Capt. Jefferson T. Rogers, first steam powered ferry in Cole County

<p>Courtesy/Wayne Johnson</p><p>This signature of Capt. Jefferson T. Rogers is from an agreement with Callaway County for ferry rights.</p>

Courtesy/Wayne Johnson

This signature of Capt. Jefferson T. Rogers is from an agreement with Callaway County for ferry rights.

A burly renaissance man, ferry captain Jefferson T. Rogers grew up on the Missouri River and joined early businessmen in developing Jefferson City to little more than a couple of dirt roads into a railroad stop and full-fledged city.

Rogers was the eldest son of Thomas Rogers, who moved his family from St. Louis to Boonville to Callaway County before statehood.

The family had established a tannery by the time the Fourth General Assembly met in Jefferson City for the first time in 1826. By 1829, they earned a license to operate a horse-powered ferry between Callaway and Cole counties.

The southern landing was at the end of Harrison Street, the road in front of the Missouri Secretary of State building today.

There in 1840, Jefferson Rogers built a substantial stone home, compared only to the Thomas Lawson Price mansion, once where the Missouri Supreme Court is today, in its elegance, by some accounts. When the home was demolished at the turn of the 20th century, to make more room for the railroad, some of the stone was reused in the Carnegie Library building.

Rogers took over the ferry landing area when William Jones, the first white settler in what became Jefferson City, moved to Rocheport. A Revolutionary War veteran, Jones had opened a tavern on the river's edge by 1819 and received a ferry license from Cole County by 1822. When the first lots for Jefferson City were sold in May 1823, he bought the southeast corner of Water and Harrison streets, where his operation was located.

The northern ferry landing was owned by the Yount family, whose daughter, Kizzia, married Jefferson Rogers in 1843.

Just before city government organized in 1839, Rogers partnered with E.B. Cordell, T.L. Price and John Yount to bring the first steam ferry to Jefferson City. In April 1845, Rogers and Phil Chappell hosted a "launch" part for a new steamboat, built by Alfred Cuttings at Rogers' boatyard and landing.

Rogers' first of five terms on the City Council began in 1840. He was elected to his first of 10 terms as mayor in 1844. His last term as mayor, he was listed as a National Democrat in 1859, when 400 votes total were cast.

He once tried to introduce a fine of $2 for councilmen absenteeism, when they were having trouble getting a quorum among the uncompensated representatives. It did not pass.

In the winter of 1856, Rogers offered the city use of his feed barn to keep the city's mules and horses until spring, rather than selling them off.

Before the Civil War, he was appointed paymaster general for the state by Gov. Robert Stewart (1857-60) and reappointed by Gov. Claiborne Jackson (1861). Like many of the early Jefferson City residents of southern heritage, Rogers was loyal to the Union but believed slavery should have remained legal.

After the war, Rogers put his energy into revitalizing the Cole County Agricultural and Mechanical Association, serving as mayor and pushing for building repair and beautification efforts, following Union soldier's occupation of the fairgrounds, in the area of today's Fairmount Avenue and McClung Park.

Rogers, who owned a lot of property in the city, primarily in the Mill Bottom area, also was an advocate for the benefit of railroads, such as serving on the board of directors of the Laclede and Fort Scott Railroad Company.

For a time, he operated a sawmill on Water Street near where today's depot is, which supplied ties for the railroad. Before the Pacific Railway reached Jefferson City in 1855, the steam-powered sawmill did a "thriving business," according to Dr. Robert Young's memoirs. Logs flowed down river and were drawn by tramway to the mill.

Contemporary accounts of the man say he was "almost as broad as he was long" and that he "could not fail to attract notice as he passed." He also was not one to back down from a fight.

Once a man came to town with the intention to fight Rogers, meeting him on Main Street just west of Weir's Creek. As Rogers undressed for the fight, he revealed a "torso covered in a mass of black hair." The stranger reportedly said he did not want to "fight no damn bear" and proposed they "liquor up instead."

Rogers' grandson, Arthur Rogers, recalled the ferryman as generous to a fault, never turning away a hungry man at his door or ignoring someone in distress.

He died in 1880 and is among many of the city's original promoters who are buried at Woodland-Old City Cemetery.

Local historian Gary Kremer said, "Capt. Rogers is one of the more intriguing figures whose life was intertwined with the development of the Mill Bottom."

Michelle Brooks is a former reporter for the Jefferson City News Tribune and the author of three books on Jefferson City history. More about Capt. Jefferson T. Rogers may be found in her newly-released book "Hidden History of Jefferson City" published through The History Press.