In 1953, our carved oak pulpit was given by the Rt. Rev. Hamilton H. Kellogg, D.D., Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota, in memory of his mother, Jennie Louise Kellogg. This handsome and substantial pulpit carries the history of three notable parishioners.

Jennie Kellogg (1864-1950) was the daughter of John and Paulina Wood Kellogg, and the granddaughter of Judge Daniel Kellogg, a famed jurist, banker and lawyer. Jennie was a communicant of St. James’ and remembered as “prominent in the affairs of the church.”

In 1892, Jennie married Walter Hamilton Kellogg (1860-1934), “America’s Teasel King.” The teasel, a plant with a prickly head used to raise the nap on woolen fabric, played a leading role in the agricultural and commercial history of Skaneateles; as his title indicates, Walter Kellogg was a very successful grower and seller of teasels. The son of Daniel and Maria Cole Kellogg, he was also a grandchild of Judge Daniel Kellogg.

The Rt. Rev. Hamilton H. Kellogg, Bishop of Minnesota

Jennie and Walter’s son, Hamilton Hyde Kellogg (1899-1977), led a remarkable life. During World War I, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps Air Corps. After the war, he went to Williams College where he captained the cross-country team. Accepted at Columbia U. Law School, he chose instead to attend the General Theological Seminary (earning a Masters in sociology from Columbia at the same time as his Divinity degree). He became an Army chaplain, traveled extensively, and during World War II, as Colonel Kellogg, was Senior Chaplain to the First Army, ministering to U.S. troops during the Battle of the Bulge and the crossing of the Rhine. In 1946, he became Rector of Christ Church in Houston, Texas, where he raised membership from 1700 to 2800, doubled the budget, and saw to the installation of air conditioning. In 1952, he became the Bishop of the Diocese of Minnesota, a post he held until 1971. In 1953, he donated the pulpit from which our Rectors speak every Sunday, in the Village that gave him his start in the world.