Fort Stanwix, Towanda Creek, and the Road to Ohio: The Journey of Zepheniah Roger

 

The story of the American Republic was written by men and women who cleared the wilderness with a felling axe, stood their ground against imperial armies, and continued pushing the frontier west until they reached the outer edges of the young nation. For the Rogers family, this two-century journey began in the earliest puritan outposts of Massachusetts and Connecticut, moved through the battlefields of the Revolutionary War, anchored for twenty-six years along Towanda Creek in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, and concluded in the fertile soil of Franklin County, Ohio.

Part 1: Comprehensive Genealogical & Historical Discoveries

Generation 1 & 2: The Massachusetts Birthplace & The Connecticut Shore

• Zepheniah Rogers (1747–1823): Born out of wedlock in Mendon, Worcester County, Massachusetts, on March 8, 1747 (recorded March 18 in town records), to Abigail Hayward (daughter of possibly Oliver and Abigail Hayward, but still unproven). Town records noted Abigail as a "transient person." Raised in the rugged New England interior, Zepheniah grew up with a timberman's self-reliance.
• Elizabeth Rood (1753–1838): Daughter of Isaac Rood and Elizabeth Ellsworth, she married Zepheniah on March 7, 1770, in Litchfield, Connecticut. She was the grand-niece of the prominent Ellsworth line of Windsor. Elizabeth braved every leg of her husband’s frontier journey—from Connecticut to Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, and finally Ohio—surviving him by fifteen years and drawing his hard-earned Continental pension until her death in Brown Township, Ohio, in 1838.

Generation 3: The Continental Line & Military Service

• First Enlistment (May 1776 – April 1777): Enlisted as a Private in Capt. William Satterlee’s Company, under Col. Samuel Elmore in the Connecticut Line. Deployed to the northern theater in upstate New York, his unit garrisoned key outposts along the Mohawk Valley, including Fort Stanwix (Fort Schuyler) and Johnstown, securing the western gateway against British forces and frontier raids.
• Second Enlistment (April 1777 – Sept/Oct 1777): Following his initial term, Zepheniah re-enlisted in Capt. Daniel Davis’s Company, continuing under Col. Elmore for another five to six months of active wartime service.

Generation 4: The Bradford County, Pennsylvania Pioneer (1796–1822)

After the war, Zepheniah and Elizabeth raised their family across a nomadic line of frontier settlements: Rupert, Vermont (1773); Torrington and Goshen, Connecticut; and Catskill and Blenheim, New York (1787–1794).

• The Towanda Creek Homestead: In 1796, Zepheniah migrated with his family to Canton Township, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, settling on Towanda Creek (later known as the Hubbell Manley farm).
• Pioneer Ingenuity: Upon arrival, the family lived in a raw 14x18-foot floorless log cabin. Zepheniah built a "one-legged bedstead"—a forked stick driven into the dirt floor with poles running to the wall logs, woven together with bark for bed-cord.
• The Tub-Mill: To process grain for himself and his neighbors, Zepheniah constructed a primitive "tub-mill" on his property. Utilizing local conglomerate stone from the nearby coal measures, he hand-dressed the millstones. The mill had a capacity of cracking 1.5 to 3 bushels of corn in a 24-hour run.
• The 1818 Pension & Schedule of Property: On May 9, 1818, Zepheniah applied for a pension under the Revolutionary War Veteran's Act, drawing $8 a month ($96/year). His court-filed schedule of property offers a window into late-frontier life in Bradford County:
• Land & Livestock: 77.5 acres of land (25 acres cleared out of forest), 10 sheep, 1 sow, and 4 shoats.
• The Pioneer Kitchen: 1 bread oven, 1 iron trammel, 1 iron pot, 4 kettles, 1 frying pan, 1 spider, 1 tea kettle, flat irons, old pewter (6 plates, 2 platters), 6 teacups and saucers, and 6 iron spoons.
• Craftsman & Household Tools: Carpenter tools, 1 old cross-cut saw, 1 lantern, 1 hoe, 1 big spinning wheel, 1 foot wheel, 3 chairs, a chest, a table, and an old silver watch.

Generation 5: The Final Ohio Migration & The Bailey Connection

• Rosemanty Rogers (1789–1843): Born in Catskill, New York, Rosemanty grew up on the Canton Township homestead in Pennsylvania. Around 1810, she married Smith Bailey (1789–1862), a veteran of the War of 1812 and son of Thomas Bailey and Esther Smith. Rosemanty and Smith carried the family line onward into Ohio in 1821, and ultimately into the Iowa Territory in 1845.
• The Final Westward Push (1822–1823): In 1822, after 26 years of building up his farm in Canton Township, the elderly Zepheniah—alongside his wife Elizabeth and grown children—packed up one last time to join his family on the Ohio frontier. Settling in Washington Township, Franklin County, Ohio, Zepheniah died the following year on October 7, 1823, at the age of 76.

             The Migration Trail of Zepheniah Rogers

             

 1747: Mendon, MASSACHUSETTS (Birth)

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 1770: Litchfield, CONNECTICUT (Marriage to Elizabeth Rood)

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 1776: Fort Stanwix & Johnstown, NEW YORK (Revolutionary War)

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 1787: Catskill & Blenheim, NEW YORK (Birth of Rosemanty & Irvine)

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 1796: Canton Twp., Bradford Co., PENNSYLVANIA (26 Years: Tub-Mill & Farm)

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 1822: Franklin County, OHIO (Final Homestead)

Part 2: The Standard of Fort Stanwix: Zepheniah Rogers and the Road to Ohio

The story of the American Republic is written in the footsteps of those who marched toward the sound of the war drums, and then kept right on marching toward the setting sun. For Zepheniah Rogers and Elizabeth Rood, that trail spanned three states, two wars, and thousands of miles of wilderness—a journey that transformed raw forest into farms, mills, and communities.

Zepheniah’s life began on March 8, 1747, in Mendon, Massachusetts, born to Abigail Hayward during a period of colonial expansion. Raised in the timbered backwoods of New England, he developed a sharp edge of self-reliance. By 1770, his search for land brought him to Litchfield, Connecticut, where he married Elizabeth Rood—a daughter of the pioneer Rood line and a descendant of the prominent Ellsworth family of Windsor.

When the fire of the American Revolution erupted in 1776, Zepheniah left his young family to answer the call of the Continental Congress. Enlisting as a private in Capt. William Satterlee’s company under Col. Samuel Elmore, he was marched into the perilous northern theater of New York. In the dense wilderness of the Mohawk Valley, Zepheniah stood watch at Fort Stanwix and Johnstown—vital outposts charged with holding the northern frontier against British regulars and border raids. For nearly eighteen months across two enlistments, he endured bitter weather, short rations, and constant alert, holding the northern gateway for the young nation.

With independence won, Zepheniah returned to his family, but the spirit of the frontier would not let them settle. After years spent in Vermont, Connecticut, and the Catskill Mountains of New York, Zepheniah loaded his family and meager possessions into a wagon in 1796 and headed south into the wild interior of northern Pennsylvania.

They settled along Towanda Creek in Canton Township, Bradford County, taking up raw land on what would become the Hubbell Manley farm. There, in a 14 x 18-foot floorless log cabin, Zepheniah built a bedstead out of a forked stick driven into the earth floor, strung with bark cords. To feed his family and neighbors, he built a primitive "tub-mill" from scratch, dressing coarse conglomerate stone from the mountain coal measures to grind corn—a bushel and a half a day—for the early settlers of the valley.

For twenty-six years, Zepheniah and Elizabeth labored in Canton Township. They cleared 25 acres of timber, raised sheep, spun wool on their foot wheels, and built a self-sufficient life. When Zepheniah applied for his veteran's pension in 1818, his court schedule recorded a life lived through honest work: carpenter tools, an old cross-cut saw, a bread oven, iron kettles, and a few cherished pewter plates.

Yet, even in his seventies, Zepheniah was not done moving. In 1822, leaving the Bradford County farm to his children, Zepheniah and Elizabeth made one final journey west, joining their daughter Rosemanty and son-in-law Smith Bailey on the fertile plains of Franklin County, Ohio.

When Zepheniah passed away in Washington Township on October 7, 1823, he was laid to rest in the soil he had helped win and cultivate. Elizabeth lived on for another fifteen years in Brown Township, drawing the pension earned by her husband’s musket at Fort Stanwix.

From a floorless cabin along Towanda Creek to the sunlit fields of Ohio, Zepheniah Rogers and Elizabeth Rood proved that the American frontier was built not by fortune, but by relentless grit, hard work, and unyielding endurance.

Clarification on Mayflower Claims

Genealogical Note: Caution regarding any Mayflower claims is well-founded. While some online trees attempt to link Abigail Hayward or Zepheniah Rogers to Thomas Rogers or John Alden of the Mayflower, there is currently no primary documentation (town, probate, or land records) proving a direct line from Zepheniah to a Mayflower passenger. His primary documented record begins with his birth in the Mendon, Massachusetts vital records as the son of Abigail Hayward.

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