John Rodgers, U.S. Navy officer, was born on 11 July 1771 near Havre de Grace, Maryland. Apprenticed to a Baltimore shipmaster, he was a first mate as a teenager and master of the Baltimore merchant ship Jane in his early twenties. Rodgers entered the U.S. Navy in 1798, and would serve in the Quasi-War with France and the First Barbary War. In 1811 Commodore Rodgers, in command of the USS President, won fame for his deadly engagement with the HMS Little Belt off the coast of North Carolina.