My Genealogy Hound

Mrs. Margaret (Rogers) Chollar is a native of the county in which she now resides, and was born in 1838. Her parents were Capt. John and Mary (Flagg) Rogers. They had the following children: Mrs. Chollar, Mrs. Emma Johnson, William, Hickory, Thomas and Buckner. The sons live in the Indian Territory. Mrs. Chollar was reared in Fort Smith, and attended the St. Paul’s Institute, of Baltimore, Md. She was first married to John Melvin, who was born in Pennsylvania, and was a steamboat pilot on the Arkansas River. He was a member of the I. O. O. F., and died in 1878, and she was afterward married to John Chollar, a native of York State. To her first union two children were born: Jane, who is now in the patent office at Washington D. C., and William, a machinist at Fort Smith, Ark. John Rogers, Mrs. Chollar’s father, was the founder of Fort Smith. He was born near Carlisle, Penn., and removed with his father to near Pittsburgh, where he was educated. When quite young he left Pittsburgh and went to Harper’s Ferry, Va., where he remained until the breaking out of the War of 1812, and was then engaged in supplying the army of Gen. Harrison with provisions, serving in this capacity until the close of the war. He was appointed collector of the post of Detroit, Mich., and was appointed deputy paymaster of the United States Army, and in the winter of 1816 went south to New Orleans. In 1818 he became sutler of the army, and the following year became military commissary keeper, and acted as purchasing agent for the army, and also furnished provisions for Gen. Jackson’s Florida expedition. In 1822 he came to Fort Smith and was the first postmaster of the town, which position he held thirty years. He laid out the town, and the first two buildings were erected by him, the materials for which were brought from Pittsburgh, Penn., on keel-boats, by Capt. Rogers and George S. Birnie. Until 1842 his time was devoted to building up the town which he had founded, and he was a man of unusual business ability and sagacity, and was noted for his honesty and liberality to the poor. Owing to his enterprise and push, the county is largely indebted to him for its prosperity, and he is justly entitled to rank among the representative men of Arkansas.