If anyone has any information about this Daniel Rodgers, and his wife Betsey, I would be very grateful. I'd like to know their parentage, as I have absolutely no information about them prior to 1823, other than the estimated years of their births (1798 and 1799, respectively), based on census information. Daniel and Betsey were early settlers of Gorham, listed in town in the 1830-1850 census records. The couple married on 17 Nov 1823 by the Rev. Daniel Elkins (no record of the place they married - only that bride and groom were "of Adams",later named Jackson, NH). Betsy was NOT a Kimball, as some family trees indicate for some reason. Her name on the marriage license issued in Adams NH in Nov 1822 was “Miss Betsy Rogers”; it’s possible she was a cousin, or even a Rogers from a completely different family. (There were plenty of unrelated Rogers families in New England at the time.)

Evidently Daniel and Betsey moved from Jackson to Gorham, and the family is listed in the 1830-1850 census records. Daniel died in Gorham on 20 Sep 1858, and is buried in the Adams Cemetery in that town. Betsy shows up in the 1860 census living with daughter Lydia and son Thomas, and in 1870 living with daughter Lydia and son-in-law George Webb. I am pretty sure about the dates of these facts, having found Betsey's Civil War Mother's Pension records in the National Archives. Betsey seems to have outlived all or most of her children. Her pension was awarded (in 1863) due to the fact that her son Daniel A. Rogers (who served honorably as a private in Company E of the 2nd New Hampshire Volunteers, Union forces, of course), was unmarried when he died of dysentery on 9 Oct. 1862. He may have served under his brother-in-law George Webb, also of the same Company. After the deaths of all but one of her children (by the 1870 census)I lose track of Betsey...she is not buried in the cemetery with her other family members (at least not under the name Rogers).

Her eldest son, Silas H. Rogers (my direct ancestor), served in the Civil War also; he was born around 1829, moved to Methuen MA (worked as a "field driver"), and served in the 17th Mass Volunteers (Companies F, and later A). He survived the war but died in a home for the destitute disabled in May 1878, in Stewartstown, NH. Silas' wife, Dolly Jane (Langley) Rogers, survived him, dying in 1902 in Haverhill, MA.

This is not the same Daniel Rogers that received a land grant dating from 1770 (recorded 1771) in the town of Shelburne (now called Gorham) NH , making him one of the town's founders. That Daniel would have been a much more eminent figure (called "Esquire" in many documents). In fact, I don’t think he was directly related to any of the wealthy Portsmouth NH Rogers, including Dr. Daniel Rogers. Although it is possibly that my Daniel may have been distantly related in some way, I think it is unlikely; my Daniel was a farmer all of this life, as far as I can tell, and his family struggled over the years. For you researchers out there, other grantees of land in this town are the eminent Mark Hunking Wentworth, as well as Daniel Pierce, John Rindge, Isaac Rindge, and Jotham Rindge. A Daniel Rodger/Rogers and his family are recorded as residents there in the first US census, dated 1790, but my family seems to be about a generation later. The grantees of the town almost certainly did not choose to live there; they were people of great means, and the town was very rural, undeveloped, and isolated. Portsmouth, where the wealthier folk lived, was anything but rural and isolated. Few roads existed into those undeveloped parts of northern NH and there were no easy means of access by water, that I’m aware of. (And, of course, this is long prior to railroad transportation.) So, I think it is a very big mistake (but evidently a common one) to link this Rogers couple with the Daniel Rindge Rogers family, etc.

Any history on this couple; their residences, emigration, ancestry, etc, would be greatly appreciated.