Details

Abstract / Summary

Daniel Rogers (1707-1785) was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1725 and was a tutor and itinerant preacher before being established as a minister of the Second Church in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1748. He was a controversial figure, as a "New Lights" supporter and friend and follower of George Whitefield (1714-1770).

In 1748, Rogers married Anna Foxcroft ( -1770). They had six children: Anne Rogers; Daniel Denison Rogers (1751-1825), a wealthy Boston merchant; Elizabeth Rogers; Thomas Rogers; William Rogers; and Martha "Patty" Rogers (1761-1840), who resided in Exeter, New Hampshire, and apparently never married.

In her 1785 diary, Patty Rogers recorded her intimate thoughts and daily activities, expressing her concern and frustration over having to care for her sickly father and describing in detail her active social life, which included two romances. When her first suitor, the Reverend William Woodbridge (1755-1836), married another, Patty found solace—however briefly—with Dr. Samuel Tenney (1748-1816), until he married Tabitha Gilman (1762-1837), who later became well known as a novelist. In fact, Cathy Davidson of Michigan State University believes that Patty may have been the model for the character Dorcasina Sheldon in Tabitha Tenney's novel, Female Quixotism (1801). Both Tenney and her husband ("Philemon"), as well as Woodbridge ("Portius"), are mentioned often in this diary.

Field of Interest

Letters and Diaries

Content Type

Diary/Memoir/Autobiography

Duration

0 sec

Format

Text

Page Count

104

Publication Year

2011

Publisher

Alexander Street

Place Published / Released

Alexandria, VA

Subject

Letters and Diaries, History, Daily Life, Domestic life