1876-1889

Mark Kellogg
Ambrose William Lyman

 

Mark Kellogg (1833-1876)
Mark Kellogg was working as a stringer for the AP when he was killed covering Gen. George Custer at the battle of Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. He was 43 and the first Associated Press correspondent to die in battle. Kellogg worked in a Bismarck, N.D., law office and occasionally wrote stories for the Bismarck Tribune under the pseudonym "Frontier." Custer had ignored warnings not to take journalists on the journey from Fort Lincoln to the Little Bighorn and invited the Tribune's publisher, Clement Lounsberry, to accompany the troops. When Lounsberry fell ill at the last moment, Kellogg took his place. His dispatches appeared in the Tribune and the New York Herald, and were carried by the AP. His last dispatch: "I go with Custer and will be at the death."
Ambrose William Lyman (1848-1898)
Ambrose William Lyman had more than two decades of experience as a journalist when he went to Cuba to cover the Spanish-American war for AP. The Warren, Ohio, native had studied at the state’s Miami University and reported for The Cleveland Leader before coming to New York in 1879. He worked briefly for the New York Tribune and, in 1885, The New York Sun sent him to Washington to cover President Grover Cleveland. Before Cleveland’s term was over, Lyman headed west to manage The Helena (Mont.) Independent. He stayed there for eight years, returning in 1897 to New York, where he joined AP. While in Cuba for AP, Lyman contracted yellow fever. Despite his illness, he remained on duty until the surrender of Santiago. He returned to Brooklyn, N.Y., where he died on Oct. 3, 1898, at the age of 50.

 

 

Buy AP News | Buy AP Photos | Buy AP Video | Buy AP Audio | Buy AP Books | Careers | Shop AP Essentials