Abbie G. Rogers
Abigail Gifford Rogers (January 20, 1841 – May 21, 1894) was the first wife of Henry Huttleston Rogers (1840–1909), an American business magnate.
Abbie G. Rogers
May 21, 1894 (aged 53)
- Anne Engle Benjamin
- Cara Leland Broughton
- Millicent Gifford Rogers
- Mary Huttleston Coe
- Henry Huttleston Rogers Jr.
As children, Abbie and Henry grew up and went to school together in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, a small coastal fishing town with a whaling heritage. They were married in 1862, and started their family life together in a one-room shack in the newly discovered western Pennsylvania oil fields. Although he and Abbie lived frugally for many years, by 1875, Henry Rogers had risen in the petroleum industry to become one of the key men in John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust. He invested heavily in various industries, including copper, steel, mining, and railways. The Virginian Railway is widely considered his final life's achievement. Rogers amassed a great fortune, estimated at over $100 million, and became one of the wealthiest men in the United States.
Abbie and Henry Rogers were generous, providing many public works for their hometown of Fairhaven, including the Town Hall which Abbie donated in 1894 shortly before her death. Rogers also financially assisted such notables as Mark Twain, Helen Keller, and Booker T. Washington.
Abbie and Henry Rogers had six children, four of whom survived to adulthood. She died suddenly on May 21, 1894, following an operation in New York City. After her death, Henry Rogers is said to have immersed himself even more in his work during the 15 years he outlived her. When he died in 1909, he was interred with her at Riverside Cemetery in Fairhaven.
Childhood in Fairhaven, Massachusetts[edit]
Abigail Palmer Gifford was the younger daughter of Captain Peleg W. Gifford and his wife, Amelia L. Hammond. Abbie's father had been a whaling ship captain and participated in the "Great Stone Fleet" of scuttled ships that blockaded Charleston Harbor during the American Civil War. It is said that Captain Gifford loved to discuss his career as a very successful ship-master. The Giffords' home, built in 1835, was located at 36 Green Street in Fairhaven, (now numbered 115 Green Street).
As Abbie grew up, one of her schoolmates and neighbors in the small coastal town was young Henry Huttleston Rogers, nicknamed "Hen", her future husband. Both Abbie and Henry were descendants of colonists who had arrived at the Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower in 1620.
There, in 1862, Abbie Palmer Gifford married young Henry Rogers, her childhood sweetheart. She returned with him to the oil fields where they lived in a one-room shack along Oil Creek, where her young husband and Ellis worked the Wamsutta Oil Refinery.
After 1874, the Rogers family continued to live in New York City, but vacationed at Fairhaven, where a large mansion was erected for them.
1894: A new Town Hall and tragedy[edit]
In 1894, Fairhaven received the gift of a new Town Hall from the Rogers Family. Abbie dedicated it to the memory of her mother. The following text about Abbie Rogers is from the Millicent Library, Fairhaven Massachusetts.
"Mother of six children, Mrs. Rogers is represented as having been of a quiet and retiring disposition, completely devoid of the ostentation often associated with great wealth. Contemporary photographs attest to a shy and gentle charm of feature, and she is known to have cherished a deep affection for Fairhaven and a nostalgia for the simple ways of her childhood.
"She was, therefore, delighted to become the donor of Fairhaven's beautiful new 'Town House,' and on February 22nd and 23d, 1894, she attended dedication exercises and received graciously at the splendid Dedication Ball, in the first gala functions marking the opening of the new building.
"It was not given those attending these happy festivities to know that - but three months later - in May, 1894, this gentle woman was to die in New York City after an operation performed to save her life."
Death[edit]
Abbie Palmer Gifford Rogers died unexpectedly on May 21, 1894, age 53 in New York City. She had been undergoing an operation to remove a tumor.[4] Her widower, Henry Rogers Sr., eventually remarried, but had no children with his second wife. Outliving her two days short of 15 years, after his death on May 19, 1909, he was interred beside her in Fairhaven's Riverside Cemetery.