George Kimball

At its annual meeting, May 17, 1854, the Boston Seaman’s Friend Society accepted the resignation of Rev. George W. Bourne, pastor of the Mariners’ Church and chaplain of the Sailors’ Home. The board of managers then began the search for “a suitable man” for the vacant position, and their choice fell upon Rev. Elijah Kellogg of Harpswell, Maine.

Mr. Kellogg began his duties in September of that year, with his accustomed earnestness, and under his ministry the attendance at the church increased, and a new impulse was given to the society’s work.

He first appeared before the society at its twenty-seventh anniversary, held in Tremont Temple, May 30, 1855. A large audience was assembled. President Alpheus Hardy introduced him in complimentary terms, and he made an eloquent address. His “suitability” as the seaman’s friend and pastor is shown in these extracts: “The greater portion of my life has been spent among seamen, either at sea or on shore. The first personal effort, to any extent, I made for the salvation of souls was while teaching among a community of sailors. The first sermon I preached was to sailors. The first couple I united in marriage were a sailor and his bride. The first child I baptized was a sailor’s child. The first burial service I performed was over the body of a seaman. The society with which I have been connected during the last eleven years is with scarcely an exception composed of sailors and their families. There is not a house in the parish in which the roar of the surf may not be heard, and in many of them the Atlantic flings its spray upon the door-stone.... The men who interest seamen and do them good have not any recipe for it; neither can they impart it to others. It is all instinctive. They love the webbed feet, and the webbed feet love them.”

Mr. Kellogg was at this time forty-one years old. His pleasing personal appearance and his hearty, rugged, forceful utterance made a favorable impression upon his hearers.

The task he had undertaken was by no means an easy one. It involved hard and constant work, often of a kind little, if at all, like that of the average clergyman. On the Sabbath there were in the Mariners’ Church three services for public worship, and the Sunday-school. In addition to this work upon the Sabbath, Mr. Kellogg conducted a social religious meeting in the reading room of the Sailors’ Home upon one evening of each week, and in the winter lectured occasionally in the church upon topics of vital interest. He visited sailors upon shipboard and in hospital, offered the comforts of religion to the sick and dying, and often communicated to loved ones the parting message they would never otherwise have received. For this work the salary was necessarily small, and the material equipment not of the best; but Mr. Kellogg did not hesitate. He threw himself into the work with zeal and enthusiasm.

From the establishment of the Seaman’s Friend Society in 1827 to July 12, 1852, religious services were held at the Sailors’ Home, but upon the latter date the building was burned. The church at the corner of Summer and Sea streets, which had formerly been owned and used by the Christian Baptists, was soon after purchased, and on December 30, 1852, was dedicated to the work for sailors. A church building, in these days, like the modest bethel in Summer Street would be regarded as quaint in appearance and ill-adapted to its uses. It was inferior, in many ways, even to other churches of its day, but it was easily accessible to those to whom it especially ministered (wharves to the south were then much more fully utilized by shipping than they now are), and was in the centre of a favorite residential district; for Fort Hill and surrounding streets were at that time mainly occupied by pretentious dwellings.

The Sailors’ Home, when rebuilt, was a large brick structure upon the eastern slope of Fort Hill, at 99 Purchase Street. Here, with Mr. John O. Chaney as its superintendent, many of the brave carriers of the commerce of the world were comfortably housed and cared for. The Home had a large reading room and library, and besides providing good board and home comforts, it did much from time to time for the relief of shipwrecked and destitute sailors. Often hundreds of sailors were here. The very year Mr. Kellogg began his work it sheltered 2458, and during his chaplaincy of nearly eleven years 25,358 were beneath its roof.

In urging the need and importance of such an institution as a haven of rest, a “port in a storm,” Mr. Kellogg once said: “Suppose twenty-five seamen from Calcutta, with beard and hair of 130 days’ growth, hammocks, canvas bags, sheath knives, chests lashed up with tarred rigging, redolent of bilge water, with a monkey or two, and three or four parrots, should drive up to the Revere House in a North End wagon, and say, ’We want to stop here; our money is as good as anybody’s,’ would they stop there? Would their money be as good as anybody’s? I trow not. Let them, repulsed from the Revere, go to the Marlboro,—a temperance, pious house, prayers night and morning,—and tell the proprietor if he does not take them in they must go to a place that leads to a drunkard’s grave and the drunkard’s hell, would they be taken in there, think you? This shows the need of a Sailors’ Home, does it not?”

When Mr. Kellogg had been at work awhile, Captain Andrew Bartlett of Plymouth, a retired ship-master, was employed by the society as a missionary helper. Always faithful and zealous, as “a lieutenant to Mr. Kellogg,”—so he styled himself,—Captain Bartlett proved of valuable assistance. With his aid libraries were placed upon shipboard to be managed by Christian sailors, and the minor details of the work went forward successfully.

Another fruitful source of increased life and enthusiasm in the work came early in Mr. Kellogg’s pastorate. It was a body of young men drawn by the personal magnetism of the popular preacher, inspired by his earnestness and devotion, and moved by their own desire to be of service in the good cause. He issued no special call, made no urgent appeal, for these helpers. One by one they came, impelled by the promptings of the Holy Spirit. They rallied like a forlorn hope in a desperate encounter, each feeling that his services were needed. They were ready for any service their Divine Guide and their beloved leader might require of them, should it carry them even to “moving accidents by flood and field.” They had heard the “still, small voice,” and had responded, “Here am I; send me.”

Captain Bartlett early reported: “The young men of the church are Mr. Kellogg’s body-guard. They are a sort of flying artillery. They visit the receiving-ship, the Marine Hospital, and other places. They hold meetings, and talk with sailors.”

Mr. Kellogg in an annual address before the society said: “An army of young men are putting their strength to the wheel of a difficult and hitherto well-nigh discouraging work. It was feared by many, when these efforts began, that they were the outgrowth of romance and the love of novelty, and would be of transient duration; but they have assumed the same enduring character as the other departments of labor. At the hospital, on board the receiving-ship, at the Mariners’ Church on Sabbath evenings, they have entered heart and hand into this work, and, from their very youth, adapted to the impulsive nature of seamen, they have been in the hands of God a most efficient instrumentality for good.”

This army of young men grew very rapidly during the revival of 1858, and by the beginning of the Civil War was of creditable size. At the Sunday evening prayer-meetings it made itself especially felt. On these occasions the church was always crowded. Ministers of the Gospel, merchants, young people, and captains of ships sat side by side with men whom every wind had blown upon, from the equator to the pole, all uniting in fervent prayer to the same great Father, all striving to bring each other to a knowledge of the truth. Not an evangelical denomination in the city was unrepresented, and it is impossible to form even an approximate estimate of the amount of good accomplished, for these meetings were exceptional both in number of attendants and in interest shown.

But war came, and it found the Mariners’ Church patriotic to the very core. Mr. Kellogg had to report that sixty-eight of his“body-guard” had enlisted to fight for the preservation of the Union, sixteen of them teachers in the Sunday-school. In 1864, in his address before the society, he said: “At the beginning of the war there were connected with the Mariners’ Church a body of young men, landsmen, who were deeply interested in the conversion of sailors and enjoyed their confidence and affection. They, with a single exception, entered the army. Poor and without patronage, they enlisted as privates. Five of them have been promoted.”

Those connected with the Mariners’ Church when the war opened will never forget the stirring scenes in the church meetings or the eloquent words of patriotism and faith with which the pastor bade his “boys” Godspeed as they went forth into the great struggle. One Sunday evening in April, 1861, he spoke feelingly of the impending crisis. He was so prophetic, outlining so accurately what afterward proved to be the extent and course of the secession movement, that many of his hearers have since thought him to have been almost inspired. When he had finished, he requested three of his “boys” who had enlisted, one of whom had that very day been admitted to the church, to step to the desk. Then, amid a scene such as is rarely witnessed in a sacred edifice, he talked to them personally, while the large audience showed great sympathy and the liveliest interest. When the enthusiasm had reached its highest pitch, he drew from under his desk three revolvers and passed them to the young men, bidding them go forth in the name of God, in a cause which he declared to be as holy as any that ever a people contended for. In 1865, referring feelingly to the services of these young men in the field, he said: “They departed with the prayers and good wishes of the congregation. One of them, but nineteen years old, fell at Gettysburg; another,[2] having been twice severely wounded, has returned with honor, and the third, having received three wounds, and led his company at the storming of Fort Fisher, still remains a captain in the service.”

The work was often attended by interesting and sometimes humorous incidents. During a meeting in the reading room of the Home one evening an intoxicated sailor created a disturbance at the door. He wanted to enter, and had to be held back by force. The meeting closed, and the “flying artillery,” under the leadership of Mr. Kellogg, was about starting for the nine o’clock prayer-meeting at the rooms of the Young Men’s Christian Association in Tremont Temple. The inebriate took it into his head to go too. He was reasoned with, but without effect. “You fellows have got a good thing,” said he, “and I want some of it.” The leader and his “body-guard” started, and sure enough, the disciple of Bacchus followed. Mr. Kellogg protested, but in vain, and finally ordered “the flying artillery” to take the double-quick. The man then showed that he, too, could sprint a bit even if he did happen to be “loaded.” He managed to keep the party in sight, and although he met many obstacles and collided with a horse-car in crossing Washington Street, he succeeded in landing a fairly good second. He was not allowed to enter the prayer-meeting, however, as he was still inclined to be noisy, but was “held” in an adjoining room. The young men got him back to the Home after the meeting, and he again declared it his purpose to have religion anyhow, in spite of opposition. Next morning he appeared, demanded a pen, and with the air of a usurper of a throne about to banish all who had in any way opposed him, placed his name upon the temperance pledge. That evening in the prayer-meeting he requested prayers. He gave his heart to Christ, became a devoted worker, and a year afterward, returning from a voyage, was found to be still in the faith.

But sinners had to be brought to repentance ordinarily. They rarely came unsought, like this poor wayfarer, and thus Mr. Kellogg and his helpers always found plenty to do. It was an inspiring scene when the leader and his “body-guard” set out for the prayer-meeting upon the receiving-ship Ohio or returned therefrom. In going, they usually met at the Young Men’s Christian Association, proceeding thence via “Foot and Walker’s line,” two by two, keeping step to the music of their own voices. “The Old Mountain Tree,” “A Life on the Ocean Wave,” and many other popular songs of the day, as well as hymns, were sung. Among the favorite hymns was “Say, brothers, will you meet us?” It had that stirring chorus, “Glory, glory, hallelujah.” This was sung a great deal, and it finally became the foundation of the famous “John Brown Song,” to the rhythm of which thousands marched in the great war for the nation’s life.

No small part of Mr. Kellogg’s success in this work came from his intimate knowledge of the seaman’s nature. Sailors are in many ways peculiar, and in order to be of service to them a worker must proceed understandingly. They regard themselves as in a measure set apart from their fellow-men. One of them once wrote:—

That Mr. Kellogg understood this loneliness and had a large sympathy for the men “that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters,” these eloquent words of his well show: “In respect to the great mass of seamen, they neither own land, build houses, nor rear families. They neither give nor receive those sympathies and attentions which create among men a mutual dependence and attachment. When they are sick, no circle of neighbors and friends watch by their bedside and minister to their necessities, but the walls of the hospital, if on shore, receive them and conceal their sorrows from observation. No kindred follow them to the grave and erect the memorial stone. They are not, in the expressive language of Scripture, ’gathered unto their fathers,’ but they are buried on the shores of foreign lands, or amid the everlasting snows of the pole, or in the abyss of ocean, slumbering in nameless sepulchres and mausoleums of the mighty deep. Like the winds that bear and the waves that break around them, they are the visitors of every clime, the residents of none.... The knowledge of the community at large in respect to seamen is too often gleaned from the exaggerated descriptions of novelists.... Every man has in his heart home feeling. It is an old-fashioned thing. He drew it in with his mother’s milk. He learned it at his father’s knees. Even sailors are men. They did not spring from the froth of the sea, like Venus. They had mothers and fathers that loved them and prayed for them. It is the heart makes home. It is the heart makes friends in the world. The heart makes heaven.”

Sailors are ever among the bravest of the brave. Great as is the appreciation of the American people of the bravery of the men who lined up behind the guns of our warships in the great war which kept the Union whole, it is not half great enough.

Neither can we overestimate their loyalty in all great crises of the nation’s history. It was President Lincoln who pointed out the fact that in all the general defection of the first period of secession not a single common seaman proved false to his flag.

In a prayer-meeting at the Mariners’ Church while the war was in progress a landsman lamented its effect upon the “Jackies.” A man-of-war’s man arose and said: “What is war to me? What is war to my shipmates? It brings no increase of peril—only another kind. We have always faced danger and death and disease. What is it to me whether danger comes from storms or from batteries? I can kneel down between the guns and pray as well as in my room at the Sailors’ Home.”

For patriotism and bravery wherever shown, Mr. Kellogg had the greatest admiration. Besides the large number of landsmen connected with his church who entered the service, over two hundred of the inmates of the Sailors’ Home joined the army and more than six hundred the navy during the war. With many of these, Mr. Kellogg kept in touch through frequent correspondence, and looked after their personal needs. He loved them all. He often sent necessities and delicacies to his“boys” at the front. In one of the early battles,[3] one of the young men of whom mention has been made as receiving arms at his hands in a Sunday evening prayer-meeting was wounded. He at once visited the hospital to which the young man had been taken, secured a furlough for him, provided him liberally with necessities, brought him to Boston, and sent him to his home in Maine for a visit to his father and mother.

The results of Mr. Kellogg’s great work for seamen were often not apparent. His sailor parishioners were scattered throughout the world. In speaking of this, he once said: “If a person on shore is converted, it immediately becomes known to a church of perhaps six hundred members; if he leads a devoted Christian life, his influence is felt by thousands. But these Harlan Pages of the ocean, who pray with messmates, speak good words to shipmates in the middle watch, maintain a Christian life on board frigates which have been compared to floating hells enlivened once in a while by a drowning—who writes their memoirs? What stone records their virtues? What periodical chronicles their death? They slip quietly to heaven unnoticed and unknown. Their bier is a plank across the lee gunwale, their mausoleum the ocean, their epitaph is written in water. And when the report circulates in the forecastles of different vessels, some old sailor, dashing a tear from his eye with his shirt-sleeve, exclaims to his shipmates, ‘Well, he has gone to heaven. He saved my soul, and he would have saved the whole ship’s company if they had listened to him.’”

The visible results of Mr. Kellogg’s work, however, were from the first encouraging. During the winter of 1858, the great revival was fully felt. Many were brought to Christ. The next year the interest continued, not only at the church and the Sailors’ Home, but at sea. At the Home 276 signed the temperance pledge and 95 were converted. Good work was also done at the hospital in Chelsea. That winter word was received that four members of the Mariners’ Church were holding prayer-meetings on board the Hartford, flagship of the squadron then in Chinese waters, and that a lieutenant, the fleet surgeon, a ship’s doctor, a gunner, two midshipmen, six petty officers, and twenty-five seamen had been converted. Prayer-meetings were then being held upon fifteen other men-of-war. The next year also showed good results. In 1861, Mr. Kellogg was able to report seventy-four conversions at the Sailors’ Home, fifty-five on the receiving-ship Ohio, twenty-eight at the hospital in Chelsea, thirty-seven at sea, and a number at the church. Statistics show the conversion of 725 during his ministry of eleven years.

The high esteem in which Mr. Kellogg was held by the other clergymen of Boston was well expressed in 1862 by Dr. Todd of the Central Church. Speaking at an annual meeting of the society from which Mr. Kellogg was forced to be absent by a serious attack of lung fever, Dr. Todd said:— “I regret exceedingly the absence to-day of one who is the life and soul of this work in this city, whose treasured experience, given in his racy way, is wont to enliven this anniversary. I regret exceedingly the cause of his detention. But I may take advantage of his absence to bear some slight testimony to the preciousness of the influence which he is exerting. Apart from his successes among seamen, for which he is eminently qualified by the characteristics of his nature, as well as the tastes of his heart, he is diffusing an untold influence in other spheres. I presume that there is not an evangelical clergyman in this city who cannot gratefully trace among his people, and especially among the young men of his congregation, the quickening and healthful influence of the pastor of the Mariners’ Church.”

A year later the decline in the merchant marine began to be seriously felt. It was said to be due to the sale of a large number of vessels to the English and the change in destination of others, many going to England and the Continent which formerly would have come to Boston and New York. This diversion of commerce was believed to be due to the prevailing high rates of exchange. Then, of course, a great many of the men who had manned our merchant vessels had been absorbed by the army and navy. Just before this decline began, a competent authority had estimated that throughout the world at least one hundred and forty thousand merchant vessels of all kinds were afloat, manned by a million men, and that one-third of these were under the flag of the United States.

These changes in our commerce and this falling off in American seamen greatly lessened the number of inmates at the Sailors’ Home, and seriously weakened the Mariners’ Church. Then, too, a new element had occupied Fort Hill and the adjacent streets. The growth of business was crowding people southward and westward, comfortable homes giving way to commercial establishments. These things, together with an intention which Mr. Kellogg had long cherished of entering upon a literary career, caused him to think seriously of resigning his position. During the summer of 1865 he did so, and was soon after succeeded by the Rev. J. M. H. Dow.

The foregoing is but a glimpse of Elijah Kellogg’s work in Boston. In its entirety, that work is known only to God and the Recording Angel. Its influence was widely felt upon sea and land. Thousands of sailors upon lonely waters were made happier by it, and up among the hills, under the trees, at many a farm-house window, sad faces that looked out and watched for their dear ones’ coming brightened at the remembrance that they had been led to Christ through the efforts of this seaman’s friend.

Mr. Kellogg was a saintly, lovable man, and but for his modesty, shunning, as he often did, the leading churches of the day, because of what he termed their “starch and formality,” he would have been named and known among the great preachers of his time.