Lucy Fletcher Kellogg Family Papers, 1829-1899 | Oberlin College Archives

Kellogg, Lucy Fletcher (1793-1891)
Kellogg Family
Kellogg, George Martin (1837-1904)

Lucy Fletcher Kellogg was born in 1793 in Worcester, Massachusetts, the daughter of Ebenezer and Mary Goldthwart Fletcher. She was the third child in this respectable Yankee stock family, who were among the early settlers of Lynn and Salem, Massachusetts. The Fletchers lived for nine years in Sutton, Mass., on a farm her father Ebenezer inherited from his father; and, subsequently, the family moved to New Hampshire. Five years later, in 1800, the Fletchers returned to Worcester when Lucy was about age six. There she attended a good common school. At the age of 12, Lucy reported that she and her two brothers and two sisters attended a dancing school in a hall provided at her father's tavern, adjacent to their large house. Four years later, at age 16, Lucy went off to a boarding school in Sutton. The record suggests that she was especially impressed with having learned about drawing, geography, painting, and even needlework.

During the War of 1812 years, Lucy and her one sister purchased a couple of looms and acted as subcontractors to support the war against England. Over a period of four or five years, the sisters weaved fine shintings, ginghams, and bed ticking for the local factories. Even her father, Ebenezer, along with a brother, also named Ebenezer, benefitted from the war economy by operating a brickyard. Her other brother, Adolphous, took up a business career in printing. Sister Fanny married James McClellen of Sutton, Mass. Then, in 1817, Lucy joined the McClellens in relocating five hundred miles west to Chautauqua, New York. After one year there, Lucy obtained a school teaching position. After several years, she taught at another school-larger and better equipped than the first. At the boarding house where she took lodging, she met a young man named Titus Kellogg, Jr. (b. 1797), who was from Burlington, Vermont. (He was a lineal descendant of Lieutenant Josiah Kellogg, who was a weaver and owned a house on Boston Neck in 1854.)

About two years later, on February 7, 1819, Lucy married Titus Kellogg, Jr., in Ashville, New York. Between 1819 and 1832, this union produced six children all of whom were born in Chautauqua County, New York. The names of the children were:

Mary Fletcher Kellogg (Mrs. James H. Fairchild), b. Nov. 22, 1819, d. Oct. 5, 1890

Charles Augustus Kellogg, b. Sept. 7, 1821, d. 1897

William Edwin Kellogg, b. May 20, 1823, d.??

Marcia Louisa Kellogg, b. ??, d. ??

George Martin Kellogg (m. Sarah W. Barker), b. June 20,1837, d. Aug. 18, 1904

Lucy Philanda Kellogg (Mrs. Charles P. Birge), b. Mar. 2, 1832, d. ??

Of these children, four would attend the Oberlin Collegiate Institute in Oberlin, Ohio.

The failing local economy disrupted the education of Mary Fletcher and Charles Augustus Kellogg at the Oberlin Collegiate Institute. The economic consequences associated with the panic of 1837 financially ruined their business-minded father, Titus.  Titus and his business partners faced a financial shortfall of about $100,000, which was all the money the business partnership had accumulated over ten years. As a consequence, in the interest of the health of Titus and gaining a fresh start, the family decided to leave western New York and settle either in Texas or Louisiana. Her sisters' family had previously moved to Louisiana a few years before. Thus, the Kelloggs followed them in 1838; the details of the Kellogg's relocation to the South or Southwest is documented in the autobiographical account of Lucy Fletcher Kellogg as well as in the more than one hundred courtship letters written between Mary Fletcher Kellogg and James H. Fairchild during the years 1837 and 1840.

After a lengthy, difficult journey taking many months, the Kelloggs settled in Brossier Parish, Minden, Louisiana. In this frontier region, the Kelloggs struggled to gain a livelihood, but Titus finally was able to purchase plantation land to run a cotton business. Three black men–Richard, A ... ell [illegible], and Joe–and three black women–Peggy, June, and Mary–assisted the family's household and 200-acre plantation (cotton and corn). Collectively, the women had six children. Peggy's were Chloe, Maria Cind ... [illegible], Henry, and Joe; and June's children were Cornelia and Hatty (probably a nickname for Harriet).

Unsuccessful in building his own cotton gin and facing the annual battle of the cotton worm, Lucy and Titus Kellogg plugged on to make a go of it by producing a good crop whenever they could. Some of the children lived on the plantation, and others made their way to New Orleans, Louisiana, and other places to stake out a life for themselves.

When Lucy's husband Titus died all of a sudden from a fever, on August 29, 1848, she sold the family's property. The six children divided one share and Lucy received the other full share. At first the widow Kellogg tried to reside in New Orleans with her son Charles Augustus Kellogg. However, after several months, a cholera epidemic sent Lucy and the children, plus house servants Mary and Harriet, off to Oberlin, Ohio. In Oberlin, in the early years, they lived intermittently with son-in-law James H. and daughter Mary Fairchild.

Lucy Fletcher Kellogg died in 1891.

Sources Consulted

Autobiographical Account of Lucy Fletcher Kellogg (handwritten), written at age 82.  "Memorial to C.A. Kellogg," Keokuk, Iowa (printed), n.p., n.d. (probably 1897).

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