Christopher Columbus Rogers

The Handbook of Texas, drawing on Pauline Buck Hohes's 1936 county history, puts Rogers's birth in 1846 near Tennessee Colony, not Palestine in 1850. It places him in the Reconstruction fights: he beat John H. Morrison, a Freedmen's Bureau agent, and murdered Dan Cary, a Republican marshal of Palestine, in its words. Elected marshal in 1874, he made seven arrests after night riders killed Judge Grayson and his wife, supposedly for shielding Black residents. In 1886 he kept striking railway workers from blocking trains. Bill Young stabbed him in 1888; he is buried in East Hill Cemetery.

What the plaque says

Christopher Columbus Rogers Born in Palestine in June 1850, Christopher Columbus Rogers was a noted and controversial lawman. Although his family moved to a rural area, Rogers returned to Palestine and lived with his sister, Eliza, and her husband, James Ewing. Rogers was 13 when he enlisted to serve as a guard at Camp Ford, a prisoner of war camp in Tyler, during the Civil War; while there, Rogers killed his first man, a union prisoner. After the Civil War, he returned home to work at Ewing's newspaper, as a clerk and in various town stores. Chris Rogers became a Palestine policeman in 1872. He killed the town's first marshal, Dan Carey, in a gunfight; the city aldermen then appointed him as marshal. His reputation grew when he quickly cracked the case of a July 20, 1872 train robbery. He also solved the infamous murder of Dr. and Mrs. Grayson, who were killed because of Dr. Grayson's service to African Americans. However, Rogers would be suspended from his position several times after shootings. Particularly because of his desire to hire an African-American police officer, his relationship with city officials was often tumultuous, but he enjoyed support from the populace, winning every election from 1877, when City Marshal ceased to be an appointed position, until 1888. Rogers' 1887 shooting of an assailant led to his impeachment, resignation and a murder trial, which ended in a hung jury. Rogers also lost the use of his right arm after being shot during the incident. Although he was reelected the next year, Rogers again left office. He was stabbed to death on July 27, 1888, after an altercation with railroad engineer W.D. Young in the Robertson Saloon. Although Chris Rogers avoided bloodshed when possible, his life and death was marked by it. Today, he is remembered as a lawman that helped keep order in a town notorious for violence. (2010)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 4.4 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.

More markers nearby

• The I&GN Railroad in Palestine — steps away
• Captain Steven L. Bennett — steps away
• Anderson County in the Civil War — 0.2 mi
• Palestine Lodge No. 31, A. F. & A. M. — 0.4 mi