banner

Home | Quotations | Newspaper Articles | Special Features | Links | Search


[This article is edited to include only those portions most relevant to Mark Twain.]

The New York Times, May 20, 1909

H. H. ROGERS DEAD, LEAVING $50,000,000
Apoplexy Carries Off the Financier Famous in Standard Oil, Railways, Gas, and Copper.
ONLY HIS WIFE WITH HIM
Dead When His Physician Arrives - Associates Shocked, but Only a Ripple in Stocks - Funeral Tomorrow.

Henry Huttleston Rogers, one of the foremost of the country's captains of industry, and a notable figure for many years in financial and corporation development in this country, died suddenly at this home, 3 East Seventy-eighth Street, at 7:20 o'clock yesterday morning, following a stroke of apoplexy, the second one he had suffered. He had been taken ill about an hour before he expired, soon after he had risen for the day. He died before his physician, Dr. Edward P. Fowler, could reach him from his country house at Pelham Manor.

Mr. Rogers was in his sixty-ninth year. As to his fortune, the estimates of Wall Street men varied yesterday from $50,000,000 to $75,000,000. Figures recently published showing the distribution of Standard Oil stock credited him with holding in his own name 16,020 shares in that corporation.

MARK TWAIN GRIEF-STRICKEN.

He Heard the News on Arriving in Town to Visit His Old Friend.

Samuel L. Clemens, (Mark Twain,) for years one of the warmest friends of Mr. Rogers, arrived in town from his home in Redding, Conn., at noon yesterday intending to meet Mr. Rogers at the latter's home, and heard the news of his death on arrival at the Grand Central Station.

A telegram apprising Mr. Clemens of the death of his old friend had been sent to Redding yesterday morning, but Mr. Clemens did not receive it, and did not know that Mr. Rogers was dead until after he arrived. As Mr. Clemens left the station he looked greatly grieved, and was leaning heavily upon the arm of his daughter, Miss Clemens, who had accompanied him to New York from Redding. Tears filled his eyes and his hands were trembling.

Several reporters who had met the Pittsfield express, on which Mr. Clemens came to New York, were at the train to meet him.

"This is terrible, terrible, and I cannot talk about it," Mr. Clemens said to the reporters. "I am inexpressibly shocked and grieved. I do not know just where I will go."

Miss Clemens explained that her father had left his home not knowing anything about the death of his friend, and had expected to enjoy the day with him. The members of the Rogers household, knowing that he was coming, had notified her as soon as the death had occurred, that she might break the news to him as gently as possible. The first intimation, she said, that her father received that Mr. Rogers was not living and in good health was from herself.

Mr. Clemens and his daughter lingered in the waiting room on the main station for a few minutes. Then Mark Twain, still leaning on his daughter's arm and looking toward the ground, walked slowly to the street through the Forty-second Street exit. Together they proceeded to the Subway station and boarded an uptown express.

Later in the day Mr. Clemens went to the home of Urban H. Broughton, son-in-law of Mr. Rogers, where they were joined by other friends of the family. After spending a few minutes there he reappeared and went away in a carriage. He did not go to the Rogers home and it was said that he had probably returned to Redding.


Related Special Feature: Mark Twain and Henry Huttleston Rogers in Virginia

Return to The New York Times index


Quotations | Newspaper Articles | Special Features | Links | Search