by Rocky Macy
Hiram KELLY was born in North Carolina in 1787. He married Elizabeth McGEE on August 19, 1813, in Burke County, North Carolina. Hiram KELLY passed away on July 17, 1862, in Madison County, Arkansas.
Elizabeth McGEE is believed to have been born in North Carolina in the early 1790’s, and thought to have passed away in Georgia sometime between 1840 and early 1845.
Hiram and Elizabeth (McGEE) KELLY were my g-g-g-g-grandparents.
Hiram and Elizabeth (McGEE) KELLY possibly had as many as eight children, at least three of whom either moved with their father and his second wife, Malinda, to northwest Arkansas, in 1858 or 1859, or followed them soon after. The three children by Elizabeth who took part in that family migration, according to a copyrighted article by the late Willie Doris CALICO BOHANNON in 1985 which ran in “Madison County Musings,” the quarterly magazine of the Genealogical and Historical Magazine of Madison County, Arkansas, (an article which I found partially reprinted on-line at Ancestry.com) were his daughter, Sarah Ann, and her husband, Joshua Calvin ELLIS (my ancestors), and Hiram’s adult sons, Joseph and Jesse, and their families.
According to the article by Willie BOHANNON, Hiram KELLY sold a large amount of land in Georgia prior to his family’s move north, and he left the state with more than seven thousand dollars. The article also indicated that part of his motivation for moving north was that Hiram did not share the southerners’ views on slavery, and tensions over the subject were rapidly escalating. Hiram KELLY was more than seventy-years-old when he and his family undertook that long wagon ride from Georgia to the northwest corner of Arkansas.
Hiram KELLY married his second wife, Malinda ANDERSON, in Lumpkin County, Georgia, on July 15, 1845. (His marriage to Elizabeth is recorded in North Carolina state archives, and the marriage to Malinda is entered into Georgia state archives. Both records are available at Ancestry.com.)
Hiram and Malinda had three daughters. According to the 1850 census of District 31, Forsyth County, Georgia, and the 1860 census of Prairie Township in Madison County, Arkansas, those young ladies were: Elmina (born ca. 1846-47), Eliza (ca. 1847-48), and Malinda (1850). All three girls accompanied their parents in the move to Arkansas in the late 1850’s. Jesse R. Kelly, aged 20 (Hiram’s son by Elizabeth), was listed in that household as well, and Jesse was also part of the family migration to Arkansas in 1858 or 1859.
According to records of the Land Office of Fayetteville, Arkansas, Hiram “Kelley” made two land purchases on February 1, 1860. in Madison County, Arkansas. One purchase was for 40.85 acres, and the other was in an adjoining Section (and likely an adjoining parcel of land) for 319 and 97/100s acres.
The 1860 census found the KELLY family in Prairie Township of Madison County, Arkansas. Included in that census entry were Hiram (aged 70, born in North Carolina), his wife, Malinda (48, TN), and their three daughters: Elmina (14, GA), Eliza (12, GA), and Malinda (10, GA).
Hiram KELLY passed away in the summer of 1862, less than five years after selling all of his property in Georgia and moving his family to northwest Arkansas. He is buried in the Beacon Addition of the Austin Cemetery in Benton County, Arkansas.
Hiram either was, or very nearly was, seventy-five-years-old at the time of his death. He had three minor daughters still living in his household when he died, one of whom was only twelve, and grandchildren living nearby who were in their twenties - and at least one infant great-granddaughter! Even though Hiram KELLY was a relative newcomer to the area, he died knowing that his Arkansas family lines were taking root and already spreading!
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