Hugh Kelly Biography


	This biography appears on pages 927-928 in "History of Dakota 
	Territory" by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. V (1915) and was 
	scanned, OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				HUGH KELLY. 

	Hugh Kelly, who resides in Running Water precinct, Bon Homme 
county, dates his residence in Dakota from the 15th of May, 1877, 
covering a period of almost four decades. He filed on a preemption 
claim on section 8 and it is still his place of residence. Money was 
scarce in those days and as he did not have the cash to make the final 
payment he changed this to a homestead right which he proved up on in 
due time, securing the deed thereto in 1886. 

	Mr. Kelly is a native of Ireland, his birth having occurred in 
County Monaghan, near the town of Monaghan, on Easter Sunday of 1842. 
His father, Patrick Kelly, married a Miss Scallon. The mother died in 
1846 and the father passed away in Nova Scotia in 1849, leaving Hugh 
Kelly an orphan when a lad of but seven years. He has brothers and 
sisters in Ireland but has seen none of them since the death of the 
father, for at that time the family became separated. He was reared by 
James Mansfield, of Nova Scotia, an old friend of his parents, to whom 
the father paid board for the boy while he lived. The Mansfield home 
was at Wolfstown, in the county of Wolf, sixty miles from Quebec. When 
fourteen years of age Hugh Kelly left Canada and went to Vermont, where 
he obtained work in the sawmill of Enos Woodward at Higgins, Woods. He 
remained with Mr. Woodward for seven years and then removed westward to 
Wisconsin. He worked at Grand Rapids, Wood county, and in Ripon, 
Wisconsin, and while in that city was married to Miss Anna Cassady, a 
daughter of Patrick and Mary A. (Scallop) Cassady. 

	Soon after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Kelly removed to Franklin 
county, Iowa, where he purchased a farm and lived for five years, after 
which he came to Dakota in 1877. The first year he broke the sod but 
planted no crops and thereby he escaped the scourge of grasshoppers. He 
made a living in the early days of his residence here by freighting 
from Yankton to Fort Randall and he was out in the blizzard of January 
12, 1888, until eleven o'clock at night. He was down on the river 
cutting wood and tried to return with the team but could not make them 
go against the storm. He found a sheltered gulch in which he left them 
and on foot made his way to shelter, returning for his team the next 
day. One of his greatest disasters when times were the hardest came as 
the result of a prairie fire which burned his stable and his team. He 
had intended soon to go into the Elkhorn valley of Nebraska and work on 
the railroad which was being built there. By the time that he had 
secured another team it was too late to secure railroad work. It was 
very hard in those days with no money and little credit to secure a 
team and farm work could not be carried on without one. George Meade 
bought a condemned mule at Fort Randall which he sold to Mr. Kelly on 
easy terms and an old horse was secured elsewhere, thus giving him a 
start again. As the years advanced the privations and hardships of 
pioneer life gave way before an advancing civilization and farming came 
to be a profitable undertaking, good crops being harvested and bringing 
a substantial income when placed on the market. 

	In 1895 Mr. Kelly was called upon to mourn the loss of his wife, 
who passed away on Christmas Eve of that year. They were the parents of 
six children, all of whom survive: Mary, the wife of Albert Stevens, a 
farmer of Mitchell, South Dakota, by whom she has one child; Elizabeth, 
the wife of George Torrance, of Burke, this state; Patrick Emmett, who 
is employed away from home; Anetta, the wife of George Thomas, of 
Redfield, South Dakota, by whom she has four children; Fred, who is 
living at Redfield; and Pearl, the wife of Frank Kirchman, of Stanley 
county, South Dakota, by whom she has two children. 

	The religious faith of the family is that of the Catholic church 
and Mr. Kelly gives his political allegiance to the democratic party. 
He is truly a self-made man, having been dependent entirely upon his 
own efforts from the age of fourteen years. He has worked persistently 
and energetically and whatever success he has achieved is the direct 
and merited reward of his industry, perseverance and determination.