Samuel Rogers

Samuel Rogers was a Billerica officer of the Revolution who died in Virginia in October 1781, in the last great campaign of the war. He was born on March 5, 1754, the eldest son of Samuel Rogers and his wife Rebecca. His brothers and sisters included Abigail, who married Jeremiah Allen, William, Thomas and Rachel, who married Samuel Whiting.

Hazen's list of Billerica soldiers names him as Captain Samuel Rogers Jr. and gives him service in 1775, with the minute-men and the army at Cambridge, in 1776, and in 1777, the year of the campaign against Burgoyne. He stayed in the army, and the town record of his death calls him a lieutenant who died on October 18, 1781, "in Defence of his Country at Virginia." That was the day the terms of surrender were settled at Yorktown, where Cornwallis gave up his army on October 19.

His name is on the Revolutionary War plaque that the Billerica Historical Society placed on the Meeting House Site Memorial on the Town Common in 2001 (dedicated on October 27 of that year), which names the fourteen Billerica soldiers known to have given their lives in the war.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 124: Samuel, son of Samuel Rogers (11), d. a lieutenant at Virginia 1781
2. Vital Records of Billerica to 1850, deaths p. 389: Samuel, Lt., Oct. 18, 1781, "in Defence of his Country at Virginia"
3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 245: list of Billerica soldiers in the Revolution ("Rogers, Capt. Samuel, jr., 1, 2, 3, *")