Mary Cecilia Rogers, also known as the "Beautiful Cigar Girl", was a 19th-century murder victim whose story became a national sensation.
Mary Rogers was probably born in 1820 in Lyme, Connecticut, though her birth records have not survived. Her father died in a steamboat explosion when she was 17 and she took a job as a clerk in a tobacco shop owned by John Anderson in New York City. Anderson paid her a generous wage in part because her physical ...
more
Mary Cecilia Rogers, also known as the "Beautiful Cigar Girl", was a 19th-century murder victim whose story became a national sensation.
Mary Rogers was probably born in 1820 in Lyme, Connecticut, though her birth records have not survived. Her father died in a steamboat explosion when she was 17 and she took a job as a clerk in a tobacco shop owned by John Anderson in New York City. Anderson paid her a generous wage in part because her physical attractiveness brought in many customers. One customer wrote that he spent an entire afternoon at the store only to exchange "teasing glances" with her. Another admirer published a poem in the New York Herald referring to her heaven-like smile and her star-like eyes. Some of her customers included notable literary figures James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, and Fitz-Greene Halleck.
On October 5, 1838, the New York Sun reported that "Miss Mary Cecilia Rogers" had disappeared from her home. Her mother Phoebe said she found a suicide note...
less
