The Rogan family is credited with establishing the Catholic religion in Sumner County.  While the frontier was dominated by protestant denominations,  the Rogans were determined to maintain and practice their faith, even though few priests ventured into Tennessee.   Hugh and Nancy's son, Francis born in 1798, did not see a priest until he was baptized at the age of thirty by Father Joseph Alemany, later Archbishop of San Francisco.  The homes of Hugh and Nancy and Francis, who built a substantial brick house around 1825 adjacent to his parents'cottage, were the meeting places for area Catholics for over 50 years until the denomination was formalized in the county seat of Gallatin in the 1840s. 

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Father David R. Choby blessed Rogana prior to its dismantling and move to Bledsoe's Fort Historical Park.                                                 
                                                                      Courtesy BLHA                                                                                                                                   
The Rogan Cemetery at twilight.

Hugh Rogan and Rogana | Hugh Rogan | Coming to America
| Rogan and Native Americans | A Family Reunited | Rogan and Catholicism | Rogana: An Irish Folk House | Rogana: A Crossroads Community | Rogana Moved to Bledsoe's Fort
This article is an abstract of research and information that appears in "Hugh Rogan of Counties Donegal and Sumner: Irish Acculturation in Frontier Tennessee,"  Caneta Skelley Hankins.   Tennessee History: The  Land, the  People, the Culture.  Carroll Van West, ed. University of Tennessee Press, 1998.   For further information contact the author at the  Center for  Historic Preservation, Middle Tennessee State University, Box 80, Murfreesboro, Tennessee 37132, phone (615) 898-2947;  e-mail < chankins@mtsu.edu>.

Text  and design by Caneta Skelley Hankins