Sacramento County
Biographies
EDWARD KELLEY
EDWARD KELLEY, of Brighton township, was born in Calais, Maine,
March 4, 1822, son of John and Hannah Kelley, both natives of Ireland. He
was reared in his native State. At the age of nineteen years, in 1841, he
married Maria Kern, a native of St. Stephens, New
Brunswick. In the mean time he learned to be a
ship carpenter and calker, at Calais,
Bangor and Eastport, Maine,
at St. Stephens and in New York. At
St. Stephens he worked on a ship called Fannie, for Eastman & Wright Bros.,
of Boston. From Eastport they
fetched a steamer named S. B. Wheeler, and this was placed in the ship Fannie,
of 250 tons burden. The method by which this was done was the following, which
was the invention of William Hines, of Kennebee,
Maine, from whom Mr. Kelley learned his trade; they calked the ship up to the
gunwales, launched it, took it along side the wharf and sunk it into a cradle,
by the held of the tide which rises forty to fifty feet there. Then
they hauled the steamer into the ship and then the hull hauled upon the
flats. Then as the tide ebbed they let the water out through a 1 x 8 foot
scuttle, which let the steamer down in place. Closing the scuttle enabled
the next flood-tide to set it afloat. But the deck of the ship was not put
on till after it was hauled to the quays. The space between the ship’s
skin and the steamer was then filled up with 300 tons of coal, and freighted
with flour and whisky, etc., all they could pack in, and then all was
ready. They then came around Cape Horn, landing in San
Francisco May 10, 1851. First they discharged all
the freight except the coal, which they afterward unloaded into a hulk that
they bought for the purpose. The ship was then run up to Benicia
and anchored among the tules. Then they took the
mizzen and main masts out excepting the foremast, and
all the decks but the forecastle. Next, taking a six by ten plank out of
the ship’s side below water mark, they sank it again, the pressure of the water
being gauged by a leather valve large enough to cover the aperture and guided
by ropes inside and out. The S. B. Wheeler was then taken out of the ship,
and run about two years between San Francisco and Stockton,
commanded by Captain Spear. The engineer who came with it to the coast was
named Lockett. The steamer was afterward run to the Sandwich Islands, whither Mr. Kelley went and calked the deck, for
Mr. Wright of the Islands. In 1852 he went to
Madeira, near the San Quentin State Prison, and worked six months in a saw-mill
called the Baltimore, perhaps the
first saw-mill on the coast, for a Mr. Morrison. The next five months he
was employed in a mill at Bolinas, Marin
County. Then he purchased a
lot of forty feet front at the corner of Dupont and Washington streets, San
Francisco, in partnership with John McCloy. He brought lumber in his schooner from the
mill where he was working and built a house on the lot, in 1853. His next
move was to go with Meggs & Williams, who went up
into Mendocino County,
to put up a mill, and worked for them seven months, at $130 a
month. Returning to San Francisco,
he leased a lot on Clay Street
and built a house there for rent; but two years afterward the extension of Davis
Street prevented him from obtaining what he had to
pay for the ground, and he had to surrender the lease and the building with
it. Next he made the trip to the Sandwich Islands already referred to; and
in 1856 he worked a short time in San Francisco,
and then bought his place in this county from Captain Mace, for
$1,100. Thenceforward he has been a resident of this county. There
are 173 acres here, well improved. Mrs. Kelley died in 1852. They had
five children, all of whom are dead. In 1855 Mr. Kelley married Elizabeth McCloy, and by this marriage there have been three
children, two of whom are living; Jane, wife of H. B. Smith; and Elizabeth, now
Mrs. Peter Robinson. The one who died was Maggie, who was burned to death
when fourteen years old.
Transcribed 9-9-07 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated
History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 634-635.
Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Marilyn R. Pankey.