Henry H. Rogers
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Template:Infobox Biography Henry Huttleston Rogers (January 29 1840 – May 19 1909), was a United States capitalist, businessman, industrialist, financier, and philanthropist. He was one of the key men in John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust. He later developed the Virginian Railway, while one of his Standard Oil associates, Henry Morrison Flagler developed the Florida East Coast Railway. Both railroads formed part of today's US rail network.
Born into a working class family in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts on Buzzard's Bay. The family moved to nearby Fairhaven, Massachusetts, where he carried newspapers and he worked in his father’s grocery store as a teenager, and was in the first graduating class of the local high school. He hired on with the Old Colony Railroad as a brakeman, working for several years and saving his money.
In 1861, he pooled his $600 savings with a friend, and set out for western Pennsylvania to the newly discovered oil fields, where he found and developed his fortune, associating himself with Charles Pratt, whose firm in turn later became part of the Standard Oil Trust.
He was married to his childhood sweetheart Abbie Gifford Rogers for over 30 years until her death; they had four children. Rogers was an energetic man, and amassed a great fortune, estimated at over $100 million. He invested heavily in various industries, including copper, steel, mining, and railways.
His final achievement, working with partner William N. Page, was the building of the Virginian Railway (VGN) from the coal fields of southern West Virginia to port near Norfolk at Sewell's Point, Virginia in the harbor of Hampton Roads.Virginian_Herald.png
Although Rogers died just as the railroad was completed, the 600 mile Virginian Railway followed his philosophy throughout its profitable history. It operated some of the largest and most powerful steam, electric, and diesel locomotives throughout its 50 year history, resulting in a following of railway enthusiasts which continues to the present day. The VGN was merged into the Norfolk & Western in 1959. Much of the former VGN trackage in Virginia is still in use in 2004 as the preferred route for eastbound coal trains for Norfolk Southern Corporation.
The diverse Rogers, who was at times known as a fierce businessman nicknamed ‘hell hound Rogers’, was also a modest but generous philanthropist who apparently never forgot his roots.
Rogers also developed a friendship of over 15 years with former slave and educator Dr. Booker T. Washington. It was only after the multi-millionaire's death that Dr. Washington said he felt compelled to reveal publicly some of the extent of Henry Rogers' contributions for his causes. Those funds, he said, were at that very time, paying for the operation of at least 65 small country schools for the education and betterment of African Americans in Virginia and other portions of the South, all unknown to the recipients. Known only to a few trustees, Rogers had also generously provided support to institutions of higher education.
Dr. Washington later wrote that Henry Rogers had encouraged projects with at least partial matching funds, as that way, two ends were accomplished:
- 1. The gifts would help fund even greater work.
- 2. Recipients would have a stake in knowing that they were helping themselves through their own hard work and sacrifice.
In the final analyisis, perhaps the greatest American resource Henry Rogers valued and sought to develop to its potential was the human one.
See also
External links
- Millicent Library, Fairhaven MA, Henry Rogers homepage (http://www.millicentlibrary.org/hhrogers.htm)
- Mark Twain and Henry Huttleston Rogers in Virginia. Excerpts from their trips together to the 1907 Jamestown Exposition and the 1909 Dedication of the Virginian Railway (http://www.twainquotes.com/TwainRogersVA.html)
- Mark Twain's Correspondence with Henry Huttleston Rogers, 1893-1909 (http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/1166.htm)
- Dr. Booker T. Washington papers - comments about Henry Rogers (http://www.historycooperative.org/btw/Vol.10/html/122.html)
- Virginian Railway (VGN) Enthusiasts Group of preservationists, authors, photographers, historians, modelers, and rail fans (http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/VirginianRailwayEnthusiasts/)ja:ヘンリー・H・ロジャーズ