Colusa County Biographies

Hon. Kirk Etna Kelley

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

            Kirk Etna Kelley is a native of Warren County, Illinois, born June 
3, 1848.  His father was one of the pioneers of California, coming to this State 
in 1848, shortly after the birth of Kirk E., and dying there some two years 
later.  When but a child, his widowed mother, his brother and an adopted sister 
moved to Iowa, and here young Kirk was brought up on a farm.  He attended school 
only three months and never entered the door of a high school or college except 
in the capacity of a teacher.  What he acquired in an educational way was the 
result of his own self-teaching, of long hours in the evening, spent in reading, 
after a hard day�s work.  He was always an omnivorous reader of books, and his 
retentive memory gleaned and stored away the pith and substance of what he found 
therein, for effective use in after life.  When he had reached his seventeenth 
year, young Kelley passed his examination and received his certificate of 
teacher.  He then began teaching in the public schools and followed it for 
several years in Missouri and Kansas.  In 1871 he came to California, and for 
two years taught school in Solano County.  Being naturally ambitious to rise, 
Mr. Kelley began the study of law.  He had formed a partnership in the 
real-estate business at Dixon, and this afforded him an opportunity to devote 
his leisure time to his �black-letter books.�  He borrowed his books, and, by 
dint of hard study, was admitted to practice in the county court of Solano at 
the end of a year.  At the close of the following year he was admitted to 
practice his profession before the District Courts of the Sixth and Seventh 
Judicial Districts.  He was afterwards entitled to practice by admission before 
the Supreme Court of the State and Circuit Court of the United States.  His 
large business was extensive and his fees were fat, and he was enabled to retire 
from active practice in the courts in 1884.  In 1882 he was elected State 
Senator from Yolo and Solano Counties, and served in the twenty-fifth 
Legislative Assembly during the regular and extra sessions.  This was the 
notable period in which efforts were made to oust the Railroad Commissioners by 
joint resolution of the two Houses of the Legislature.  Mr. Kelley opposed the 
movement, and by reason thereof he was, with other members, read out by the 
Democratic party at the famous Stockton convention.
            Mr. Kelley came to Willows in 1885, and purchased the Willows 
�Journal,� which he edited and conducted in connection with W. H. Kelley for two 
years.  A close logician and a master of vigorous English, Mr. Kelley soon 
lifted this newspaper from obscurity into the most flattering prosperity.  Since 
his coming to Willows he has always identified himself with the business and 
social advancements of that town.  His energy, shrewdness, persistence and 
knowledge of men and motives, have always brought him to the front, a cheerful 
leader, particularly of any forlorn hope in which his town requires prudent 
generalship.  In the struggles for the division of the county and for the 
formation of Glenn County, Mr. Kelley was acknowledged by the opponents of that 
measure to be their most skillful and most formidable adversary.  In 1888 he was 
sent as a delegate to the Democratic State Convention at Los Angeles.  Mr. 
Kelley was married, in 1876, to Miss Louisa, daughter of Daniel Zumwalt, a 
pioneer of California and an old resident of the county.
 
�Colusa County� � by Justus H. Rogers � Orland, CA � 1891 � pp 409-410.