Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 09.djvu/167

 ROGERS

ROGERS

ROGERS, Robert Empie, chemist, was born in Baltimore, Md., Marcli 29, 1813 ; son of Pat- rick Kerr and Hannah (Blythe) Rogers, and brother of William Barton Rogers (q.v.). His early education was superintended by his father. In 1826 he entered his brothers' school at Windsor, Md., and in 1828 he matriculated at Dickinson college, continuing his studies at William and Mary college, 1828-31. In the summer of 1831 he was employed in railway surveying in New Eng- land ; spent the following winter in New York city, where he delivered four lectures on chemis- try ; resumed surveying near Boston, Mass., in May, 1833, and in the fall entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in 1836. Mean- while he constructed a galvanometer for his brother James and assisted his brotlier Henry in preparing models to illustrate the latter's lectures on crystallography. He served as chemist to the geological survey of Pennsylvania, 1836-43 ; was acting instructor in chemistry in the Uni- versity of Virginia, 1841—42, and professor of gen- eral and applied chemistry and materia medica, 1842-52. He was married, March 13, 1843, to Fanny Montgomery, daughter of Joseph S. Lewis of Philadelphia, Pa. Upon the death of his brother James in 1852 he became professor of chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania and dean of the medical faculty in 1856, and also served as acting surgeon at the West Philadel- phia Military hospital, 1862-63. In January of the latter year, as the result of a painful injury received while demonstrating the operation of an ironing machine in the hospital laundry, he was obliged to suffer the amputation of his right hand. Dr. Rogers's wife died, Feb. 21, 1863, and he was married secondly, April 30, 1866, to Delia Saunders of Providence, R.I. With Dr. H. R. Linderman, he was appointed. May 10, 1872, by Secretary of the Treasury Boutwell a committee to examine the melter's and refiner's department of the U.S. mint at Philadelphia, Pa., visiting in this connection the San Francisco mint, 1873, and the assay-office in New York city, 1874, and he executed several other government appoint- ments of a similar nature, including the annual assay commissions, 1874-79. He was a chemist to the gas-triist of Philadelphia, 1872-84, and in 1877 severed his connection with the University of Pennsylvania to become professor of medical chemistry and toxicology in the Jefferson Medical college of Philadelphia, retaining the position until a few months before his death, when he was made professor emeritus. He was a fellow of the College of Physicians and Surgeons ; an incorporator and member of the National Acad- emy of Sciences ; president of the Franklin insti- tute of Philadelphia, 1875-79, and a member of

various other scientific organizations, to whose Proceedings he contributed. He also edited, with James B. Rogers, " Elements of Chemistrj' " (1846), and Charles G. Lehman's " Physiological Chemistry" (2 vols., 1855). Lee: " Eulogy on the Life and Character of Dr. Rogers" by J. W. Holland. M.D. (1885). He died in Philadelphia, Pa.. Sept. 6. 1884.

ROGERS, Robert William, orientalist.was born in Philadelphia, Pa., Feb. 14, 1864; son of Dr. Samuel and Mary (Osborne) Rogers ; grandson of John and Esther (Rapp) Rogers and of Wil- liam and Ann (Kerr) Osborne. He attended the Central High school in Philadelphia and the University of Pennsj-lvania, 1882-84, and was graduated from Johns Hojikins in 1887. He was a graduate student at Jolms Hopkins university, the University of Pennsylvania, Haverford col- lege, and the Universities of Berlin and Leipzig ; and was instructor in Greek and Hebrew at Haverford, 1887-88. He was married, June 3, 1891. to Ida Virginia, daughter of Henry Zook and Elizabeth (Ascough) Ziegler of Philadelphia, Pa. He was professor of English Bible and Sem- itic history at Dickinson college. Pa., 1890-92, and was elected professor of Hebrew and Old Testament exegesis at Drew Theological semin- ary, Madison, N.J., in 1893, and non-resident lecturer at the Woman's college, Baltimore, Md., in 1896. He was a member of the Society of Biblical Archgeology, London ; the American Oriental society ; the Society of Biblical Liter- ature and Exegesis ; the Oriental club of Phila- delphia ; the American Philosophical society ; a member of the Eighth International Congress of Orientalists in Stockholm and Christiana in 1889, and a member and honorary secretary of the Assyrian and Babylonian section of the Ninth International congress in London in 1892 ; official foreign delegate to the Tenth International con- gress at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1894, to the Eleventh International congress at Paris in 1897, and to the Thirteenth at Hamburg in 1902. The degrees of A.M. and Ph.D. were conferred on him by Haverford college in 1890; that of D.D. by Wesleyan university in 1894, that of Ph.D. by the University of Leipzig in 1895, and that of LL.D. by Nebraska Wesleyan and Baker uni- versities in 1899. He is the author of : Two Texts of Esarhaddon (1889); Catalogue of Man- uscripts, chiefly Oriental, in the library of Haverford college (1890); Unpublished InscTrip- tions of Esarhaddon (1891); A Translation of the Inscriptions of Sennacherib (1892); Outlines of the History of Early Babylonia (1895), and A History of Babylonia and Assyria (2 vols., 1900).

ROGERS, Thomas J., representative, was born in Waterford, Ireland, in 1781. He was brought to Easton, Pa., by his parents when three years