Name Moses Rodgers | Died October 22, 1900 | |
Born 1835 (?) Missouri, USA Occupation Mining engineer, Metallurgist | ||
Moses Logan Rodgers (1835 - October 22, 1900) African American pioneer of California, arriving in 1849—the beginning of the California Gold Rush. California was annexed by the United States and was admitted to the Union as the thirty-first state on September 9, 1850.
Contents
Biography
Moses Rodgers, who was born into slavery in Missouri, came to California in 1849. He became prominent during the Gold Rush as a successful mining engineer, making a lucrative career excavating gold in mines he owned in Hornitos in Mariposa County. He was regarded as intelligent, and his professional opinion was important. He quickly became known as an expert in the state, and investors went to him for advice regarding mining claims. He became so expert at it that in post-Civil War he was appointed superintendent of several mines (Mount Gaines Mine & Washington Mine). The stockholders of these mines seem to have been both blacks and whites. Rodgers's best known mine, for which he was a stock-holding superintendent, was the Washington Mine, which he established in 1869. It was a successful operation, which also employed Chinese workers. There were years when this mine took out over half a million dollars in gold. The Washington Mine was, in the mid-1880s, one of the area's largest, employing over 30 men. Five main shafts and over 10,000 feet of underground workings brought the gold/silver ore to the surface where it was handsorted and then sent by wagon to the mine's concentration mill. A Merced newspaper said of Rodgers that "there is no better mining man in the State."