpreter for Rev. Thomas Johnson at the mission. He became very useful to Mr. Johnson. At one time he traveled with him on one of his journeys to procure money to build up and maintain the mission. After the Shawnee Mission had become established, Mr. Johnson had my father go among the Pottawattomies to start the mission. He preached to the Pottawattomies and did missionary work among them. The mission was close to Ossawatomie, down on the Marias de Cygne, or on the Pottawattomi Creek. My father [Rev. Beauchmie] died at the mission about 1846 or 1847.

"I was at Fayette, Mo., at the time going to school. I went down on the steamboat on the river at the time some soldiers were going to the Mexican War. They went around by St. Louis and New Orleans."

Henry Rogers, as stated above, was a most excellent man, and, as Mrs. Stinson states, a warm and true friend of the Shawnee Methodist Mission. Her father [Rev. Beauchmie] became a very useful preacher, and was a member of the Indian Mission Conference when he died and an ordained deacon.

Of him Bishop Andrew, in a letter written in 1848 while on a tour among the Indian missions of Kansas, says: "During the past year one who was probably the greatest and best of the Pottawattomies was summoned from earth, Rev. Mackinaw Beauchmie, a man of rare gifts and address and constant piety."

While a missionary to the Shawnees, I heard Brother Johnson tell of his trip East with Beauchmie and how greatly the people were interested in his addresses everywhere they went.
Graham Rogers, a cousin of Mrs. Stinson [and namesake of a son of Henry Rogers & Chelatha Blackfish], was one of my stewards, a most exemplary Christian and in every way a worthy man.

***

[Note: The following is one of the recent sources that perpetuates a mixup of Lewis Rogers and Henry Rogers.]

From The Shawnees and Their Neighbors by Stephen Warren, 2008, p. 119:

Some Native people, the most famous of whom was Mackinaw Boachman, moved from esteemed positions as traders and trappers to recognized preachers of the Missouri Methodist conference. Accounts of his identity vary somewhat, but evidence suggests that Boachman was born in Mackinaw Island, Michigan, the son of a French fur trader and a Chippewa woman. His diverse ancestry is typical of most American Indian people of the Great Lakes during the early republic. Boachman's mother fled to the Potawatomis when he was a young boy, and he remained with the tribe for the rest of his childhood. He eventually worked as a hunter and trapper with the American Fur Company - a profession that pulled him out of the Great Lakes and into the trans-Mississippi West. Perhaps because of their connections with prominent fur traders, including the Chouteau family, Boachman fell in with the Rogerstown Shawnees. In 1825, he married Henry [Lewis] Rogers's daughter, Polly [Mary Elizabeth Rogers]. Soon thereafter, Boachman converted to Christianity under the guidance of Thomas Johnson. Boachman's daughter, Julia Ann Stinson, later remembered that "after my parents were married my father stopped going with the American Fur Company and interpreted for Mr. [Thomas] Johnson and joined church. After the Pottawatomies cam to Kansas the Methodist church sent him to them as an interpreter because he could speak the language."
The Boachman-Rogers family thus became essential to the survival of the mission and ultimately helped the Methodists to expand their reach to neighboring tribes. The Boachman family lived less than a half-mile from the Shawnee Methodist Mission in present-day Wyandotte County, owned two slaves, and made a decent living through the sale of horses and mules to overland migrants. In 1837, when she was seventeen, Anne Boachman married the Reverend Nathan T. Shaler. According to Methodist missionary J. J. Lutz, Annie "had been brought up at the mission, where she cared for Mrs. Johnson's children." Marriage into the Rogers family led Boachman to positions of authority among both the Shawnees and the Methodists.
Boachman stood apart from the majority of the Christian Indians in the Indian Territory because he was the first to become a preacher and missionary at a time when most Indians occupied less prestigious positions in the church hierarchy. As a license preacher, by 1843 Boachman held the same position as Nathan Scarritt. The Reverend Joab Spencer, a missionary to the Shawnees in the 1850s and 1860s, credited Boachman with "exhort[ing] his Shawnee friends to forsake paganism and become Christians." Boachman's multitribal upbringing made him particularly useful to the Methodists. His linguistic skills allowed him to preach in several Native languages. Before his death in 1848, Boachman worked as a missionary to the Potawatomis, Sacs, Chippewas, and Weas.

***

[Note: This, too, is one of the recent sources that perpetuates a mixup of Lewis Rogers and Henry Rogers.]

Mary Cross (12 Apr 2000) on message board (http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.rogers/1099.1112/mb.ashx) cites Richard Pagburn's Indian Blood: Finding Your Native American Ancestor, Vol 1 (Louisville:Butler Books, 1993) when she writes [with some editing]:

rdrbrdrsrdrw20rsp20 "...Rogers[es] were captured in Virginia given up in 1762, at lancaster Pa. -Richard ,Esther, Jacob Rogers. See minutes of the Provential Council of Penna.When Gen. George Rogers Clark attacked the Shawnee Town of Piqua (Pickaway) in Aug of 1870,there were members of his family living among them.a nephew Joseph Rogers ran out ofthe village was shot by mistake. "Silverheels" was among those Shawnees who fled Piqua he reported to the British that Rogers was missing. Also Henry Rogers (a Shawnee),who had been adopted by Blackfish,but was living in another village.Henry Rogers halfbreed children included Lewis Rogers,William Rogers,Polly Rogers, Graham Rogers.Macinaw tribes Beauchemie [Bushman], an adopted Potawatomi, married Shawnee Polly Rogers daughter of Henry [Lewis] Rogers, son in law of Blackfish.Their children included Annie (who married N.T. Shaler) Julia Ann (who married Thomas Nesbit Stinson), Alexander, William, Martha Boshman.Lewis Rogers, a white Chief of a band of Shawnees and Delewares on the upper Meramec, appealed to Mewriwether Lewis for assistance after being threatened by Osage horse thieves.A Lewis Rogerswas head of household among the Cherokees in Arkansas in 1828. Graham rogers was a carpenter for the Shawnees.1851 was a time of dispute among Traditional Shawnee tribal Elders the white styled progressives,conservatives vs the liberals.Specifically the conservative traditionalists,including Blackhoof George Bluejacket the modernists included the Reverand Charles Bluejacket and Graham Rogers, whether the the Shawnee Council chief should be passed nephew to nephew in the old traditional way or else elected by popular vote of the entire tribe, white fashion. When Chief John perry died, he was suceeded by James Francis, son of his sister, the last traditional heredity Chief. In 1851 Joseph Parks was voted in as head Chief Graham Rogers as second Chief. When Joseph died,Graham Rogers became head chief.In 1860, Paschal Fish William Rogers were the principal chiefs of the Fish or Jackson Band of Shawnees with Charles Fish, Charles Tucker, George Doughtery,Charles Tooley, Jackson Rogers,subchiefs 7 councelors.Other marriages one being Lewis Rogers to Miria, Wm. Rogers to mary gillis,Wilson rogers to Polly samuels,all in 1843.then benjamin Rogers to Jane Luckett in 1844,Rachael rogers to Wm. Donaldson in 1842, Jane rogers to Issac Parish in 1848.Lewis Rogers spoke-exhorted at parish church meeting in 1839,Wm. Rogers as a councellor, Henry Rogers as a steward. Lewis Henry morgan, an ethnologist researching Shawnee customs, visited Graham Anna Rogers. Graham had married Anna Carpenter, a daughter of Kotsey (Koh-che-qua) Morgan said of her," she is a half breed,was educated at the Quaker Mission school, is in every respect,a bright,intelligent, even beautiful woman...their house is a fine one,well furnished neat as a pin..." The Shawnees furnished a company of men to the 13th regiment of the kansas militia during the Civil War, on the Union side. Graham Rogers was elected captain, Jackson rogers 1st lieutendant, Charles bluejacket 2nd lieutendant. After the war, Graham Rogers was then elected head Chief. the children of Graham Anna Carpenter Rogers included daughters Cenith Rachel sons Richard Stephen. Cary Rogers died in 1866 and left as heirs John Hat george Spybuck who were his grandfathers Mary Coon who was his cousin. Among the Cherokees who settled on the lands of the Cherokee nation by 1869,were Nancy B.,David,Sally,John H.,Aeenith,Rachel, Simpson,Eli, Serene,Samuel,Polly,Jackson,Soapqua,Henry, mary, Graham Rogers..In 1871 Graham Rogers was listed as "late principal chief of the Shawnee tribe" when 772 shawnees offically joined the Cherokees on the Cherokee Reserve lands.The agreement was signed by Charles Tucker as "late principal chief of the Shawnee tribe. by W.L.G.Miller as the Tribal secretary. On behalf of the Cherokees, it was signed by Lewis Downing,"principal chief of the Cherokee Nation." Among Shawnee guardianship cases reviewed by the Comissioner of Indian Affairs in 1871 were the cases of William, Jackson,Graham, Wilson Rogers. The wife of Wilson Rogers was" a cousin to Cornatzer`s wife." This should shed some insight into Rogers heritage!"

***

From Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society, 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by George W. Martin (Topeka, 1908), pp. 401-402:

"[Boachman's] wife was Polly Rogers, daughter of Henry Rogers and his wife [Parlie], the daughter of Blackfish, chief of the Shawnees. She probably belonged to the small band of Shawnees which settled on the Meramec, near the leadmines, in Missouri, about the beginning of the last century [early 1800's]. Mrs. Boachman died a few weeks before her husband, at the old Pottawatomie mission, in the spring of 1848 or 1849. They had six children: Annie, the wife of the Rev. N. T. Shaler, who died before her parents; Washington, who died in youth; Alexander, whose allotment comprises the present Auburndale addition to the city of Topeka, supposed to be now a resident of Dowagiac, Mich.; Julia Ann, wife of the late Thomas Nesbit Stinson, born on the Shawnee reserve, Johnson county, March 26, 1834; William, who died near Fort Scott in the early '60's' and Martha, the youngest, the late Mrs. John Read, whose allotment adjoined Mrs. Stinson's, near Tecumseh, Shawnee county, Kansas. Some additional matter relating to Mr. Boachman's family will be found in the Kansas Historical Collections, volume 9, pages 170 and 212."


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Excerpt from the Kansas Historical Society (Kansas Historical Quarterly) quoted in Find A Grave memorial 159054450:

C Pottawatomie Methodist Mission was opened in the autumn at a site near one of the Indian settlements on Pottawatomie creek not far from the Miami-Franklin county line of today.The main building was a story-and-a-half "double log house, standing east and west, with a hallway between/' Mackinaw Beauchemie (half Chippewa, but raised among the Pottawatomies ) and his family may have moved into quarters there before the Rev. Edward T. Peery (with his family) arrived in the latter part of 1838. A missionary had been assigned (by the Missouri conference) in the fall of 1837, to work among the Pottawatomies, but failed to arrive. Meantime, the Rev. Thomas Johnson (of Shawnee mission) visiting the Pottawatomies, and finding them unsettled, determined not to build a mission in 1837; but "employed a native exhorter [Beauchemie] from the Shawnee mission . . . who speaks the language to labor among them this winter [1837-1838] and to act as interpreter for the missionary when he arrives." According to an October 15, 1839, report, Pottawatomie Methodist Mission had opened, within the preceding year, despite strong opposition from various sources; the missionary [Peery] had "suffered much from affliction himself, and in his family," yet had been able "to collect a little band of 23 Indians 76 KANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY inconvenient." (Waugh left the Indian country in 1840. Besides teaching the Shawnees, he had also spent some months at the Kansas Methodist Mission assisting Missionary William Johnson. ) Ref: Lorenzo Waugh's Autobiography . . ., 2d edition (San Francisco, 1884), pp. 112, 117, 126, 134; KHC, v. 9, pp. 168, 226. C MARRIED: the Rev. Nathan T. Shaler, and Annie Beauchemie (aged 17?, of Chippewa, Shawnee, French, and English ancestry), daughter of Mackinaw and Betsy (Rogers) Beauchemie, in the autumn, at, or near, Shawnee Methodist Mission (present Wyan- dotte county). Ref: KHC, v. 16, p. 253 (for the Rev. E. T. Peery's statement concerning this mar- riage); ibid., v. 9, p. 171n and KHQ, v. 28, p. 350 (for items on Mrs. Betsy Beauchemie, and another daughter). Nathan T. Shaler had arrived at Shawnee Mission in late 1836. KHC, v. 9, p. 170. Annie Beauchemie had been educated at the mission. Ibid., pp. 171 and 211. She died in March, 1843. Ibid., v. 16, p. 253. 158 KANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Pottawatomie Methodist Mission was maintained till the Indians removed (in the latter 1840's) to a reservation on the Kansas river. Mackinaw Beauchemie and his family continued to occupy the mission house till the deaths of both Beauchemie and his wife in the early part of 1849.
Children of Rev. Mackinac Beauchemie and Betsy Polly Rogers were Julia Ann Beauchemie who married Thomas Nesbit Stinson, Annie who married Rev Nathan Tyler Shaler, Alexander, William, and Martha who married John M. Reed.

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See also http://www.shawnee-traditions.com/Names-7.html. That site states that Polly Rogers was 1/2 Shawnee Metis and the granddaughter of Black Fish. That may have been a different person.

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According to researcher Don Greene in the first edition of his book, two women named "Polly Rogers" married Mackinaw Beauchemie (aka Mackinaw Boachman), records 1381 and 1382. This is improbable. Record 1382 has errors. The second edition probably got it right.

From Shawnee Heritage I: Shawnee Genealogy and Family History by Don Greene, 2014, p. 263:

1381. Rogers, Parlie aka Polly (2)-Mary Elizabeth-Betsy - ½ ChalakathaMekoche-Metis born about 1786 MO-died 1847 - daughter of Lewis Rogers (1)/50-adopted white & Parlie Blackfish/50, wife 1^st about 1802 OH of Chalakatha Man, 2^nd 1814 OH of Mackinaw Beauchemie/70-adopted Chippewa-Metis, children/1802-13 with Chalakatha unknown, mother with Beauchemie of Annie Beauchemie/1815, Alexander Beauchemie/1816, William Beauchemie/1817, Martha Beauchemie/1818, Louisa Beauchemie/1819, Julia Ann Beauchemie/1820 & John Beauchemie/1822-all 1/4^th Chalakatha-Mekoche-Pekowi-Chippewa-Metis

1382. Rogers, Polly - ½ Chalakatha-Mekoche-Pekowi-Metis born about 1780 OH-died about 1803 MO - daughter of Henry Rogers/55-adopted white & Chelatha Black Fish/60, wife about 1795 MO of Mackinaw Beauchemie/70 adopted-Chippewa-Metis, children/95-1800 unknown

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[In the later edition, none of Mackinaw Beauchemie's children is listed though they are found above in entry 1381. Unfortunately, the author retained the defective 1382 including Henry Rogers as her father.]

From Don Greene's later book Shawnee Heritage II: Select Lineages of Notable Shawnee, 2014, p. 338:

BY CHELETHA BLACKFISH/1760 WITH
HENRY ROGERS/1755

GRANDDAUGHTER

Rogers, Polly - ½ Chalakatha-Mekoche-Pekowi-Metis born about 1780 OH-died about 1803 MO - daughter of Henry Rogers/1755-adopted white & Chelatha Blackfish/1760, wife about 1795 MO of Mackinaw Beauchemie/1770-adopted-Chippewa-Metis, children/1795-1803 unknown

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