On May 30, 2005—Memorial Day—the Rogers Island Visitors Center unveiled a new memorial to Robert Rogers, of Rogers' Rangers fame.  I went to this event to represent my unit of Rogers' Rangers, and to be part of the celebration of the life of this very important person.

The ceremony was attended by a number of reenactors including some of the 27th Inniskilling and 55th of Foot, many natives, Speakman's Co. of Rogers Rangers led by Ed Bethel, John-Eric Nelson, and Ranger expert and author Tim Todish; by archeology and writer David R. Starbuck; by author and Rogers descendant Robert J. Rogers; by veterans, descendants, and many local officials. 

A large tent was set up for guests to sit and listen to speakers, while we reenactors lined up on the road to march in parade to the statue.  And we watched the weather, as we were in danger of a serious downpour, but we got lucky.

The ceremonies began with a flag-raising; John-Eric Nelson raised the American flag while a local reenactor raised the British flag.  That was followed by a number of speeches, and eventually the statue was unveiled by Tim Todish.

The statue depicts Robert Rogers climbing a rock and urging his men behind him to continue forward. His hand is behind him on the verge of waving his men on.   The statue sits on a large rock decorated with several plaques.  The first is simply a dedication to Robert Rogers. Two others include the "Ranger creed" and "Rogers' Rules of Ranging."  The creed itself is actually suspect in that there is not proof this came from Robert Rogers and in fact many experts believe the "folksy" style is not correct for Robert Rogers and belongs to the man who "found" the creed in the 20th century.

YH&OS,

Pvt. Chauncey

N.B.: An interesting thing had happened prior to the actual event, which was that reenactor Bob Bearor wrote a letter to someone vociferously objecting to having this memorial ceremony on Memorial Day, based on the fact that Robert Rogers fought with the British during the Revolutionary War and thus was a traitor to America.  He acknowledged Rogers' contributions during the French and Indian War but felt the ceremony should be on another day.  This letter went public and even made national news. We couuld read about it in the LA Times, and elsewhere!  Meanwhile, some local advertising had been done by the folks at Rogers Island and many local fans and Rogers decendants learned about the upcoming ceremony, but when Bearor's letter went public, other fans and another Rogers decendant learned about the event and came to join the celebrations (which did, in fact, go forward on Memorial Day).  So in a way, Bearor's letter did some good!