US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

The First Thirty Years 5
February 1776, was married to a Nancy Canada at Clifty Creek, Pulaski
County, Kentucky, on 3 September 1807. Nancy Canada was ten years
younger than her husband, having been born 7 April 1786.
In 1847, Grandfather Clinton Kelly, the eldest son of the Samuel Kellys
was 39.” He lost two wives through early death, and had married a third,
Moriah Maldon Crain, on 11 March 1840. She bore the future mother of
the Admiral.
Clinton Kelly was a successful farmer, a lay preacher in the Methodist
Church, and dead set against the practice of slavery. He made the quite
natural alligator decision to hold on to his belief and to leave the slave state
of Kentucky and move on westward to territory where slavery did not exist.
Clinton Kelly and two brothers, Albert and Thomas, built wagons, collected
horses, oxen and necessary traveling effects, and in the fall of 1847,
the three families went to Independence, Missouri, to make final prepara-
tions for an overland trip to The Dalles, Oregon, the next spring. On 1 May
1848, accompanied by four other families, they set out in 12 wagons. The
first night a bad hailstorm scattered the stock. All the stock were later found
except those belonging to Albert Kelly, so Albert turned back. The remain-
ing six families, with Clinton Kelly as the leader of the caravan, made the
trip successfully, shipping their freight by raft from The Dalles to Oregon
City, Oregon.
In the spring of 1849, Grandfather Kelly bought 64o acres of land in what
is now East Portland, Oregon, for 50 dollars, and planted a crop of
potatoes.” Grandfather Clinton Kelly became a leader in his community,
and remembering that he had given the land for the first school, a grateful
East Portland named a high school after him, “The Clinton Kelly High
School of Commerce.” 14 The 227th ship launched by the Oregon Shipbuild-
ing Company during World War 11 was named the Clinton Kelly.” The
Clinton Kelly Memorial Church is a lasting monument of his zeal and of
his assurance of the vitality of his Christian faith.
Laura Francis Kelly, Mother of the Admiral and the fourth child of
Clinton, was born in Pulaski County, Kentucky, prior to the movement of
the family to Oregon.
n Born Clifty Creek, Pulaski County, Kentucky, 15 June 1808.
n Now bounded by East 26th, East 42nd, Hogate and Division, East Portland.
“ Powell Blvd and 40th Avenue, East Portland.
mLaunched 31 July 1943.