Valley in July of 1828—the first time white men had entered Oregon by the Southern route. He was clerk of the party. Nothing is known of him before 1826 and he was never to see the end of the journey he was reporting. His Journal, like Alexander Henry's, was abruptly ended by death. He made his usual note book entry on July 13 at the Umpqua River, ate breakfast the next morning and was then massacred with eleven other of Smith's men by the Umpqua Indians, "into whose hands fell all the property of the little band, including the furs, the outfit, and the journals themselves.... For many months the journals were in the Indians' possession. Why they did not destroy them is a mystery. Perhaps they regarded them as an unknown and powerful medicine. Finally recovered, however, they were brought out by Smith from the mountains in the fall of 1830." Still the vicissitudes of the 112 pages of the dead man's journal were not over. Smith himself was killed the following summer. The Rogers journal went to William Henry Ashley. Generations later, in strange survival, it found final security with the Missouri Historical Society.
July 3, 1828
We made a pretty early start, stearing N. along the pine flatts close by the beach of the ocean, and travelled 2 m., and struck a river (Coquille), about 2 hundred yards wide, and crossed it in an Ind. canoe . Capt. Smith, being ahead, saw the Inds. in the canoe, and they tried to get off but he pursued them so closely that they run and left it. They tryed to split the canoe to pieces with their poles, but he screamed at them, and they fled, and left it, which saved us of a great deal of hard labour making rafts. After crossing our goods, we drove in our horses, and they all swam over, but one; he drowned pretty near the shore.
July 12, 1828
We commenced crossing the river early and had our goods and horses over by 8 o.c., then packed up and started a N. E. course up the river and traveled 3 M. and enc. Had several Inds. along; one of the Ind. stole an axe and we were obliged to seize him for the purpose of tying him before we could scare him to make him give it up. Capt. Smith and one of them caught him and put a cord round his neck, and the rest of us stood with our guns ready in case they made any resistance, there was about 50 Inds. present but did not pretend to resist tying the other.
