Merritt Gardner Kellogg (Part 2):
West Beyond the Shores
By Jim Wibberding
Man on a mission “It is time to go west.” That’s how this story began. In last month’s issue, we trudged alongside a 26-year-old Merritt G. Kellogg as he headed west from Michigan to California. We felt the flicker of warmth as he lit the missionary torch in the West; he was the first Seventh-day Adventist to preach in California. M.G. Kellogg—the oldest brother of John Harvey of medical fame1 and Will Keith, the “Cornflakes King”2—set the pace for his brothers in pioneering. He did not stay put for long; he liked starting things more than he liked to manage them. It was only a matter of time before he found a way to go west again (and south), beyond the shores of California.
Dr. Kellogg was a man worthy of our admiration, but he was far from perfect.
16 Pacific Union Recorder
South Sea mission At age 60, Merritt’s missionary heart drew him to a fresh need. The missionary ship Pitcairn needed a new missionminded doctor to sail the Pacific.3 Kellogg answered the call, departing for the South Seas on January 17, 1893.4 The venture found success but not without peril. Merritt “nearly drowned in Bounty Bay when going ashore from the mission schooner Pitcairn to visit the island of the mutineers. The longboat broke up on the rocks, and only the strength and agility of a good island lass saved the medico.”5 He survived to bring his missional tenacity to the work in the South Seas. Back home in California, tragedy struck. Merritt’s wife Louisa died on November 4, 1894, while he was away.6 With less reason to go home, he worked in Pitcairn, Tahiti, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Tasmania, and mainland Australia for eight more years.7 Not only was he an able doctor and
