Andrew Watts Rogers, Miami ’51
Andrew Watts Rogers was welcomed into the world on March 12, 1825 on his parent’s farm near Greenfield, Ohio, equidistant between Columbus and Cincinnati. With his half-brother being a Miami graduate and a citizen of Oxford, he decided Miami would be a favorable place to pursue his education. Andrew was enrolled at Miami for five years, where he was introduced to our great brotherhood.
Rogers was a man of action and thought. Both he and Ardivan Walker Rodgers were tall, strapping, collegiate men. Fellow students were well aware of their friendship.
In 1858 he moved to Illinois to begin a legal practice, encountering Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas along the way. Brother Rogers was a major in the Union army in the battles around Jackson, Mississippi. He served as lieutenant colonel (later colonel), where he commanded the 81st Illinois Voluntary Infantry during the Siege of Vicksburg, the Battle of Nashville, and the Siege of Mobile.
After practicing law in Illinois and Missouri, he became a leader in Missouri education, a member of the Missouri legislature, and a special judge in the Circuit Court.
Brother Rogers died of an affliction of the heart in 1901 and was laid to rest in Warrensburg, Missouri, south of Kansas City. Those who knew Andrew remembered him as genial, frank, open-hearted, and a natural teacher.
