John Edward Kelley Biography


	This biography appears on pages 576-579 in "History of Dakota Territory" 
	by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				JOHN EDWARD KELLEY. 

	John Edward Kelley is a Dakota pioneer who has been actively 
identified with the development and upbuilding of the state through 
more than a third of a century. His labors have been resultant and 
beneficial and his influence has been a potent element for progress 
along many lines. A native of Wisconsin, he was born in Columbia county 
on the 27th of March, 1853, his parents being Thomas and Katherine 
(O'Neil) Kelley. The father was a native of Ireland, and in early 
boyhood crossed the Atlantic to Canada, where he resided until 1848, 
when he made his way across the border and established his home in 
Wisconsin, where he followed farming throughout the remainder of his 
active career. He was born in 1808 and had reached the seventy-sixth 
milestone on life's journey when death called him in 1884. His wife was 
also of Irish nativity, born in 1825, and in girlhood came to America. 
She survived her husband seventeen years, passing away in 1901. 

	John Edward Kelley was the fourth in order of birth in a family 
of seven children, two sons and five daughters. He was educated in the 
public schools and pursued a classical course under private 
instructors. He also completed a course in law but never entered upon 
active practice, although his knowledge of the law has been of 
incalculable benefit to him in later business relations. On leaving 
Wisconsin he remained for a short time in Minnesota and in 1878 arrived 
in Dakota territory, settling in Moody county, where he turned his 
attention to farming. He has since been extensively engaged in 
agricultural pursuits and is the owner of large farm properties from 
which he derives a gratifying annual income. He keeps in close touch 
with modern scientific methods, has studied soil and climatic 
conditions and employs the most up-to-date methods in improving and 
developing his large acreage. He was one of the founders of the First 
National Bank of Egan and is serving on its board of directors. In 1913 
he was appointed to the position of register of the United States land 
office at Pierre, since which time he has resided in the capital city. 

	Mr. Kelley has always taken an active interest in state polities 
and has been an influential member of the democratic party for many 
years. He was elected as a representative to the second South Dakota 
legislature and in 1896 be was chosen to represent his district in the 
council chambers of the nation, making an excellent record as a member 
of the United States congress. He was for five years owner and editor 
of the Flandreau Herald, which he made an effective organ for advancing 
the interests of the state along political and various other lines. He 
has done valuable service in an educational way through his work as a 
member of the school board of Flandreau, and he holds to the highest 
standards for the public schools. As an intellectual recreation he has 
made an exhaustive study of social and political economies and is 
widely and favorably known as a lecturer upon those subjects, having 
delivered various courses of lectures in South Dakota and other states. 
With the same thoroughness he has taken up the study of agriculture and 
has been an indefatigable worker in the interests of modern farming 
methods and also of another closely allied subject - that of highway 
improvement. An omnivorous reader of the standard literature, he is a 
man of exceptional breadth of information and association with him 
means expansion and elevation. He has for many years been a contributor 
to magazines and periodicals on economic questions and is the author of 
"The Age of Gold," a political satire. His record in South Dakota is 
that of over a third of a century of valuable and progressive 
citizenship.