Crofoots and Rogerses: charcoal, California gold, and a ferry that became a mill-dam

1830s – 1907

Henry Crofoot (Chapman, p. 807): born in Lake County, Ohio, 8 July 1830, son of Vernon and Diantha (Fuller) Crofoot; came with his parents about 1840; burned charcoal; went to California by ship in 1853 and returned the same year; married Nancy Pruner 18 September 1856 — eleven children, ten living, named in the sketch — and farmed section 4 on 240 acres; a Greenbacker in politics. Howard (vol. 2, pp. 932–933) moves the family a decade: they came "in the early '30s," the father bought 200 acres and added hundreds more and burned charcoal too, dying at 59; Henry's own California trip lasted six months in 1853, he bought 160 acres and now owns 288; of the eleven children two are deceased, "one accidentally killed with dynamite"; and his politics are Democrat. Arrival, acreage, politics and the children's count all stand in conflict, printed both ways. (The name itself wobbles once in Howard, who elsewhere prints "Crowfoot" for the Sawyer family — flagged, not normalized.)

Aaron Rogers (Chapman, p. 836): a native of Ireland who came to America about 1840, located at Mishawaka and worked on the new mill-dam; married Catharine Loomans; seven children, four living (John, William, David, Oliver); died March 1874, his wife in September 1879; his son John farms the old home place in section 5. Howard's version (vol. 2, pp. 928–929, in the son Oliver's sketch): Aaron came early, worked first on a ferry boat on the St. Joseph river and in a foundry, then farmed a homestead that grew from 80 to 320 acres; the mother was born in Denmark, her name not given; the children are Matilda (deceased), John, William, Robert, Thomas and David (deceased), and Oliver — Robert, Thomas and Matilda absent from Chapman's list; Aaron was a Republican and a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Mishawaka (Chapman gives no church), and died at 65, no year. Mill-dam against ferry boat, an Irish wife named against a Danish wife unnamed, 1874 against "at 65": both printings stand. Oliver P. Rogers himself (b. on the farm 7 April 1860) was president of the Elm Grove Breeding Association, deputy assessor of the township, and married Sarah A. Burket (19 April 1883), daughter of Henry Burket — the German Baptist farmer-minister of the settler roll, whose daughter's marriage ties the Burket sketch into this one.

Sources:

1. Chapman, p. 807 (Crofoot), p. 836 (Rogers), p. 804 (Burket); Howard, vol. 2, pp. 928–929 (Rogers), 932–933 (Crofoot).