Rogerenes.

The Rogerenes were a small religious sect founded by John Rogers, Sr. (1648-1721), in New England in the late 1670s. They later settled around New London County, Connecticut. Their pacifist and nonviolent religious doctrines and practices were shaped to a considerable degree by Quaker influences. During the early New England period, the sect was persecuted because it denounced the limitation of freedoms of conscience and worship. The Rogerenes were in part forerunners of the Universal Peace Union. Their numbers dwindled by the end of the 19th century. Prominent Connecticut family names associated with the Rogerenes include: Waterhouse/Watrous, Rogers, Crouch, Bolles, Whipple, and Chapman. The Whipple family operated the Mystic Oral School for the Deaf, whose papers were separated from this collection and given over to the Mystic River Historical Society in January 1991. Ida Whipple Benham's temperance and peace poetry was retained as a reflection of Rogerene values.