AUTOBIOGRAPHY
                       -OF-

ELDER SAMUEL ROGERS.


                    CHAPTER I.
Birth in Virginia.-Emigration to Kentucky.-Settlement near Dan-
  ville in the year 1793.-Removal to Clark County.-Manners and
  Customs of those times.
  I was born in Charlotte county, Virginia, November
6, 1789, and was the eldest son of Ezekiel Rogers, whose
father emigrated from Smithfield, England, a few years
before the middle of the eighteenth century, and set-
tled in Bedford county, Virginia. The family had no
means of tracing any direct relationship to the distin-
guished martyr, John Rogers, who was burned at Smith-
field in the year 1555. But my aunt Susan, a maiden lady
of vivid imagination, was able to make out the connec-
tion quite to her satisfaction, suspended, however, upon
very flimsy calculations-certainly too flimsy for the
settlement of ancient honors upon our family. My
ambitious aunt, as if sensible of the weakness of her
cause, was in the habit of closing her argument with a
flourish of the following facts, viz.: That her father
came from Smithfield, England, where the distinguished
martyr suffered; that his family were all Protestants;
that all were partial to the name John; and last, though
not least, that, as far back as their genealogy could be
traced, not one of the name had ever been known to
show the white feather. This last mentioned fact was
compensating and comforting, indeed, inasmuch as it is
far better to have the spirit of a martyr in the breast
than to have the blood of a martyr in the veins. When
my father, Ezekiel Rogers, was but an infant, my grand-
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