Mary Benjamin Rogers, daughter of a distinguished lawyer and scientist George Hillard Benjamin and Jane Miller Seymour, wife of Henry “Harry” Huttleston Rogers Jr, Standard Oil heir and close friend to Mark Twain, photographed in 1910.

Mark Twain’s book, Following The Equator, is dedicated to her husband:

“This Book Is Affectionately Inscribed To My Young Friend, - HARRY ROGERS - With recognition of what he is and apprehension of what he may become, unless he form himself a little more closely upon the model of - The Author”.

Mary’s father-in-law, Henry Rogers, American industrialist and financier,   became close to Twain in 1893 and soon became Twain’s chief financial adviser, taking complete control of Twain’s finances and helping him during his bankruptcy. Twain came to consider the Rogers clan his adopted family, frequently living in a cottage near the Rogers Tuxedo Park home.

In 1896 Henry Roger’s and Mark Twain took a keen interest in Helen Keller, with Rogers paying her tuition at Radcliffe as well as a monthly stipend, which she reciprocated; dedicating her 1908 book The World I Live In, “To Henry H. Rogers, my Dear Friend of Many Years.”  

Recently, the correspondence she shared with Twain, publicized in Mark Twain’s Letters to Mary in 1962, has helped shed light on the authors life. In 1906 he wrote to her, “What a useful creature you are, Saccharin! I can entertain myself with scribbling incoherently to you, you have to put up with it." 

On the eve of her wedding to Harry Rogers in 1900, Twain wrote to Mary Benjamin,  "Dear Miss Benjamin, I feel a deep personal interest in this fortunate marriage because I helped to rear Henry Rogers and make him what he is. I gave him the high moral touch which you will discover in him in spots. In order to testify to you how thankful I am to you for taking him off my hands, I had the idea of sending you a diamond coronet as a bridal present, but I gave it up because I was not able to find any fresh diamonds of this year’s crop, they were all of earlier vintages and some were second hand; so I have finally decided to ask you to accept of a set of my books instead; and this is all the better anyway for diamonds invite the burglar, but he will not take books except by request. Hoping you two will have a long and happy life and great prosperity – a wish in which Mrs. Clemens joins me – I am Sincerely Yours, S.L. Clemens.”

Her daughter, Millicent Rogers, was an art collector, fashion icon and socialite in the 30′s and 40′s. In later life Millicent was an activist for Native American civil rights. Recently, fashion designer John Galliano credited Millicent as an influence on his Spring 2010 Dior collection.

Mary Benjamin Rogers and Harry Rogers divorced in 1929, Harry remarrying twice more. Mary never remarried, spending her time volunteering with the Red Cross and working on her art work, which was exhibited in New York and California.