James Bonner Rogers

Rogers died on April 13, 1872, five months after martial law ended in Freestone County. Governor Edmund J. Davis had imposed it on October 9, 1871, answering reports of coercion and fraudulent voting at Fairfield during the election of October 3 to 6, and lifted it on November 10. The plaque blames horse thieves for the ambush. No source reached ties his killing to the election, and the Handbook of Texas does not mention him, so the martial law is offered only as the backdrop of his time as sheriff.

What the plaque says

James Bonner Rogers (Nov. 27, 1836 - April 13, 1872) Freestone County sheriff 1872, during lawless era. Rogers pursued several horse thieves alone, after deputy was shot in hot pursuit; but later was shot from ambush by 2 strangers, supposedly the vengeant thieves. Died, leaving widow, 3 children. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 19 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site — 25 mi
  Where Limestone County Confederate veterans gathered each summer from 1888, later a water supplier in the Mexia oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site on the Navasota River.
• Old Fort Parker — 26 mi
  A rebuilt 1830s family stockade near the Navasota River, where a May 1836 attack killed men of the Parker settlement and took five captives, among them nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker.

More markers nearby

• David Hall Love — steps away
• Fairfield Female College — 0.2 mi
• Butler Church Bell — 0.5 mi
• Rev. George Washington Baines — 0.5 mi