Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood Store

Howard S. Roger’s “History of Cass County” is notable among county histories. It was a personal project that was written before the production of county histories got to be a regular industry. Not many such histories were written before our country’s 100th anniversary in 1876, an event that triggered much retrospection and the production of county histories on a grand scale.

After posting the previous article about Volinia, I learned that Howard S. Rogers not only lived in the neighborhood, but built a store there. This information is from the 1882 county history, on page 289:

Mr. H.S. Rogers, who perhaps is as well knonw in Cass County, because of his History of the same, which was issued in 1875, as any other person, has been a resident of this township since 1852. In 1866 or 1867, he erected a store at Volinia, and followed merchandising for nearly twelve years, and it was while thus engaged that he first conceived the project of writing the history of the county. Mr. Rogers is fully alive to agricultural interests, he being now engaged in that avocation, and has performed the laborious duties of Secretary of the Volinia Farmers’ Club, with the exception of one or two years, since its organization, and has assisted very materially in its success.

Was his store one of those two that are still standing? The one shown in the photo above is on the south side of the east-west road. The style of trim and the stone foundation would keep one from ruling out the possibility. But the 1882 atlas (snippet above, taken from the county history and atlas collection at the University of Michigan web site) doesn’t show any stores on the south side; almost all buildings were on the north. That is not to say that the map-maker didn’t miss it, though.

The 1872 atlas shows H.S. Rogers as a property owner in two places near Volinia. One is lot 5, on the east side of the road along the creek. The other is harder to decipher. It may be referring to the lot on the northwest corner of the intersection, or it may be referring to the residence between the main intersection and the stream.

But to me it looks like that one on the northwest corner (photo above) is a more likely possibility, given what the map is trying to tell us. It’s hard to tell from the photo whether the building is old enough, but it might be.

Perhaps some local historian has done research in the county land ownership records to figure these things out. If not, it would seem to me to be a worthy project for someone. (I do some archival research myself, but generally draw the line at going into courthouses to look at records of deeds, for fear it wouldn’t leave me with time for bicycle rides. But maybe someone else will find it an interesting question someday, if it hasn’t already been researched.)

Whichever location was his, and whether or not his store is still standing, it seems like Mr. Roger’s timing wasn’t good for building a store in this town. As he himself told us in his 1875 book, Volinia and Charleston had already passed their peaks of population and activity by then. But maybe it’s good for us that his business wasn’t extremely successful, or he might not have taken time to write his book.