MADISON CO, AR - MARCUS LAFAETTE KELLY - Bio

Submitted by: Don Kelly
Email Address: donkelly@grovenet.net

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Marcus Lafaette Kelly

Marcus Lafaette Kelly was born November 4, 1856 in Atlanta, Georgia.  
Marcus was four years old when his family moved to Northwest AR. 
During the Civil War his father, Doctor Jesse R. Kelly, himself the 
subject of a biography by Goodspeeds History, was commissioned by the 
Confederacy to, "administer to the home front" in Texas. The Kelly 
family returned to Madison County after the war. Marcus was nine or 
ten years old at that time.

He was the second son born to Doctor Jesse Kelly and Elizabeth 
Richards.  Jesse and Elizabeth were married in 1855 in Georgia while 
he attended medical school in Atlanta. Jesse graduated in 1859 and 
soon after followed his father, Hiram Kelly, to Arkansas. The Kelly 
union produced nine children, four sons and five daughters, most born
in Arkansas. Jesse died on January 2, 1897 at his farm near Goshen and 
was subsequently interred at the Goshen Cemetery. Elizabeth was born 
on October 9, 1835 in South Carolina and died at the home of a 
daughter April 19, 1924.  Elizabeth was buried beside her husband of 
fourty-three years at the old Goshen Cemetery.

Marcus grew to maturity on the family farms and lived most of his life 
in Madison, Washington, Benton and Carroll Counties. He had the 
natural trait known for generations in the Kelly family,  good hands 
and natural mechanical skills. Though skilled as a mechanic and 
blacksmith, Marcus is perhaps best known for stone monuments he built 
on gravesites of relatives all around Northwest Arkansas. It is said 
that a monument he built in honor of his father was twelve feet tall 
and still stands in the old Goshen Cemetery today. He also built a 
nice monument to honor his grandfather, Hiram Kelly, in the Hindsville 
Cemetery.

While the Jesse Kelly family lived in Texas, fate was unkind to the 
Kelly families who remained behind in Hindsville.  The families 
suffered traumatic experiences associated with having lived 
through the Civil War in a community that was violently divided 
between pro-union and pro-rebel sympathies. Marcus experienced the 
violent death of an uncle Joseph Kelly who was murdered in front of 
his family by a northern bushwhacker who shot him when he 
answered a hail at his front door.  He also lost his grandfather, 
Hiram Kelly in the same year, whose death near Hindsville was 
variously discribed by the family as "tragic or unnatural".  The facts 
of Hiram's death remains unclear today.

As Marcus approached his twilight years, he pulled up stakes and moved 
to LaJunta, Colorado. There has been no explanation as to why he moved 
so far away from his family in Arkansas. At LaJunta, Colorado on 
August 11, 1937, Marcus, now 81 years old, was walking to town when he 
was struck and fatally injured by an automobile. Later he was rushed 
to the Mennonite Hospital where he was pronounced dead, after which 
his remains were transported to Peacock Funeral home where he reposed 
pending contact of his next of kin who could claim his body.

On Saturday following the accident, two of Marcus's children arrived 
in LaJunta to make funeral arrangements, son T.G. Kelly of Ada, 
Oklahoma, and a daughter, Cora Kelly Carrier of Wichita, Kansas. 
Marcus was interred at a LaJunta Cemetery. Marcus Lafaette Kelly was 
preceeded in death by eight children and survived by seven children. 
Besides two mentioned above, other survivors included Oscar Kelly of 
California, Mrs. Myrtle Kelly Reddick and Mrs. Ethel Kelly Hayes from 
Rogers, Arkansas, and Oletta and Eugene Kelly from Hindsville, 
Arkansas. It was sad that after being surrounded by a loving family 
for a lifetime, Marcus Kelly died alone and far from those he loved.

by: don kelly, grandson of Marcus Lafaette Kelly.
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