Merritt Gardner Kellogg (28 March 1832 – December 20 1921) was a Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) carpenter, missionary, pastor and doctor who worked in Northern California, the South Pacific, and Australia. He designed and built several medical facilities. Kellogg was involved in the controversy about which day should be observed as the Sabbath on Tonga, which lies east of the 180° meridian but west of the

International Date Line The International Date Line (IDL) is an internationally accepted demarcation on the surface of Earth, running between the South and North Poles and serving as the boundary between one calendar day and the next. It passes through the Pacific O ...

Early years

Merritt Gardner Kellogg was born in

Hadley, Massachusetts Hadley (, ) is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,325 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The area around the Hampshire and Mountain Farms Ma ...

on the

Connecticut River The Connecticut River is the longest river in the New England region of the United States, flowing roughly southward for through four states. It rises 300 yards (270 m) south of the U.S. border with Quebec, Canada, and discharges at Long Island ...

on 28 March 1832. He attended the Battle Creek Sabbath School. He converted to Seventh-day Adventism at the age of twenty. Kellogg was the half-brother of John Harvey Kellogg. He married Louisa Rawson (1832–94) and they had a child Charles Merritt Kellogg (1856–89). The Kelloggs made the westward journey to California in 1859, where they were probably the first Seventh-day Adventists in the state. In 1861 Kellogg gave a series of Bible lectures in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

in which he converted fourteen people. In 1867 he returned east to

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

to take a short course in medicine at Trall's Hygieo-Thereapeutic College. During his return journey to California he attended the SDA General Conference session on 1868 and asked that the church send evangelists to the West Coast. Back in California he assisted the evangelists John Loughborough and Daniel Bourdeau, mostly talking on topics related to health. During a smallpox epidemic in 1870 he gave water treatments and diet to his patients, of whom ten out of eleven survived. This earned him a high reputation. In the summer of 1877 Kellogg was asked to help look after patients at a San Francisco hydrotherapy center in exchange for room and board. The owner, Barlow J. Smith, sold out after five months and opened a retreat in Rutherford, in the Napa Valley. He invited Kellogg to come to Rutherford as a house physician. A patient there encouraged Kellogg to establish his own health resort, and helped arrange investors. Kellog began work on a site near St. Helena, California.

Ellen G. White Ellen Gould White (née Harmon; November 26, 1827 – July 16, 1915) was an American woman author and co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Along with other Adventist leaders such as Joseph Bates and her husband James White, she wa ...

came to inspect the property, and endorsed the decision. The road and building were completed by the end of May 1878 and the first patients arrived on 7 June 1878. The health center was an immediate success. Kellogg left when well-trained doctors arrived. The Rural Health Retreat later became the St. Helena Hospital.

South Pacific

In 1893 Kellogg was sent as a medical missionary to the South Pacific in the second voyage of the ''

Pitcairn The Pitcairn Islands (; Pitkern: '), officially the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, is a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean that form the sole British Overseas Territory in the Pacific Ocean. The four isl ...

''. The ship carried books giving practical medical advice, which would be sold, and Kellogg would give lectures and treatments at the ship's places of call. The ship sailed from San Francisco on 17 January 1893 and reached

on 19 February 1893. She went on to

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austr ...

, Huahine and

Raiatea Raiatea or Ra'iatea ( Tahitian: ''Ra‘iātea'') is the second largest of the Society Islands, after Tahiti, in French Polynesia. The island is widely regarded as the "centre" of the eastern islands in ancient Polynesia and it is likely that the ...

Islands. The ''Pitcairn'' stopped at

Rurutu Rūrutu is the northernmost island in the Austral archipelago of French Polynesia, and the name of a commune consisting solely of that island. It is situated south of Tahiti. Its land area is .Mangaia Mangaia (traditionally known as A'ua'u Enua, which means ''terraced'') is the most southerly of the Cook Islands and the second largest, after Rarotonga. It is a roughly circular island, with an area of , from Rarotonga. Originally heavily popula ...

Island,

Rarotonga Rarotonga is the largest and most populous of the Cook Islands. The island is volcanic, with an area of , and is home to almost 75% of the country's population, with 13,007 of a total population of 17,434. The Cook Islands' Parliament buildings a ...

and

Niue Niue (, ; niu, Niuē) is an island country in the South Pacific Ocean, northeast of New Zealand. Niue's land area is about and its population, predominantly Polynesian, was about 1,600 in 2016. Niue is located in a triangle between Tong ...

Island. Kellogg treated many sick people at each island. At Niue Kellogg observed that Christianity had been a corrupting influence. Spies reported misdemeanors to judges, who imposed a fine that was split between the judge and the spy. Kellogg wrote, "The result of this system is to cause the people to fear the law instead of fearing God, and as they have but a very dim idea of the object and power of the gospel, they learn to practice deceit so as to avoid detection and punishment." The ''Pitcairn'' bypassed

Vavaʻu Vavau is an island group, consisting of one large island ( ʻUtu Vavaʻu) and 40 smaller ones, in Tonga. It is part of Vavaʻu District, which includes several other individual islands. According to tradition, the Maui god created both Tongata ...

Island, Tonga, where there was a measles epidemic, to avoid being quarantined. She sailed via Fiji and Norfolk Island to New Zealand. Kellogg stayed in Australia for a while, where he made a second marriage to a woman from

Broken Hill, New South Wales Broken Hill is an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia. It is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Highway (B79), in the Barrier Range. It is ...

. His wife was Eleanor Kathleen Nolan (1874–1919). They had two children, Muriel and Merritt. Kellogg was considered for an exploratory journey along the coast of Australia and on to

New Caledonia ) , anthem = "" , image_map = New Caledonia on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of New Caledonia , map_caption = Location of New Caledonia , mapsize = 290px , subdivision_type = Sovereign st ...

in 1894, but it was decided later that year that New Caledonia was "not very promising". He returned to the South Pacific with his wife, and reached

Apia Apia () is the Capital (political), capital and largest city of Samoa, as well as the nation's only city. It is located on the central north coast of Upolu, Samoa's second-largest island. Apia falls within the political district (''itūmālō ...

Western Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands ( Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands ( Manono and Apolima); a ...

in 1896. There he helped Dr. Frederick Braucht build a two-story sanitarium inland from the beachfront. This was the first such institution in the South Pacific. The ''Pitcairn'' found Kellog and his wife on Samoa when it visited on its fifth voyage in 1896. In September 1897 Kellogg and his wife Eleanor Nolan Kellogg came to

Tongatapu Tongatapu is the main island of Tonga and the site of its capital, Nukualofa. It is located in Tonga's southern island group, to which it gives its name, and is the country's most populous island, with 74,611 residents (2016), 70.5% of the nation ...

, the main island in Tonga, to assist with the medical work of the

Seventh-day Adventist Church of Tonga The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Tonga, ( to, Siasi ʻAhofitu) is one of the smaller religious groups in the South Pacific island state of Tonga with a reported 3,853 members as of June 30, 2020,Nukuʻalofa Nukualofa (; ) is the capital and largest city of Tonga. It is located on the north coast of the island of Tongatapu, in the country's southernmost island group. History First western records of Nukualofa On 10 June 1777, British captain James ...

in 1899.

International Date Line controversy

Kellogg and fellow-missionaries

Edwin Butz Edwin Sebastian Butz (1864 – July 1956) was a Seventh-day Adventist Church, Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) missionary who was active in Oceania and in Australia. Missionary career Edwin Sebastian Butz was born in 1864 in the United States. In 189 ...

and

Edward Hilliard Edward Hilliard (3 April 1851 – 18 September 1936) was a Seventh-day Adventist missionary from America who worked in Australia, India and Tonga. He was the first resident Seventh-day Adventist missionary on Tonga, and founded the Seventh-day A ...

debated which was the correct day to observe the Sabbath in Tonga. The practice on board the ''Pitcairn'' had been to change days at the 180° meridian. Islands such as Samoa and Tonga were well to the east of this line, so the missionaries observed the Sabbath on the day sequence of the Western Hemisphere. However, the Tonga islands used the same days as New Zealand and Australia, so the missionaries were observing the seventh-day Sabbath on the day the secular authorities called Sunday. The tract by Adventist

John N. Andrews John Nevins Andrews (July 22, 1829 – October 21, 1883) was a Seventh-day Adventist Church, Seventh-day Adventist minister, the first official Seventh-day Adventist missionary, writer, editor, and scholar. Andrews University (Michigan, USA), a u ...

called ''The Definitive Seventh Day'' (1871) recommended using a Bering Strait date line. If this line were taken as the IDL, the Tonga Adventists were celebrating the Sabbath on the wrong day. However, an international conference in 1884 had established the

(IDL) at 180° while allowing for local adjustments. The Tonga missionaries sent letters to church leaders in Tahiti, Australia and the US asking for advice, and even asked Ellen G. White for her opinion. Replies were contradictory. It was not until 1901 that White sent a letter to Kellogg in which she ruled decisively in favor of the 180° meridien.

Later years

The Kelloggs transferred to Australia in May 1900. They settled in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, where Kellogg drew up the plans for the

Wahroonga Wahroonga is a suburb in the North Shore (Sydney)#Upper North Shore, Upper North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, 18 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district, in the Local government in Australia ...

Sanitarium, and in 1901 supervised its construction. This is now the

Sydney Adventist Hospital Sydney Adventist Hospital, commonly known as the San, is a large private hospital in Sydney, Australia, located on Fox Valley Road in Wahroonga. Established on 1 January 1903, as a not-for-profit organisation, it was originally named the Sydney ...

. Kellogg returned to California in 1903 and due to poor health lived in retirement. He was suffering from hearing and vision problems. He lived the last nineteen years of his life in

Healdsburg, California Healdsburg is a city located in Sonoma County, in California's Wine Country. At the 2010 census, the city had a population of 11,254. Owing to its three most important wine-producing regions (the Russian River, Dry Creek, and Alexander Valley ...

. Kellogg was the older brother, or half-brother, of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, who was expelled from the

Battle Creek Battle Creek is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, in northwest Calhoun County, at the confluence of the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek rivers. It is the principal city of the Battle Creek, Michigan Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which encom ...

church on suspicion of unorthodox views and suspect practices at his sanitarium. Kellogg defended his brother in a 33-page essay he wrote in 1908. Merritt Gardner Kellogg died in 1921.

References