The Recently Discovered Diaries
of Isaiah Rogers

DENYS PETER MYERS

IT all began, in a sense, with the late Professor Talbot
Hamlin.* Having completed a master's essay on one of his
favorite Greek Revival architects, Alinard Lafever, author
of numerous builder's guides, I was asked, "what next.'" In the
course of that conversation in 1948, Professor Hamlin said:
"You really ought to do something about Isaiah Rogers. He's
never been adequately studied, and he richly deserves thorough
research," Thus the hunt for documentation began.

How does one trace the descendents of a man who died in
1869? The only published genealogy of the Rogers family ends
with the generation of 1800, the year of Isaiah Rogers's birth.
The solemn but happy thought of checking cemetery records
occurred to me. At Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, the
city where Rogers last lived, I found that the most recent in¬
terment in the family lot had taken place in 1947 following the
funeral of Willard Gould Rogers, a grandson of the subject of
my research. Further inquiry disclosed that the funeral expenses
had been paid by Miss Marian H. Rogers of Atlanta. The trail
was getting warm.

Miss Marian H. Rogers, fortunately, was still lixing and was
listed in the Atlanta telephone directory, A long-distance call
was promptly placed. During our conversation, it turned out
that she was Isaiah Rogers's granddaughter, "Have you any
plans,   drawings   or   letters   pertaining   to   your   grandfather's

• A member of the faculty of Columbia's School of Architecture, 1916-1954,
and Avery Librarian, 1934-1945.

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