The Rev. Ammi Rogers, Abortionist
Ammi Rogers, who “styled himself as the Rev. Rogers,” as David Beach put it, was a man who had been involved in sex scandals since he was a young man freshly graduated from Yale College (class of 1790). He converted to the Episcopalian church while in college, and after graduation, studied divinity in Middletown with the Rev. Abraham Jarvis, who would later become bishop of the diocese. He boarded with Jarvis, and after flagrant improprieties with a young girl in that household, he was dismissed from Jarvis’s circle. Rogers then, for a short time, studied under the Rev. Dr. Richard Mansfield of Derby, and the Rev. Edward Blakeslee of North Haven. Rogers left Connecticut when Bishop Seabury refused to ordain him because of his bad character.
Rogers moved to New York, where he was eventually ordained. He later returned to Connecticut, where the Rev. Jarvis was now Bishop Jarvis. Rogers’ attempts to establish himself in Connecticut were thwarted by Jarvis and the Council of Bishops, who ruled that Rogers had obtained ordination in New York under false pretenses, and “degraded” him, stripping him of his clerical rights. Good-looking, poised, and charismatic, Rogers developed a devoted following, becoming pastor of several churches in New London, Windham, and Tolland counties, despite his degraded status.
While in New York, Rogers had married, but is wife died in 1800, having borne three children. Rogers, apparently under a cloud of unpleasant rumors regarding his integrity and moral character, left the children behind with his in-laws and moved back to Connecticut. In Preston, Connecticut Rogers was accepted as an itinerant minister, and was so well liked, that he decided to stay, and founded the St. George’s Episcopal Church in 1813. He boarded with a wealthy local farm family while the new stone church was being built. The farm was owned by Elisha Geer, who had invited Rogers to stay there, and also living on the farm were Geer’s daughter Anna, her husband Joseph Gardiner Smith, and their two daughters, Asenath and Maria.
Asenath’s father, Joseph, died in 1816, and shortly afterward she and Rogers became an item. The relationship between the minister and the seventeen year old Asenath was no secret, and Asenath’s grandfather, Elisha Geer, later testified at Rogers’ trial that it was assumed that the two were courting, and would be married. At this point in history, courting couples were allowed unchaperoned meetings that often included sexual activity, and brides were not uncommonly pregnant on their wedding days.
In the fall of 1817, Asenath became ill, and the 47 year old Rogers attended her. At one point, Rogers locked himself in the room with her. When Asenath’s mother and sister heard her scream on the third day, they demanded to be let in, and Rogers told them it was merely a bout of hysteria. The women had faith in Rogers. But five days later, Asenath gave birth to a dead baby. In January 1818, Rogers was arrested and charged with seduction and procuring an abortion.
During the trial, all the grisly details and the reprehensible actions of Rogers came out. Rogers tried to induce an abortion using ergot, which failed. He then used some sort of instrument which he introduced into Asenath’s uterus; hence the scream. Whatever Rogers did, when the dead baby was born, there seemed to be no visible injuries to the fetus, which had been at least six months along, and Asenath had been feeling it kicking in her womb. Rogers had told her that he wanted to marry her, but not if she were pregnant, because it would be unseemly for a man in his position.
At the trial, Rogers pleaded not guilty. His attorney presented male witnesses including church vestrymen, doctors, politicians, some of whom were Revolutionary War heroes, to attest to Rogers’ character. Rogers, a charismatic man, had assiduously cultivated such men as a routine matter. The vestrymen had already conducted their own inquiry and pronounced that Rogers was not liable for any reproach.
Rogers had contrived to spirit two of the main witnesses out of the state: Asenath herself, and her sister Maria. Attorney Zephaniah Swift, a judge and a friend of Rogers, advised Rogers to have Asenath submit a written statement to District Attorney Robert Lanman retracting her accusation that Rogers was the father of her child, and then get her out of the state, which Rogers did. In her statement, Asenath claimed that Lanman, Dr. George Downer, and Col. Halsey coerced her into accusing Rogers, and that Downer was the actual father of Asenath’s child. Then, on the pretext of visiting her sister, Rogers spirited Maria out of the state, into Massachusetts. Between April 1819 and October 1820, Rogers used various means to confuse and intimidate the sisters, and to make them completely dependent on him. He told them that he would marry Asenath, and provide for Maria, if he were acquitted in court, and that depended on the sisters not testifying.
Maria was put to work, as a domestic servant to Dr. Ira Daniels in Springfield. Forcing Maria to use the name Betsey Clarke, Rogers used threats, and at one point trying to strangle her, to force the girl to cooperate. Dr. Daniels discovered the truth, and later testified that Rogers attempted to convince him to advise Maria to cooperate with him. Maria was returned to Connecticut, and testified at the trial, where she told the true story.
Rogers was convicted of procuring an abortion. Abortion was not specifically illegal in Connecticut, except in special circumstances. In this case, the fact that the fetus was aborted following “quickening” was the key. Quickening meant that the fetus could be felt moving by the mother. Rogers could have been sentenced to a long term in Newgate Prison, but, out of consideration for his children, he was sentenced to two years in the Norwich jail, which he entered on October 7, 1820.
Rogers petitioned the General Assembly to be released from jail. He didn’t ask for a new trial; he wanted to be released because he was a minister, a defense that hearkened back to the old “benefit of clergy.” He also requested that all records of the trial be destroyed. His petition mentioned the names of over a dozen prominent men, in an apparent attempt to impress the court with his influential connections. The petition, more than thirty pages long, included an attempt to discredit the testimony of Maria Smith. Maria was a star witness. An educated young woman, she impressed the court during the trial with her calm and reasoned testimony. Rogers claimed that Maria was a prostitute, was diseased, and had married a drunk named George Packer; therefore, her testimony should be disregarded. His petition was turned down.
Rogers later wrote a memoir which was published in numerous editions, in which he repeated his lies in an attempt to exonerate himself in the court of public opinion, but Rogers stands as a scoundrel comparable to Richardson’s Robert Lovelace. Rogers never admitted his guilt, submitting more petitions to the G.A., and publishing his memoirs in which he claims he was railroaded by his enemies because he was a democrat, an anti-Federalist, and advocated for separation of church and state in Connecticut. Historian Donna Jacobson claims that Rogers’ narcissism didn’t allow him to take any responsibility for his actions.
As a result of Roger’s trial, Connecticut passed its first anti-abortion laws, which was also the first anti-abortion law in the United States. Previously, the killing of a fetus was considered a misdemeanor, on the principle that the fetus was not a person until it is born, in line with English law. In the new Connecticut law, “administering poison with intent to murder, or cause miscarriage” would be a felony.
Patricia Suprenant, an anthropologist who is also a novelist, is working on a fictionalized account of the Rogers’ trial entitled Behind the Scarlet Letter. Suprenant is convinced that Nathaniel Hawthorne was inspired to write The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, by the extensive newspaper coverage of the trial.
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For further reading, see:
Franklin Bowditch Dexter. Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, Vol. IV. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1907, 21-24. Accessed May 9, 2021, https://archive.org/details/biographicalske11dextgoog/page/n8/mode/2up?q=ammi+rogers
Donna B. Jacobson, “When Abortion Became Illegal: The Degraded Reverend Rogers, Trial, & The Connecticut General Assembly , 1815-1830,” Connecticut History Review. (Fall 2019) Volume 58, number 2: pp. 49-81.
Patricia Suprenant, “ does-the-scarlet-letter-have-connecticut-roots,” The Journal-Inquirer, May 28, 2018.
Ammi Rogers, The Memoirs of the Rev. Ammi Rogers A.M., 1832, The Memoirs of the Rev. Ammi Rogers, A.M.