his life. While Rodgers was still a youth, the village on the south shore (in Harford County) was named "Havre de Grace" by Marquis de Lafayette after a famous port of the same name in France. The young Rodgers was known to fish in the Susquehanna and Chesapeake Bay near his home. He attended local school, and read books about the seafaring life. He had often seen schooner-rigged ships in Havre de Grace but longed to see the large square-rigged vessels he had always read about. Realizing Rodgers was determined to go to sea, his father helped arrange his apprenticeship with Captain Benjamin Folger, a master ship builder of Baltimore, and Revolutionary War veteran. He had served aboard merchant ships and as commander of Felicity, used in the capture of a notorious privateer. By this time, Folger was captain and owner of Maryland. Rodgers served a five-year apprenticeship on this ship. In 1806 Rodgers married Minerva Denison; they had three sons, Robert, Frederick and John, and two daughters together. Their son John Rodgers Jr. was born in Maryland in 1812. He entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman, serving aboard the Baltimore-built and in the Mediterranean Sea. Later he was commissioned as a rear admiral during the Civil War. Rodgers also had several grandsons and great-grandsons who became officers in the U.S. Navy. First command When Rodgers was seventeen, Captain Folger promoted him to first mate of the merchant ship Harmony. By the time Rodgers completed his five years of apprenticeship in 1793, Folger highly recommended him for command of Jane, a merchant ship regularly used in the European trade and owned by Baltimore merchants Samuel and John Smith. Rodgers served as the captain of this ship between four and five years, sailing out of Baltimore for various ports in Europe. His first voyage took him to the Spanish port of Cadiz in the early months of 1793, returning home with a load of salt. Rodgers' next voyage sent him to Hamburg, Germany, but due to severe conditions on the North Sea, he was forced to put up in England for the winter and did not reach his destination until spring of the next year. In September 1795 he departed for Baltimore from Liverpool, arriving after a passage of three months. Logbooks of the Jane during Rodgers's command cover the period of July–August 1796 in detail, a time when France