Not So Brief Overview

If you check the Timeline For Louisiana Kellogg Families you will be able to follow the various families much easier. In truth, most of these things were happening at about the same time.

What could the following people possibly have in common?

• A three-time bankrupt who was born in Vermont, moved to New York and then Ohio before he came to Louisiana for his health. He became an owner of over fifty slaves, and died, probably from Yellow Fever contracted in the swamps of Northwest Louisiana. One of his daughters was one of the first five women to be enrolled in a college in the United States, but had to leave school because of her father's bankruptcy. Ironically, several members of his family became stalwarts of the abolitionist movement, and friends with Harriet Beecher Stowe. The man's widow wrote one of the first pioneer autobiographical accounts by a woman. For me, her memory of the day that George Washington died gave me chills. The story of this family is containted at Migration from Ohio: Titus and Lucy Fletcher Kellogg
• A group of men, women and children who left after their small Alabama town was decimated by yellow fever. Ironically, they settled less than thirty miles away from the swampy area where the first Vermont man had died. Their story is contained at Alabama to Louisiana: The Details.
• An Illinois politician who was one of Abraham Lincoln's closest friends, who nominated Lincoln for President on the Whig ticket in 1856 (Lincoln was elected as a Republican four years later), and whose cousin married Mary Todd Lincoln's sister. One of Lincoln's first acts in office was to sign this man's commission as the Chief Justice of Nebraska. One of Lincoln's last acts before going to Ford Theater was to sign a commission for his friend to become the Collector of the Port of New Orleans. That man became one of the most hated governors in Louisiana history (not a small achievement). During his tenure as governor, he was temporarily overthrown until President Grant sent in troops. Until a few years ago, a thirty-five foot tall monument to the brief overthrow of his government stood at the head of Canal Street in New Orleans. This man was a central player in the aftermath to the closest Presidential election in U.S. history (not the one of a few years ago, but the 1876 election), and, as part of the deal became U.S. Senator from Louisiana. He lived his retirement years in an elegant mansions in Washington, D.C., and is buried under a quite large tomb in Arlington National Cemetery (probably because no one in Louisiana would let him be buried in that state). "Carpetbaggers" And "Scalawags": William Pitt Kellogg 1830 to 1918.
• A steamboat captain personally responsible for one of the largest marine disasters in American history. Check out his story at The Sad Fate of the MITTIE STEPHENS Steamboat and the Kellogg who was responsible.

Believe it or not, if you are related to any members of the Kellogg family from Northwest Louisiana, you are probably related to those people, too.

Humans have an odd fascination with knowing about their ancestors. Over the last several years, I've spend quite a bit of my spare time researching on the internet for clues as to how and when our family came to settle in that part of the world. I had no idea how much information I would accumulate, nor of the magnitude of the task of organizing and verifying that information.

Many people take up genealogy to find their connections with kings, presidents, or famous inventors. If you are a Kellogg, your family name appears on almost every family's breakfast table. As a result, every one of us with that surname has been asked repeatedly, "Are you related..." without the question having to be completed. But I really didn't expect to find any of those type of connections when I started. I've found out quite a bit of information that is even more interesting.

I was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1951, and remember my father's parents pretty well. The reason I remember them is pretty simple-when the adults would gather, I would sneak in and listen to their discussions. I picked up bits and pieces, but as I look back, it seems both my grandparents were remarkably close-mouthed about their ancestors and family. This may have stemmed from my grandmother's strong sense of propriety, at least around kids (I was repeatedly reminded that her father was a Methodist minister), or other, more mysterious reasons.

I went off to college (LSU in Baton Rouge) and law school (Columbia University in the City of New York) and figured I was just "out of the loop" or hadn't paid attention to the details. It didn't seem like a big deal until after my grandmother's death in 1976 and I realized that no one seemed to have the details. Where had the Kellogg family originated? How about the Daileys? When did they move to Louisiana and why? And what was the deal with all the unusual names in our family (Totsy, Meroe, Nevellynn, Muriel, Plese, and others)?

I was a trial lawyer in Louisiana for over twenty years, and during that time developed a certain amount of skill in finding an obscure fact or two, which could be woven into a story. But the real art is taking a number of cold facts and ferreting out the gems they contain. Genealogy requires almost exactly the same skills.

I began with very little information. I was about fifteen when my grandfather Totsy died in 1966. When my grandmother Meroe died in 1976, I was just completing my law school finals. Their eldest daughter, Elouise, generously loaned me Meroe's Bible so that I could copy the handwritten notations relating to the Dailey clan. It consisted mainly of her seven brothers and sisters, her father Daniel's eleven brothers and sisters, and a few facts relating to her grandfather Levy Dailey, who was born in 1817. I filed my notes away, thinking that someday I would follow up on them. I didn't realize it would be twenty years before I tackled the project.

Neither my father (Bob) nor Aunt Carmen could give me a lot of detail about their parents' ancestors. Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Margaurite weren't readily available. Aunt Elouise was available, but her "memories" had to be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. She didn't lie exactly, but her world wasn't always the same one the rest of us lived in. She wasn't mentally ill; she just liked to make up stories, as so many people from the South are prone to do.

But I found out pretty quickly that several branches of the Kellogg family in the United States have been pretty well documented than others, chiefly because of the work by Timothy Hopkins, a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. His three volume book, The Kelloggs in the Old World and the New, San Francisco Sunset Press and Photo Engraving Co., 1903, discussed below, has some limitations, but is nonetheless the touchstone for those researching the Kellogg family history. The branches of the Kellogg family in the South have received comparatively little attention.

My initial research was fairly slow going, particularly since I live in California now.

But the internet has changed everything. In the last few years, material that would take months or years to locate have been made readily available on your local computer, and new material is appearing every day. To check census records, for instance, you either had to go to a local library in the area you were researching, get access to an index of names, find the microfilm with the information you needed, and copy it all out by longhand. Often you found that your relatives had lived in a different parish than you had thought. Martin, Louisiana, for instance, where many of the Kellogg family settled, was successively in Natchitoches, Bienville, Claiborne, Bossier, then Red River Parishes. People who lived in the same house were in a different set of records for each census.

If you were really lucky, you could go to a National Archives location or to the Family Search archives in Salt Lake City, Utah. Today, the same information can be gotten in a few minutes, and you can download a copy of the actual handwritten entries on the census made a hundred or more years ago.

So a few years ago, I went to the Internet, and have gotten most of my information from searching the World Wide Web. I've found some fascinating things I never would have imagined. Among these, in no particular order, are:

• I had initially figured that since the name was relatively rare, I would find very little written about the family genealogy. To put it mildly, I was wrong. The presence of so much information has little to do with the Kellogg family of Battle Creek, however, but rather is attributable to a well-to-do orphan raised by two aunts named Kellogg. His name was Timothy Hopkins and you can read about him at Timothy Hopkins. By the way, you check out the Battle Creek Kellogg Family at Battle Creek.

• There is a three-volume book entitled Kelloggs in the Old World and the New, written by Timothy Hopkins and published in 1903, which attempts to trace every person with the surname "Kellogg". He made a number of mistakes, but identified over 20,000 people in eleven generations, up to the beginning of the Twentieth Century. You can read more about his research at The Hopkins Research.
• Hopkins traces the name in written records to 1488 in England. There is some evidence that the surname began being used about the time of the Norman Conquest in 1086 and is one of the oldest names to survive.

• There are a number of theories about the origin of the name (including that the original was a butcher and referred to as "Kill Hog"). The name is Scottish (not Irish, as a few sources have claimed), and many believe it is simply a Gallic pronunciation of "Kelly", the "y" being pronounced with an "och" sound in that language. The name is not a common one in Scotland today, however.
• English history can be quite complicated and confusing, but to know the history of the family back to England, you must be aware of a few things.
• The English Kellogg family was centered in Essex County, northeast of London. The area at one time had a number of Catholic monasteries, but these were destroyed during the reign of Henry VIII, in the late 1500's. Despite what most people think they know, Henry's break with Rome had very little to do with his desire to divorce Catherine of Aragon, and very much to do with seizing monastic lands and treasuries.
• After the dissolution of the monasteries, Essex County became the storm center of the Puritan movement. The Puritans had for some time argued for a simpler form of worship than the Roman Catholic Church or, later, the Church of England. Theologically, they were more closely allied with Martin Luther and the Reformation on the continent than with the Episcopal Church/Church of England.
• The reigns of both Elizabeth I (Henry's daughter) and her successor James I were times of religious persecution, and a stormy one in both religious and political affairs. The contest for church reformation and freedom of conscience soon broadened into one for liberty from the state as well. About 2000 Puritans migrated to the United States each year between 1620 and 1640, a total of about 40,000. Many remained in England, however, and their efforts resulted in the overthrow of Charles I, and the development of the Commonwealth in 1649.
• The Mayflower landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620; the Kellogg brothers landed in New England at some point before 1640.
• With very few exceptions, every Kellogg in the United States today is a direct descendant of one of three brothers, Joseph, Daniel and Samuel, who came from England just after the Mayflower landed. The brothers were all from Essex, England, and were Puritans (later known as Congregationalists in this country). You can check out their stories at KELLOGG of Essex Co., England
• Most members of the Kellogg family moved west from New England, and settled in the Midwest and on the West Coast. By comparison, very few went South.
• However, there were three different groups of Kelloggs who came to northwest Louisiana, but they had common ancestors. One group (which I'll call the "Titus-Lucy group") came to what became Bossier Parish in the early 1840's from Ohio. Their story is detailed at Migration from Ohio: Titus and Lucy Kellogg.
• The major motivation of Titus and Lucy Kellogg for moving to Louisiana was that he was bankrupt, but as the descendant of soldiers from the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, he and members of his family were entitled to very cheap land grants. As the Red River Raft was broken up to enable navigation above Natchitoches, the backed-up water drained and exposed rich land for farming. It was this sort of land which Titus and his family bought and which they moved to Louisiana to farm.
• Titus and Lucy Fletcher Kellogg move from Ohio to the area around Minden in August 1839, and settled on a farm a few miles from there. They came the hard way-across country directly to Minden, without going through New Orleans. The area between Shreveport and Minden was swamp land, and Shreveport was for all intents and purposes landlocked. Boats to and from New Orleans could barely get further than Natchitoches, and then detoured into one of the many lakes in the area.
• Lucy Fletcher Kellogg left a very remarkable document recounting the tale of her family's journey to Louisiana from Ohio. You can read it at Lucy Fletcher Kellogg.
• Her son-in-law left a similar document recounting the tale of his journey to Louisiana using a different route. He also met Harriet Beecher Stowe on his trip. You can read more of the details at Migration from Ohio.
• The area around Minden was considered Claiborne Parish at the time of their move, but later became Bossier and Webster Parish. In 1843, the family moves fifteen miles to Lake Bistineau (near present day Koran, a road crossing in the pine forests of Bossier Parish).
• The contours of the Lake Bistineau have changed markedly over time, depending on whether was draining down the Red River to the Mississippi. The Red River Raft (dead and decayed trees which blocked the river to navigation) was broken up in the 1830's, which drained some of the land. Most of the area between Shreveport and Minden remained a swamp for a number of years, contributing to an epidemic of Yellow Fever and other diseases from mosquitoes.
• The raft partially reformed before the Civil War, making steamboat traffic to Shreveport difficult if not impossible. It remained that way until the federal government again removed the raft after the war.
• Titus and Lucy's son, William Edwin Kellogg, was elected the County Clerk of Court for the newly created Bossier Parish. Another son, Charles Augustus, moved to New Orleans, where he became a merchant and provider of supplies for the U.S. Army before the Civil War.
• One of Titus' daughters. Mary Fletcher Kellogg was a member of the first class of women admitted to college in this country. She enrolled at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1837, but had to drop out when her family moved to Louisiana. She later married James Harris Fairchild, who came to visit Minden in 1842. She married him and returned to Oberlin, where he was president of Oberlin College from 1866 to 1889.
• Another daughter, Marcia Louisa Kellogg, married her first cousin, Alfred Augustus Kellogg, with whom she moves to Vicksburg. They became major landowners in Mississippi and Louisiana, and it is likely that they entertained the Samuel Kellogg family as they came from Alabama to Louisiana.
• The "cotton worm" (now known as the "boll weevil") destroyed the Titus Kellogg family's cotton crop of 1846-47, making him bankrupt for the third time.
• Titus died in 1848 and is buried in Koran, Louisiana, in current-day southern Bossier Parish. His remaining family moved back to Ohio before the Civil War started in 1860. He owned not only land, but also up to fifty slaves during his time in Louisiana. Most were sold after his death.
• Another of Titus' sons (George Martin Kellogg) was a physician in the Union Army during the Civil War, and his unit fought the Confederates at Mansfield and other areas of northwest Louisiana.
• Although this group is extremely interesting, and left several diaries, I haven't finished looking over the several hundred documents they left. It seems pretty clear, however, that Titus was the uncle of Samuel Hiram Kellogg, Sr., discussed below.
• The second group of Kellogg family members (which I'll call the "Samuel Hiram group") came to what became Red River Parish in 1852 or 1853. There is no doubt that among this group is the direct ancestors of Totsy. You can check their story out at Alabama to Louisiana: The Details
• A third group of Kellogg family members (which I'll call the "William Pitt Kellogg" group) came to Louisiana from Illinois towards the end of the Civil War in 1865. This branch was extremely close to Abraham Lincoln and his family and one member married a sister of Mary Todd Lincoln. This group was political, and William Pitt Kellogg served as Governor, U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator. The center of his political support in the state was Red River Parish. It's clear he had political ties with the area, but the family ties are remote (on the order of fifth cousin). William Pitt Kellogg is one of my favorite members of the family, simply because he was apparently such a scoundrel. You can read about him at William Pitt Kellogg.
• William Pitt Kellogg was the original carpetbagger, and his administration was remarkable (even under Louisiana standards) for its corruption. Until the Union troops were withdrawn in 1876, however, he was one of the most powerful men in the South. He remained powerful as a U.S. Congressman until 1885, when he retired from politics. He lived the remainder of his life (until 1918) in comparative luxury in Washington, D.C.
• William Pitt Kellogg and his wife are buried in Arlington National Cemetery, with a very large and impressive monument over their graves. I wouldn't be surprised that they would have been unable to find a place to be buried in Louisiana, due to his notoriety. There is actually a very large monument in New Orleans (near the riverfront) erected to celebrate his overthrow as Governor by a mob. President Grant immediately sent troops to restore him to power.

• I leave it to you to check out about Homer Kellogg and the Mittie Stephens steamboat disaster--one of the worst in history.

• Until the early 1900's, there were very few public records available that noted the birth or death of an individual. Records were kept by families or churches, if at all. Most states didn't begin to issue birth or death certificates until the after the First World War. The absence of such records makes genealogy challenging.
• Nevertheless, I have put together over a thousand records on almost 850 members of our family, in addition to the twenty thousand documented by Hopkins. Needless to say, it's taking some time to get the records in a form that would be useful and, I hope, interesting.
• My grandparents Totsy and Meroe Kellogg have eighty-three descendants. Of their seventeen great grandchildren, only two carry the surname "Kellogg". You can check out their descendants at Totsy and Meroe's Family. Please note, however that most of the information relating to living people has been omitted for reasons of privacy.
• The Louisiana Kellogg family has a raft of unusual first and middle names, names spelled in peculiar ways, and people who use their middle name as their common names. I've tried to keep the spellings correct, but spell check on the computer goes crazy with these names. Besides, as a former attorney I long ago adopted the excuse of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote "a foolish constancy is the hobgoblin of little minds." In other words, I try to be consistent, but if you find I'm not, you're just picking at nits.
• No one seems to know the origin of the name "Totsy", which does not appear anywhere else in the family tree, except for my grandfather Totsy and his daughter Totsy Marguerite. I recently heard from a descendant of Totsy's aunt (Sara Jane), who married Frank McWilliams, and they had a son named "Totsa" born about eight years before Totsy was born. When I asked my dad, he said that the McWilliams family was related (but he wasn't sure how), and their family was the source of Totsy's name. I have heard, but haven't been able to document that the word is (a) a corruption of the name "Titus", and (b) a common term of affection among the Cajun people for referring to children at the toddling stage.
• My grandmother's father ws a minister, so no one should be surprised that her name is a Biblical one. "Meroe" is the name of a kingdom, which later became Nubia and was a very significant royal city in Sudan, enough to cover the area of the Kingdom of Egypt for over half a century. It was a highly efficient culture, with advanced agriculture. Herodotus mentioned the city of Meroe in 500 B.C. Even though It was an early convert to Christianity (Sixth Century, A.D.), today it still contains a number of pyramids. And Meroe had a matriarchal society-women were not only the head of the household, but head of the government.
• Oh, and we ARE related to the Kellogg family of Battle Creek. Totsy is the fifth cousin, twice removed of Will Keith Kellogg and his brother John Harvey. Totsy's children are fifth cousins, three times removed; and his grandchildren are four times removed.

I'm still working on some of the branches, and will add them as time permits.

It is probable that I have made mistakes in some of the information I present in this compilation. If you find some, please let me know in writing as soon as possible so I can make sure to correct it. I'm giving only a handful of citations to facts at this point, but have everything documented in one form or another.

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