[Footnote A:  New Hampshire Gazeteer, 1833, p. 121.]

Six years only after his removal (1755), he was unintentionally shot by a neighbor whom he was going to visit; the latter mistaking him for a bear, as he indistinctly saw him passing through the woods.  This incident was the foundation of the story said to have been told by his son, some years after, in a London tavern.  The version given by Farmer and Moore is as follows, viz.:[A] “It is reported of Major Rogers, that while in London, after the French war, being in company with several persons, it was agreed, that the one who told the most improbable story, or the greatest falsehood, should have his fare paid by the others.  When it came to his turn, he told the company that his father was shot in the woods of America by a person who supposed him to be a bear; and that his mother was followed several miles through the snow by hunters, who mistook her track for that of the same animal.  It was acknowledged by the whole company that the Major had told the greatest lie, when in fact, he had related nothing but the truth."[B]

[Footnote A:  Historical Collections, by Farmer and Moore, vol. 1, p. 240.]

[Footnote B:  The Great Meadow and the site of the elder Rogers’ house is easily accessible to any person possessed of a curiosity to visit them.  They are in the South-Easterly section of Dunbarton, some six or seven miles only from Concord.  The whole town is of very uneven surface, and the visitor will smile when he reads upon the ground, in Farmer and Moore’s New Hampshire Gazeteer, that he will find there but “few hills, nor any mountains.”  He soon learns that the declaration of its people is more correct when they assure him that its surface is a “pimply” one.]

As the largest part of Roger’s fame rests upon his achievements in the ranging service of our Seven Years’ War, we must recall for a moment the condition of things in the British Colonies and in Canada at the beginning of this war.

The thirteen American Colonies had, at that time, all told, of both white and black, a population of about one million and a half of souls (1,425,000.)[A] The French people of Canada numbered less than one hundred thousand.[B]

[Footnote A:  Bancroft’s History of the United States, vol. 4, p. 127.]

[Footnote B:  Encyclopedia Brittanica.]

The respective claims to the Central part of the North American Continent by England and France were conflicting and irreconcilable.  The former, by right of discovery, claimed all the territory upon the Atlantic coast from New Foundland to Florida, and by virtue of numerous grants the right to all west of this to the Pacific Ocean.  The latter, by right of occupation and exploration, claimed Canada, a portion of New England and New York, and the basins of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, together with all the territory upon the streams tributary to these, or a large part of the indefinite West.