Clement V. Rogers

Clement Vann Rogers (January 11, 1839 – October 28, 1911), known often as "Uncle Clem," was a cattle baron and prominent Cherokee politician and judge in Indian Territory. Clem Rogers' parents were both mixed-blood Cherokees who moved to Indian Territory in 1832, several years before the Trail of Tears. Before the American Civil War, Clem allied with the "Treaty Party", a Cherokee faction that supported signing the Treaty of New Echota. When the Civil War broke out, Clem enlisted in the Confederate Army, and served under General Stand Watie. After the war, he became active in Cherokee politics, first elected as a judge in the Cooweescoowee District, then served five terms in the Cherokee Senate. He later served as a delegate to the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention. Rogers was the father of entertainer Will Rogers.

When Oklahoma became a state in 1907, the former Cherokee Districts were dissolved and replaced by new counties. One of the counties created from the former Cooweescoowee District, Rogers County, Oklahoma, was named in honor of Clement Rogers.

Family lineage Rogers's parents, Robert Rogers Jr. (1815 - 1842) and Sallie Vann (1818 - 1882), "came from Georgia before the main removal of the Cherokees in 1838."

Roger's paternal grandfather was Robert Rogers Sr., a Scotch-Irish immigrant and trader, who came to the area now known as West Virginia in 1800. Settling there, he married a half-Cherokee woman named Lucy Cordery. Robert Jr. was their first son.

By the time the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, Robert Sr. had died and Lucy Cordery had brought her family to live in Georgia. After a group of mostly mixed-blood Cherokees signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1830, they decided that migrating west was inevitable and moved in 1832 to a tract of land near the boundary of Arkansas Territory and Indian Territory.

Roger's mother Sallie was also from a mixed-blood family and was said to be three-eighths Cherokee. She was a sister of David Vann, who was closely related to the Cherokee chief James Vann.

Robert Jr. and Sallie built a two-story, five-room house near the community of Westville, in the Goingsnake District of Indian Territory (what is now Maysville, Oklahoma), where Robert established a prosperous farm. Their first child, Rogers' sister Margaret, was born there in 1836. Rogers was born there on January 11, 1839.

Post-Civil War When the war ended in 1865, Rogers reunited with Mary and baby Sallie Clementine Rogers, who was born in Bonham in 1863. To support his young family and build back the ranch, Rogers drove a six-horse team in a wagon train, carried goods to the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, and traded cattle.

On May 28, 1890, Mary Rogers died. She was fifty-one.

In 1890 Rogers was President of the Vinita Fair Board.

"In 1894 ... Clem Rogers became Vice President of the First National Bank of Claremore, a position he held until his death in 1911."

"In 1899, he was elected President of the Claremore School Board.... That part of his beloved Cooweescoowee District where he lived was re-named "Rogers County" in his honor."