Moses Logan Rodgers (c. 1835–October 22, 1900) was an

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

pioneer of

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, arriving in 1849, during the

California Gold Rush The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the U ...

Biography

Five main shafts and over 10,000 feet of underground workings brought the gold/silver ore to the surface where it was handsorted and then sent by wagon to the mine's concentration mill. A Merced newspaper said of Rodgers that "there is no better mining man in the State."

Legacy

*The Moses Rodgers House which Rodgers built in 1898 at 921 South San Joaquin Street,

Stockton, California Stockton is a city in and the county seat of San Joaquin County, California, San Joaquin County in the Central Valley (California), Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. It is the most populous city in the county, the List of municipal ...

is a historical landmark which is registered at The National Register of Historic Places. He built it for his wife Sarah and their five daughters, to all of whom he gave the very best education California afforded. One daughter Vivian Rodgers graduated from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, with the class of 1909 majoring in Science and Letters. *Moses Rodgers Virtual Academy, 302 W. Weber Avenue, Stockton,

Footnotes

References

*Lapp, Rudolph M. ''Blacks in Gold Rush California'', Yale University Press (1995) - *Savage, W. Sherman. ''The Negro in the Westward Movement'', The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 25, No. 4 (October 1940), pp. 531–539

External links

The Glory of the Past: Historic Homes in Stockton
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodgers, Moses Logan 1830s births 1900 deaths 19th-century African-American people American mining engineers African-American history of California People of the California Gold Rush