Person:Lauren Kellogg (1)

In October of 1851, Lauren moved his young family from Perth/West Galway to the larger town of Amsterdam in Montgonery County. There he and his brother John moved their father's linseed oil business to better quarters and with better access to transportation.

Just two years later, Lauren succumbed to a fever and died leaving his widow Elizabeth, 4 year old daughter, Marion, and 2 year old son, Spencer. Years later, in his self-published book Boyhood To Manhood, his son Spencer wrote, "The cause of his death was what the doctor called "quick consumption," but I doubt it. He caught cold after taking a bath in a large vat in a factory. Instead of dressing immediately after getting out, he stood for some time, talking to a man on some business matters. In a day or two it was apparent he had taken a very severe cold. He took the usual cough medicines, but it did him very little good, so he sent for a homeopathic doctor by the name of White. After treating him for a week or so he put him on a starvation diet, had him go to bed and bled him, taking on one occasion as much as a pint of blood. The idea was, in those days, to deplete the blood and lessen the blood supply, so the lungs would have less passing through. This was for the purpose of not irritating them, thus giving them time to heal. Father became so weak on this treatment that a doctor from Albany was called in for consultation.

"This doctor was very indignant, saying, "This man should not have been bled, and should have had the most nourishing food available," but it was then too late, for in a few days he died. Thus perished a noble life by the ignorance of the age. It should be said, in justice to Dr. White, that bleeding in those days was very common, and thought to be of great benefit in certain cases, but the small villages, such as Amsterdam was then, were behind in medicine and practice compared with cities such as New York, Albany, etc. President Washington, you may remember, had a set of lances that he used on his slaves for the purpose of the letting of blood when he thought it adviseable.

"There is but little doubt in my mind that if father had lived my life would have been different; but who can say it would have been more useful?"

In his will written 21 September 1853, Lauren leaves the income from $5000 dollars to his beloved wife Elizabeth and everything else to his two children. His widow and her brother Robert Miller are named as executors of the will but it is Elizabeth's brother James Miller that takes over an active interest in the linseed oil mill that soon became known as Kelloggs and Miller. In the 1855 New York state census, Elizabeth's brothers James and John Miller are living in her household.

--Htimm 16:52, 19 October 2007 (EDT)