Mark Kellogg (reporter)

Mark Kellogg
Date and photographer unknown.
Born	Marcus Henry Kellogg (1831-03-31)March 31, 1831 Brighton, Ontario, Canada
Died	June 25, 1876(1876-06-25) (aged 45) Near the Little Bighorn River in the eastern Montana Territory
Nationality	American
Occupation	Newspaper reporter

Mark Kellogg (March 31, 1831 – June 25, 1876) was a newspaper reporter killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Kellogg rode with George Armstrong Custer during the battle and was evidently one of the first men killed by the Sioux and Cheyenne. His dispatches were the only press coverage of Custer and his men in the days leading up to the battle. As a newspaper stringer whose reports were picked up around the country, Kellogg is considered the first Associated Press correspondent to die in the line of duty.

Born Marcus Henry Kellogg on March 31, 1831, in Brighton, Ontario, Canada, Kellogg was the third of ten children. Kellogg's family moved a number of times in his youth before they eventually settled in La Crosse, Wisconsin. While there Kellogg learned to operate a telegraph and went to work for both the Northwestern Telegraph Company and the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company.

He married Martha J. Robinson in 1861 and they had two daughters. During the years of the American Civil War, Kellogg became the assistant editor for the La Crosse Democrat newspaper. He also unsuccessfully ran for the office of city clerk in 1867 and played shortstop on one of the town's baseball teams.

In 1867 Kellogg's wife died. Leaving his daughters to be raised by an aunt, Kellogg began drifting around the upper Midwest, working as a reporter and editorial assistant in places such as Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Brainerd, Minnesota. While living in Brainerd he ran for election to the Minnesota Legislature, but was defeated. He also worked as a string correspondent for the St. Paul Dispatch, with his articles often published under the pen name of "Frontier."