US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

4 Amphibians Came To Cozquer
KELLY CLANIO
It will be no surprise that an enterprising Protestant Kelly came from
Ireland, settled in Pennsylvania near Philadelphia, and by the early 1740’s
started a numerous Kelly clan on the development of the New World. This
was a period which the Encyclopedia Britannica says was marked by immi-
gration from Ireland of “poorer Protestants ruined by heavy rents and tlie
commercial acts. ” 1’
In the early 1750’s the Colony of Virginia recruited many Scots, Irish
and Germans, recently arrived in the New World, to settle on the western
border of Virginia to form barrier communities against Indian attacks. One
of the Irish so recruited was Thomas Kelly who moved to Botetourt County
(north of Roanoke) where he farmed his homestead.
Thomas Kelly fulfilled the purpose of his recruitment when he par-
ticipated in the French-Indian Wars of 1754–1 760, during which France and
England fought for the control of the Ohio Valley. Certificate # 5808 of
the Botetourt County Court, Virginia, now in the possession of the Turner
family (and sighted by the author), certifies that he served as a corporal in
the militia of Virginia and in Captain Dickenson’s Company of Rangers for
the protection of the Colony of Virginia during 1757, 1758, and 1759.
The fighting capabilities of the Irish found further employment during
the Revolutionary War, when Thomas Kelly served in Moylan’s Cavalry,
Continental Line, Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment of Light Dragoons, As
partial compensation for these services, Thomas Kelly received a grant of
land in Greenbrier County in the western part of Virginia (now eastern
West Virginia).
However, land did not hold the Thomas Kellys in Virginia, for about
1800 they moved on from Greenbrier County to a place near Somerset in
Pulaski County, Kentucky. There it is duly recorded that Samuel Kelly, third
son of Thomas who had been born in Botetourt County, Virginia, on 7
‘0Information on the Kelly clan is from:
(a) Pennsylvania Archives, 5th series. Vols III and IV; (b) Lewis Preston Summers, Annals
oj South- lVelt Virginia, 1790–1800 (Abingdon, Virginia: By the author, 1929), pp. 91, 373,
379, 384; (c) James P. Haltigan, The Irifb in fbe American Ret$olution and Their Early Influence
in /be ColonieJ (Washington, D. C.: By the author, 1908); (d) Laura Francis Kelly Turner, Pamphlet
(Portland, Oregon: By the author, 1901). Mrs. Turner, the Admiral’s mother, was interested
in genealogy. Early dates in her pamphlet were based on inquiries made and data collected during
a visit east in 1882.
u Encyr)opwiiu Britutrnicu, 14th cd., Vol. XII, p. 61o.