Genealogy can often be tricky, and one isn't always able to answer a question with clear-cut proof. I am confident of the evidence I have about Samuel Hiram Kellogg, Sr. and his progeny (through nine generations and close to five hundred descendants from the early 1800's to date), but I can't say for certain who his immediate ancestors were. I know from the Coushatta Kellogg Family Bible, however, that their names were Hiram (or "Hyram", as it was originally written in the Bible, but corrected) and Sarah Kellogg. To see the beginnings of this branch of the family check out the file Hiram Kellogg--the father of Samuel Hiram Kellogg, Sr. It should be noted that Hiram was probably the brother of Titus Kellogg, as discussed below.
I have attempted to confirm SHK's parents' exact names and pedigree, but haven't been able to conclusively do so. It appears most likely at this time that his father was born September 20, 1802, and was a brother of Titus Kellogg, whose son Titus settled in Bossier Parish in the 1830's. For the story of Titus and his family click to the section named Ohio to Louisiana. If you really want to go back to see the relationship between the various Kellogg branches in Louisiana, you can check out Phillipe Kellogg--the patriarch of the Kellogg family and the grandfather of the three Kellogg brothers who moved from Braintree, England to the New World.
There is no doubt, however, that Samuel Hiram Kellogg, Sr. was born on May 12, 1828 in Wayne County, Tennessee. He came to Alabama, probably after 1840, since he is not listed in that census in that state. Rebecca Frances Lindsey was born September 23, 1831, in Oakville, Alabama, the ninth of eleven children. Her ancestors came from Spartanburg County, South Carolina, in 1827, where they had lived since the 1720's. You can check out Rebecca Frances Lindsey's ancestors at Patrick Lindsey.
Samuel Sr. and Rebecca were married November 8, 1848, in Oakdale, Alabama, but soon left, and settled in Itawamba County, Mississippi. They show up the 1850 Census in Mississippi.
The Kellogg, Hunter and Lindsey families were close for many years, and all eventually ended up in Red River Parish, Louisiana just before the Civil War. The Hunters were from Georgia, but had moved to Oakdale by 1828, when John T. Hunter and Lou Visa Bentley were married.. The two had eleven children, but a number of them met an untimely end before their parents' deaths and John T Hunter committed suicide in 1868. Lou Visa lived in Oakdale until her death in 1880. For the details of this closely related family, check out John T. Hunter.
On April 12, 1861, the Confederate forces fired on Ft. Sumter, signaling the formal start of the Civil War. On that same day, John T. and Lou Visa Hunter lost four children to death., an almost unimaginable event. Two sons were killed in the fighting at Ft. Sumter (James and Asbury), and two daughters--Nancy A. and Sarah L. both died of diphtheria.. After the war, John T died on November 12, 1868 after tying a gun to a gate and pulling the trigger.
John and Lou Visa's sons William Hunter, married Margaret Tranquilla Lindsey. Her sister, Rebecca Frances Lindsey, married Samuel H. Kellogg, Sr. Their brother Mark Jefferson Lindsey, Sr. married Mary Ann Harrison, and all three families were close during their time in Oakdale, Alabama, and all three families ended up in Martin, Louisiana.
Oakdale had a difficult time during the pre-war years, and a number of people were hit with various epidemics. Rebecca's father, Benjamin Dennis Lindsey (b. December 29, 1794 in Spartanburg) died of yellow fever in 1836, as did many other people. Most of the town picked up to move west over the next ten years, and Benjamin's children gradually dispersed. As mentioned, Mark Jefferson Lindsey (Rebecca's brother), Margaret Hunter (her sister) and their families settled in Martin, Red River Parish Louisiana by 1852, but used different routes. Thomas Madison Lindsey moved further west and settled in Waco, TX, and Samuel Asbury Lindsey settled with him family in Homer, LA.
Samuel Sr. and Rebecca were in Mississippi for the 1850 census:Samuel is shown as age 24, Rebecca as age 17, and Martha listed as nine months old. There were to be five more children in the family: Sarah Jane (b. July 21, 1852 in Mississippi; no further records of her), William Dennis (born December 1, 1854, in Louisiana; no further records); Samuel Hiram Kellogg, Jr. (born October 4, 1858), Rebecca Frances Kellogg (b. December 29, 1860), and James Richard Currey Kellogg (born March 9, 1864 in Martin). These birth places mean that Samuel Sr. and Rebecca may well have been joined by the Lindseys and Hunters and gone with them to Martin, where they arrived between July 21, 1852 (Sarah Janes's birthdate) and December 1, 1854 (William Dennis' birthdate).
And then came the War Between the States. Ft. Sumter, in the harbor at Charleston, SC, was fired upon on April 12 and 13, 1861, and the world turned upside down.
Samuel Hiram Kellogg, Sr.'s widow applied for a Confederate Pension in January, 1913, almost fifty years later, but this application gives some insight into his participation in the Civil War. The form was filled out by someone else (probably J.D. Salter), but signed by Rebecca. The application says Samuel H. Kellogg joined the CSA on June 15, 1861, at Monroe, Louisiana. He is listed on the application as being with Company C of the 31st Louisiana Infantry, but there is no record of him on the rosters. The application says he left the CSA on April 22, 1864, and died December 10, 1863 of "bronchitis" .
The application for a pension was turned down on July 17, 1913, with the comment that "she [Frances] has evidently made a mistake in giving the Command to which her husband belonged."
If in fact Samuel Sr. was in that unit, he spent a lot of time waiting. The company to which he would be assigned, Company E., Thirty-first Louisiana Infantry, wasn't organized until April, 1862. In June they took up a position in the swamp opposite Vicksburg, in anticipation of a Union assault on the City. A number of men died while waiting for action, however. The conditions were as bad as a Louisiana swamp can be during the summer. At least sixty-five men were diagnosed with measles, and another forty or so developed yellow fever. In November, 1862, they were transferred from Vicksburg to Jackson by rail, and then returned, with the result that forty men from pneumonia. Illness took many more lives than did bullets during the Civil War, and that was particularly true in the swamps of Louisiana and Mississippi.
The only time Samuel Sr. might have seen combat was in December, 1862, when Union troops tried a frontal assault on Vicksburg, but were repelled. Samuel left the service on April 22, 1863, at Vicksburg and returned home. Vicksburg was encircled by Grant in May and June of that year, and Samuel's former unit was trapped within Union lines. The City surrendered on July 4, 1863, a major turning point in the war.
Samuel Sr. died of "bronchitis" on December 10, 1863, about four months before the birth of his last son, who was James Richard Kellogg (known as "Dick").
By the time of the 1880 census, Samuel Jr. was 21 and living with living with William and Margaret Hunter, sister of Rebecca Frances Kellogg, working as a farm laborer. Samuel Jr. married Louvicy Frances Hunter on January 26, 1881. They had twelve children, most of who survived childhood and stayed in the Martin/Coushatta area. Their descendants are listed at Samuel H. Kellogg, Jr.
Dick Kellogg married Margaret Rose Elliott on January 18, 1889. He was about six weeks short of his 25th birthday; he was two days short of her 20th. Margaret Rose Elliott was a member of the third generation of Elliotts to live in the area. Isaac S. Elliott was born in 1817 in Anson County, North Carolina. His entire set of descendants can be seen at John P. Elliot. He married Winfred Rogers of North Carolina; Winfred shows up in the South Carolina census in 1850, and died November 22, 1856 in Martin, LA. So the move from the Carolinas to Louisiana occurred between 1850 and 1856, probably in 1854, as some biographies of their son JMT state. The two had twelve children.
James Marshall Thomas Elliott was the second child, born in 1839. His brother, Henry Pierce Elliott (b. 1846) was Margaret Rose's father (she was the eldest child). JMT was her uncle, and he was also sheriff of Red River Parish.
After his family moved to Louisiana around 1854, JMT Elliott was a farmer until 1862, when he joined the Confederate Army. He was taken prisoner in 1863 on a gunboat then on Grand Lake, Louisiana.. He was released after the end of the war and resumed farming. In 1884, he was elected Sheriff of Red River Parish in 1884. He was still sheriff at least until 1890, with his term set to expire in 1892. I don't have information as to his death. He and his wife Martha Collins had eight children.
Henry Pierce Elliott had been born in South Carolina on September 16, 1846, and married Emily Martin, who had been born in the same year, in what became Red River Parish. Mary Rose Elliott was the eldest of three children.
Dick and Mary Rose Kellogg had a number of children. The entire list can be found at James Richard "Dick" Kellogg. Totsy Franklin Kellogg was the oldest son of James Richard (Dick) Kellogg and Margaret Rose Elliott. Totsy was born on January 21, 1890, in Coushatta, Louisiana, a year and three days after his parents married. At intervals of about two years, the other children were born: Loretta (1893), Fanny (1895), Clyde (1897), Roy (1899), Plese (1903), and an infant son (February 1904). Mary Rose died in April 1904, probably as a consequence of childbirth.
Dick Kellogg had been a farm laborer for a number of years. In 1900, when he was 36, Dick Kellogg killed John Franklin "Little Frank" (1881-1900) in front of William Marshall Hunter's store in the Martin area. No further details are given, nor have I been able to find court records-a fire destroyed the existing courthouse in 1926. Certainly the fact that a 36-year-old man killed a nine-year-old child is significant.
I've been able to gather only a few facts, which may or may not be significant.
Mary Rose died in 1904; Dick died in 1914; both are buried in the Clear Springs Cemetery in Martin, LA. The Rev. John Dupree, whose children married into the Hunter family, founded Clear Springs Baptist Church (as well as fifteen others east of the Red River). Martin, Louisiana (which in 1990 had 226 families and 545 people), has at least three Baptist churches: Clear Springs Baptist, Martin Baptist, and Liberty Baptist Church.
By the time of Dick's death in 1914, at least the three oldest children (Totsy, Loretta, and Fanny) had left home. Totsy's grandchildren may be surprised to find that Totsy was married to someone before Meroe. Totsy married Alice Bonnie Carter in Beauregard Parish (probably Leesville) in 1913. Bonnie was sixteen years old and her guardians are listed as Mr. and Mrs. H. P. Ingram, but no one seems to know much about the woman. According to his children Bob and Carmen, Alice died within a year or so in Arizona.
Totsy Kellogg married Meroe Dailey on July 03, 1918 in Vernon Parish, LA, and the site of Ft. Polk. There's no clear reason why they registered in Vernon Parish as opposed to Beauregard Parish, but the same court in Leesville served both parishes.
Meroe Helen Dailey had been born in Tuskegee, Alabama on January 29, 1896, the seventh child and third daughter of Daniel Pickney Dailey and Rhody Jane Boutwell.
Daniel's father was Levi Dailey, b. March 20, 1817 and d. April 4, 1898. He was married to Elizabeth Annor, b. September 30, 1823, and d. August 25, 1894. You can check out the descendants of Levi Dailey. There were twelve children born to them.
It's not clear where the Dailey family began, nor when they came to Louisiana. The only clue is that on April 4, 1902, Daniel was ordained as an elder in the Congregational Methodist Church, and became a circuit rider in Alabama and Florida. There is a Levi Dailey listed in the 1860 Monroe County, Alabama census, but the only reason I noted it was the town in which he lived: "Burnt Corn, Alabama." The romantic in me wants that to be the place of origin for Meroe's family, but the realist tells me that's not the correct one.
In any case, most of the Meroe's kin ended up in Louisiana or Texas, and Daniel and his wife Rhody died in Louisiana. Daniel died on March 20, 1937 in Many, Louisiana (Sabine Parish) and is buried there with his son Ezra and his wife Alice. Strangely, when Daniel's wife, Rhody died in 1949, she was buried in Hico, Louisiana (Lincoln Parish), just about as far as you can get from Many.
But back to Totsy's kin:
It's not clear when Loretta married Calvin Green, her first husband, but she married Sam Roberts in 1942. Loretta lived to be just a few months short of one hundred years old.
Fanny Kellogg is the all time champion in the family for marriages. She was married at least five times, although the applications are inconsistent--she never seemed to tell to the truth to any government official. Every Southern family has an aunt like Fanny. She lived most of her life in Merryville, LA, and was quite eccentric; she was especially known for her hats, her well protected home and her penchant for carrying handguns.
After she divorced her first husband (Eubanks?), family legend has it that he invited here for coffee, and she pulled her handgun and shot him (dead) off his horse, according to her niece, Carmen Kellogg Borten.
Her husband, Alvin Foster, worked for the railroad in Merryville, and the two travelled extensively. For a time, according to family legend, Fanny was a bounty hunter, and Carmen remembers the story of her having arrested seven Indians at Pleasant Hill, LA.
Fanny became increasingly reclusive in her later years, and lived in a trailer in a heavily fortified compound, with her two cats. Carmen was about the only family member who Fanny would communicate with, although Wilmott Kellogg (her nephew, son of James Roy) worked as a law enforcement officer in Merryville, and would periodically check up on her.
At the time of Dick's death in 1914, it's not clear what happened to the kids who hadn't left home yet. The 1920 Census for Vernon Parish shows Clyde living with Totsy and Meroe on Texas Street in Leesville. Check out Census Materials for details on exact Census records used. Plese doesn't show in that census, but he was only 11 at the time of his father's death, and he went to live with Totsy and Meroe until his death in 1927 in a hunting accident. By that time, all of Totsy's children except Bob were born-they referred to Plese as "Big Bubba".You can find more details about Totsy and Meroe's complete family tree at Totsy and Meroe's Family.