The Murder Of Mary Rogers

Mary Rogers and her mother, Phebe, came to New York City following the financial panic of 1837. Phebe lost her second husband and also her most important source of economic support, i.e. Daniel and James Rogers. Both men were killed in shipwrecks. Daniel died on the Mississippi River and James in Long Island Sound. Phebe and Mary came to the teeming metropolis of New York City to better their fortunes. Mary went to work at a tobacco emporium operated by John Anderson, a Boston native. Only 21 when she was murdered in 1841, Mary Cecilia Rogers became a fixture of admiration among men who frequented the tobacco emporium. Many prominent men of the early 19th century stopped in to purchase cigars on a daily basis. Among the most noted of these were James Fennimore Cooper, Washington Irving, and Edgar Alan Poe. These literary figures were joined by newspaper publishers, i.e. James Gordon Bennett and Horace Greeley, who published the New York Tribune and Herald. The intense admiration of famous men made it a closely followed crime among New Yorkers when Mary disappeared on July 25th, and afterward when her body was found in the Hudson River, on July 28th, 1841. The text of my book is based on what I have been able to discover about the Rogers family and Mary's suitors, and perhaps her murderer, from researching genealogical documents.