Chisolm T. Rogers. M. D. The noble and historic Old Dominion has not failed to give to the new and vigorous commonwealth of Oklahoma a due quota of loyal and progressive citizens, and prominent among the number stands Doctor Rogers, who came to Indian Territory in June, 1905, and who has been engaged in the active and specially successful practice of his profession in the City of Muskogee, which has been his place of residence during nearly the entire period of his residence in what is now the State of Oklahoma.

At the ancestral home of his mother in the Village of Alphin, Rockbridge County, Virginia, Dr. Chisolm Tucker Rogers was born on the 21st of December, 1876, and in both the agnatic and distaff lines he is a scion of honored Colonial families of Virginia, of which fact he may well be proud, for the Old Dominion was the gracious cradle of much of our national history and the tender mother of worthy sons and daughters who have been influential in connection with the development and upbuilding of many of the newer commonwealths of the United States. Doctor Rogers is a son of Dr. William Hunter Rogers, who was for many years one of the distinguished physicians and surgeons of Rockbridge County in his native state, and who was a prominent and influential citizen of Lexington, the judicial center of that county. He was a son of Dr. William Peter Rogers, who likewise was a native of Rockbridge County, Virginia. The maiden name of his wife was Rachael Hayes, who came to Virginia from Vermont to take the place of principal of the aristocratic and exclusive preparatory school for Washington College, located at Lexington. Miss Hayes was known all over Virginia as a woman of great learning and culture.

The paternal great-grandfather of him whose name introduces this review was John Rogers, a scion of stanch Scotch-English stock, and a man who attained to marked prominence in Virginia in the Colonial days. He was a skilled surveyor and had to do with the making of many important surveys in Virginia in the early period of its history, besides which it is especially pleasing to record that Mount Rogers, the highest mountain peak in Virginia, was named in his honor. John Rogers’ wife was Mary Byrd, sister of Evalyn Byrd, of historic fame, and daughter of Col. William Byrd, of Westover. The two General Clarks, familiar to American historians, were descended from this family, George Rogers Clark being one of them.

The Rogers family is distinctively one of education and patrician culture and the various generations that have came on to life’s activities have in turn given new prestige to the family name.

The mother of Doctor Rogers bore the maiden name of Mary Alphin, and she was born at the ancestral homestead which gave name to the Village of Alphin, in Rockbridge County, Virginia, the Alphin family likewise having been one of much prominence in the Old Dominion. The father of Mrs. Rogers was one of five brothers who immigrated from England and all of whom became specially successful in connection with industrial and business affairs in the historic Old Dominion.

Dr. Chisolm T. Rogers was reared to adult age at the Rogers family home of “ Mannion” near the fine old City of Lexington, Virginia, and after due preliminary discipline he was matriculated in the historic William and Mary College at Williamsburg, Virginia, at which college he spent two years, leaving there for Western North Carolina for climate reasons. He entered Rutherford College in the fall of 1896, graduating from there in the spring of 1897 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. After several years of business life, Doctor Rogers entered the medical department of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, at which university he completed his three years’ course, taking the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1904. In 1905, on account of the cold and severe winters in Lexington, Virginia, Doctor Rogers came to Indian Territory and established his residence at Muskogee, where he has since been continuously engaged, save for a comparatively brief period of residence in a small railroad town near Muskogee.

Doctor Rogers is one of those ambitious and progressive physicians and surgeons who hold that professionally it is not enough for a man to remain in statu quo, but that consistency and cumulative demand that close touch be kept with the march of advancement in medical and surgical science. Thus he has not only been a constant and appreciative student of the best literature pertaining to his profession, but has also done effective post-graduate work not only in metropolitan cities of the United States, but also in leading medical institutions of Europe. In the City of Berlin, Germany, he devoted special study to diseases of the chest, including tuberculosis, and he is now confining his practice largely to this special field of work, in which he is one of the foremost authorities in Oklahoma.

Doctor Rogers is a fellow of the American Medical Association and a member of the Anglo-American Medical Association, of Berlin, Germany. He has been very prominently connected with Greek letter fraternities and has been instrumental in putting in many chapters of his fraternities, among which the Alpha Kappa Kappa is prominent.

In politics the doctor has clung tenaciously to the ancestral faith and is a stalwart advocate of the principles of the democratic party and has held many offices in the party organization, and at this writing is chairman of his city central committee. He is also superintendent of public health for the City of Muskogee and is medical director for a private sanitarium for the treatment of tuberculosis and is otherwise prominent and influential in public and general civic affairs in his home city. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church and his wife is a zealous member of the Episcopal Church.

In the year 1902 was solemnized the marriage of Doctor Rogers to Miss Carita Van Ness, a daughter of Judge William and Mary Wyckliffe Waters Van Ness. Her father served as a colonel in the Union army during the Civil war and had the distinction of being one of the officers on General Grant’s staff. After the close of the war he became a distinguished lawyer and jurist in the State of Florida, where he served in important judicial offices and as mayor and prosecuting attorney of the City of St. Augustine. His father, Judge William Van Ness, of sterling Holand Dutch lineage, served as a justice of the Supreme Court of New York and was Aaron Burr’s second in the latter’s famous and historic duel with Alexander Hamilton. Her maternal grandfather was the Hon. Thomas W. Waters, of Kentucky. Doctor and Mrs. Rogers have two children, William Hunter Van Ness and Mary Katherine.