Henry Huttleston Rogers

Henry Huttleston Rogers (January 29, 1840–May 19, 1909), was a United States capitalist, businessman and philanthropist. He was one of the key men in John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust. He later developed the Virginian Railway.

Born into a working class family in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, he worked in his father’s grocery store as a teenager, and was in the first graduating class of the local high school. He hired on with the Old Colony Railroad as a brakeman, and saved carefully.

In 1861, he pooled his $600 savings with a friend, and set out for western Pennsylvania to the newly discovered oil fields, where he found and developed his fortune, associating himself with Charles Pratt, whose firm in turn later became part of the Standard Oil Trust.

He was married to his childhood sweetheart for over 30 years until her death; they had four children. Rogers was an energetic man, and amassed a great fortune, estimated at over $100 million. He invested heavily in various industries, including copper, steel, mining, and railways.

His final achievement was the building of the Virginian Railway (VGN) from the coal fields of southern West Virginia to port near Norfolk at Sewall's Point, Virginia in the harbor of Hampton Roads. Financed almost entirely from Rogers’ own resources, it competed with the Chesapeake and Ohio and Norfolk and Western railroads for coal traffic. Built following his policy of investing in the best route and equipment on initial selection and purchase to save operating expenses, the VGN enjoyed a more modern pathway built to the highest standards, and provided major competition to its larger neighboring railroads, each of whom tried several times unsuccessfully to acquire it.

Although Rogers died just as his railroad was completed, the 600 mile Virginian Railway followed his philosophy throughout its profitable history. It operated some of the largest and most powerful steam, electric, and diesel locomotives throughout its 50 year history, resulting in a following of railway enthusiasts which continues to the present day. The Virginian Railway was merged into the Norfolk and Western in 1959. Much of the former VGN trackage in Virginia is still in use in 2004 as the preferred route for eastbound coal trains for Norfolk Southern Corporation.

The diverse Rogers, who was at times known as a fierce businessman nicknamed ‘hellhound Rogers’, was also a modest but generous philanthropist who apparently never forgot his roots. He gave generously of time and money to his hometown of Fairhaven, Massachusetts, and to his friends Mark Twain, whose finances he helped reorganize, Helen Keller, whose college education he and his wife helped make possible, and Dr. Booker T. Washington. It was later revealed in Dr. Washington’s papers that Rogers had funded over 100 institutions in the South for the betterment and education of negroes.