Bloomington (Monroe County, Indiana) Weekly Star, August 30, 1919, p. 8. THE FIRST WHITE CHILD Benjamin Franklin Rogers was the first white child born in Bloomington. The date was November 27, 1817. His mother rocked him in a sugar trough on the ground where the courthouse now stands. He was an uncle of Drs. Otto and Robert Rogers and Ben Rogers at this city, and he died in February 1876, the centennial year.