Richard Saltonstall Rogers was an early American shipping merchant and was possibly the inspiration for a character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
Life and work
Early life and career in business
Rogers was born on January 13, 1790, in Salem, Massachusetts. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, from which he graduated in the year 1800. Early as a young man, he began to deal in business. Using the influence of his oldest brother, Nathaniel Leverett Rogers, who married the daughter of a prominent businessman in Salem, he acquired large amounts of cargo to be shipped to Russia. He spent several years in Russia, and dealt with the management of the affairs of his sister-in-law's family. In 1816, he served as the supercargo of the ship Friendship, owned by Waite and Pierce, his sister-in-law's father's company. He traveled to Lisbon, Portugal, and Kolkata, India, along with several destinations. Following his time on the Friendship, he embarked on one journey upon the Tartar. He then partnered with Nathaniel Rogers and his second oldest brother, John Wittingham Rogers, to form the Rogers Brothers company. Their company employed the ships the Tybee, Clay, Grotius, Augustus, Quill, and Charles Daggett. The brothers pioneered the Zanzibar and New Holland trades, and had their ships collectively travel over 120 times around Cape Horn and Cape of Good Hope. Later in life, he served as supercargo on the ship the Ianthe, and worked with his brother-in-law, W.D. Pickman.
Political career
Rogers was, at certain points of his life, a member of the Common Council of Salem and the Legislature. He however disliked the methods of his colleagues. He was a Whig, and an enemy of the Democratic-Republican, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and was involved with Hawthorne's removal from the Boston Custom House. Hawthorne, in a letter to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, promised to "immolate" Rogers, along with several other political opponents, if he were successfully removed from his office. It has been suggested that Roger Chillingworth, a character in Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter, was based on Rogers.
Marriage and family
On May 14, 1822, Rogers first married Sarah Crowninshield Rogers, daughter of SenatorJacob Crowninshield, with whom he had five sons and a daughter: William Crowninshield, Richard Denison, Jacob Crowninshield, George, Arthur Saltonstall, and Sarah, until her death in 1835. He then married Elizabeth Leavitt Pickman Rogers, daughter of Massachusetts State SenatorDudley Leavitt Pickman, on March 17, 1847, with whom he had Dudley Pickering, George Willoughby, and Elizabeth Pickman Pound. He was the grandfather of Sir Dudley Pound, a senior British Admiral during World War II.
