Staggs Family History

My ancestors in the United States

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      Martha Ann Rogers (1801-1876)

      BIRTH: 1801, South Carolina, USA
      DEATH: 1876, Newton County, Arkansas, USA
      FATHER: Samuel Rogers (?–?)
      MOTHER: Mollie —- (?–?)
      SPOUSE: John Baird McFerrin (1806–1895)

      Martha Ann Rogers was born in 1801 in South Carolina, the daughter of Mollie and Samuel. She had three sons and two daughters with John Baird McFerrin. She died in 1876 in Newton, Arkansas, having lived a long life of 75 years, and was buried there.

      The Life of Martha Ann Rogers

      Jefferson County, Alabama → Walker County → Tuscaloosa → Arkansas

      Martha Ann Rogers was born in 1801, most likely in the Carolina backcountry, before her family moved to the newly forming settlements of Jefferson County, Alabama, where her parents — Samuel and Mollie Rogers — appear in the earliest territorial tax lists.. She came of age during a period of rapid transformation, when Alabama was still a frontier territory, its landscape dotted with Creek and Choctaw villages, and its settlers carving farms from the dense forests along the Cahaba and Black Warrior Rivers.

      Her parents, Samuel and Mollie, were part of the first wave of settlers who arrived in Jefferson County before Alabama achieved statehood in 1819. Though few records survive, tax rolls and census substitutes show Samuel Rogers as a farmer with a household that included several children born between 1795 and 1810 — a perfect fit for Martha Ann’s birth year. The Rogers family lived in the same region where the McFerrins would later settle, suggesting that the two families may have known each other long before Martha Ann married into the McFerrin line.

      Growing up in this frontier environment, Martha Ann would have learned the skills expected of young women in early Alabama: tending gardens, preserving food, spinning and sewing, and helping maintain the household economy that sustained frontier families. Her world was one of hard work, close‑knit kinship networks, and constant adaptation to the challenges of life on the edge of American expansion.

      Marriage and Early Family Life

      Sometime in the late 1820s or early 1830s, Martha Ann married John Baird McFerrin, a young man from a large Scotch‑Irish family that had migrated from Abbeville District, South Carolina. John was five years younger than Martha Ann, but their partnership would endure for more than four decades.

      By 1840, the couple was living in Walker County, Alabama, where the census lists “John Mcfarin” as head of a household that included several young children. Martha Ann, then in her late thirties, was raising a growing family in a region still very much a frontier — a place of rough cabins, small farms, and scattered settlements connected by wagon roads and footpaths.

      The 1840s and 1850s were years of movement and change for the McFerrins. They lived near John’s siblings — Thomas, William Bryant, and others — forming a family cluster that appears repeatedly in Walker and Tuscaloosa County records. Martha Ann’s life during these years would have been defined by the rhythms of farm work, childbirth, and the constant labor required to sustain a household in rural Alabama.

      The 1855 Tuscaloosa Census — A Glimpse Into Her Household

      One of the most revealing documents from Martha Ann’s life is the 1855 Alabama State Census. On that census page, written in hurried cursive, appears the entry:

      “John B. M. Fenn” with a household of five whites:

      • 2 males under 21
      • 1 male over 21
      • 1 female under 21
      • 1 female over 21

      The “female over 21” is Martha Ann.

      This census captures her family at a moment of transition — children growing into adulthood, the household smaller than it had been in earlier years, and the family preparing for the next great move.

      The census also places the McFerrins among a cluster of families whose names appear in variant spellings: Ferren, Feirren, Ferron, McFerren. These were Martha Ann’s neighbors, kin, and community — the people with whom she shared the daily realities of frontier life.

      The Move to Arkansas

      Between 1855 and 1860, Martha Ann and John joined the wave of Alabama families migrating westward into Arkansas. The move was part of a broader pattern: as Alabama’s lands became more crowded and less fertile, families sought new opportunities in the Ozarks.

      By 1860, the McFerrins appear in Saline County, Arkansas, listed as “John McFerin.” Martha Ann, then nearly sixty, had uprooted her life once again, traveling hundreds of miles by wagon into a rugged new landscape.

      The Civil War soon engulfed Arkansas, bringing hardship, scarcity, and uncertainty. Though too old for military service, John and Martha Ann lived through the war years in a region marked by guerrilla activity, divided loyalties, and economic devastation.

      Final Years in Newton County

      After the war, the McFerrins moved deeper into the Ozarks, settling in Newton County, Arkansas, where several of their children and grandchildren were establishing farms. The 1870 census shows the family living among other Alabama‑born settlers who had made the same journey west.

      Martha Ann died in 1876, at the age of seventy‑five. She had lived through the opening of Alabama, the removal of Native peoples, the rise and fall of the cotton frontier, the Civil War, and the rebuilding that followed. Her life spanned three states, countless miles of migration, and the transformation of the American South.

      She was buried in Arkansas soil, far from the Jefferson County homestead where her parents once lived.

      Legacy of Martha Ann Rogers

      Martha Ann Rogers left no written letters, diaries, or public records of her own. Her legacy survives instead in the lives of her children and the generations that followed.

      A Frontier Matriarch: She represents the thousands of women whose labor sustained frontier families — women who cooked, spun, wove, gardened, raised children, and held households together through hardship and change.

      A Link Between Families: Through her marriage to John Baird McFerrin, she united two early Alabama families — the Rogers and the McFerrins — whose descendants would spread across Arkansas and beyond.

      A Witness to Transformation: Her life spanned the era of territorial Alabama, statehood, westward migration, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Few women of her generation saw so much change.

      A Quiet but Enduring Influence: Though her name appears only in census records and family memory, Martha Ann’s influence is woven into the fabric of her descendants’ lives. Every McFerrin who traces their line through John Baird carries a part of her story — a story of resilience, movement, and survival.

      Parents

      FATHER: Samuel Rogers (?–?)
      MOTHER: Mollie —- (?–?)

      Married

      John Baird McFerrin (1806–1895)

      Children

      • John Brown McFerrin (1836–1923) married Clementine Tabitha McCrea (1841–1922)
      • Martha Ann Rosanna McFerrin (1839–1919) married: George Warren Blackstone (1842-?)
      • Lucy M. McFerrin (1840/41 – ?)
      • Lewis Lycurgus McFerrin (1842–1862) killed in Civil War, Battle of Seven Pines
      • Richard Hall McFerrin (1847/48 – ?)

      Documents

      • Birth Records
      • Wedding records
        • None
      • Death records
        • Find a Grave > Birth: 1801, South Carolina, USA, Death: 1896, Newton County, Arkansas, USA
        • Burial: McFerrin Cemetery, Newton County, Arkansas, USA
      • Census Records
        • 1840 United States Federal Census > Alabama > Walker > Name: John McFerrin; Residence Date: 1840; Home in 1840 (City, County, State): Walker, Alabama; Free White Persons – Males – 5 thru 9: 1; Free White Persons – Males – 20 thru 29: 1; Free White Persons – Females – Under 5: 1; Free White Persons – Females – 30 thru 39: 1; Persons Employed in Agriculture: 1; Free White Persons – Under 20: 2; Free White Persons – 20 thru 49: 2; Total Free White Persons: 4
        • 1850 United States Federal Census Page 2 > Alabama > Tuscaloosa > District 1 > Name: Martha McPhearson; Gender: Female; Race: White; Residence Age: 52; Birth Date: abt 1798; Birthplace: South Carolina; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: District 1, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA; Line Number: 39; Dwelling Number: 727; Family Number: 727; Other Household members: John B McPhearson (husband, 40), John McPhearson (15), Martha R McPhearson (11), Lucy M McPhearson (9), Richard Hall (2)
      • Other

      Relation of Martha Ann Rogers to Karen Edgar: 3rd great-grandmother

      Page last updated June 12, 2026

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