Frank B. Kellogg

Frank B. Kellogg married Clara May cook on June 16, 1886. She too came from Rochester. The couple did not have any children.

Although Kellogg was appointed as the Associate Judge at the Permanent Court of Justice for nine years, he had to retire in 1935 because of ill health. He then went back to St. Paul to spend his retired life.

He died of pneumonia on December 21, 1937, in St. Paul, Minnesota, on the eve of his 81st birthday.

Frank Billings Kellogg was born on December 22, 1856, in Potsdam, New York, as the eldest son of Asa Farnsworth and Abigail Kellogg. Apart from Frank, the couple had a daughter named Jean and two sons, named Philip and Frederick. In addition to these three siblings, Frank had a half brother from Abigail’s first marriage.

In 1857, the family relocated to Long Lake, New York. Frank started his education in a local school there. In 1865, they moved westwards and settled at Viola in Olmsted County, Minnesota. There they acquired a wheat farm.

In Minnesota, Frank was enrolled at the county school at the age of nine and studied there till he was fourteen. Because of his father’s ill health, he could not finish his education. Instead in 1870, he took charge of his father’s farm. Later in 1872 they relocated to Elgin in the same county.

In 1875, Frank left the farm and joined Halftan A. Eckhold, a law farm in Rochester. He supported himself by running errands and working as a helper to a Rochester farmer. In his spare time, he studied law, history, Latin and German by borrowing textbooks from friends and acquaintances.

Frank passed the state bar examination, in 1877, and started practicing in Rochester. From 1878 to 1881, he acted as the City Attorney of Rochester and then from 1882 to 1887, he was the County Attorney for Olmsted County, Minnesota.

While he was working as the County Attorney, Frank caught the attention of Cushman Kellogg Davis, who owned a law firm in St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota. He was also Frank’s cousin and recognizing his intelligence, skill and doggedness, invited Frank to join his firm.

In 1887, Frank B. Kellogg joined his cousin in establishing ‘Davis, Kellogg, and Severance’. With Frank Kellogg acting as its head, the company soon made a name and became a prominent corporate law firm within a very short span.

In 1901, with the death of Davis, Frank Kellogg became the senior partner of the firm. Their clients included railroad and iron mining companies, steel manufacturing firms etc. Consequently, Frank B. Kellogg not only made a substantial fortune, but also befriended famous personalities like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and James J. Hill.

In 1904, Kellogg became a member of National Committee of Republican Party. This was also the year when he became U.S. delegate to the Universal Congress of Lawyers and Jurists, held in St. Louis, Missouri and a delegate for the party’s national conventions held in 1904, 1908 and 1912.

Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 was the most significant work in Kellogg’s working life. Initiated by French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand as a bilateral pact it turned out to be a multinational treaty with sixty four signatories on the initiative of Kellogg. It denounced war as an instrument of national policy.

In his legal career, Kellogg’s win over Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company was a major milestone. For his crusade against business trust he became known as ‘trustbuster’ all over the United States.