Joseph Kellogg
Joseph Kellogg was a well-known steamboat captain and businessman of Portland, Oregon.
Joseph Kellogg was born in Canada on June 12, 1812. His father Orrin Kellogg (September 4, 1790 – February 14, 1872) was born in St. Albans, Vermont, and his mother Margaret Miller Kellogg was Canadian. After the War of 1812, his family moved first to New York and then to Ohio. Kellogg was trained as a millwright.
In 1847 the Kellogg family crossed the plains to Oregon. They left Wood county, Ohio, November 24, 1847, with horse-drawn wagons. At Cincinnati, Ohio they shipped by steamer to St. Louis, and from there drove to St. Joseph, Missouri where they wintered.
In May a company of thirty wagons started on journey across the plains. They had covered wagons and were provided with tin stoves and all the arms and provisions needed for such a journey. The emigrant party later exchanged their horses for oxen. They were able to travel nearly twenty-five miles a day, and arrived at Milwaukie, Oregon on September 8, 1848.
On arrival in Oregon, the heads of the families took up adjoining donation land claims of 640 acres (2.6 km2) each, on which they erected cabins. Kellogg built the first commercial flour mill in Oregon. He also built several of the first sawmills. Kellogg's land claim was next to that of Lot Whitcomb, at Milwaukie. Kellogg, Whitcomb and William Torrence laid out the town site of what they hoped would be the principal city in Oregon.
In Milwaukie, Kellogg built a sawmill and a schooner. Kellogg, Whitcomb and Torrence loaded the schooner with provisions from the adjoining farms, took it to California, and there sold both vessel and cargo, and with the proceeds they bought the brig Forest, which they used in the lumber trade between Oregon and California. Lumber in Sacramento was at that time worth $200 for 1,000 board feet. The firm soon made money enough to purchase the bark Louisiana, which was fitted with engines and boilers and the complete outfit of a steamship.
In the spring of 1850, Kellogg, Whitcomb and Torrence began building the sidewheel steamer Lot Whitcomb, which was either the first or the second large steam craft ever built in Oregon. They launched this boat on December 25, 1850. Kellogg was one of the owners of the boat, as well as of the site of the new city of Milwaukee. Under the initial command of Capt. John C. Ainsworth, Lot Whitcomb ran between Milwaukee and Astoria for several years, after which they sold it in San Francisco. Later Kellogg withdrew from the firm, forming a partnership with Bradbury and Eddy, who together built the Standard Flour Mills, which for years were the most extensive in the state of Oregon.
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