California Biographies Transcribed by Peggy Hooper This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm Source: History of the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from its earliest settlement to the present time. Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M. The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905 Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176 JOHN W. KELLY. Only those who have lived in Kern county, and are familiar with the motley crowd which comprises a considerable portion of its inhabitants, can arrive at an appreciation of the enormous responsibility of the man elected to serve its interests as sheriff. There are but two cities in the state of California where more civil and criminal cases are tried than in Bakersfield, Kern county. These are San Francisco and Los Angeles. In the former, the law allows eighty deputy assistants, in the latter ten, and in Bakersfield there are but four. Numer- ous causes contribute to the lawlessness of the region, among them being the oil fields and mines, which attract large numbers of wealth seekers, many of whom bring with them lurid careers, and a propensity for breaking out afresh under the favorable circumstances among which they find themselves in the west. The history of criminology in the county is both startling in its nature and persistent in its duration, in consequence of which, the high official depended on to bring order out of chaos, and maintain a wholesome respect for the law, is necessarily a man of great force of character and unflinching determination. An average of from fifty-five to sixty prisoners are guests of the state, and in their aggregate embody the sharpest and most desperate of offenders. John W. Kelly, the present sheriff of Kern county, is a Democratic politician who has effected his rise solely through the medium of sterling worth and faithfulness to trusts imposed. He is a Missourian, and spent his youth on the farm in Cooper county, where his birth occurred October 19, 1861. His first educational training was received in the country school near his home, and subsequently he attended a private school at Boonville with his second cousin, Ex-Gov. L. V. Stevens, of Missouri. His childhood was one of toil and privation, for after the death of his mother, when he was eight or nine years old, he was obliged to shift for himself, arid to depend upon his innate strength and fine instincts for guidance. He contracted the western fever in 1884, and after locating in Newville, Glenn county, worked by the day, and later became inter- ested in a stage line operating between Newville and Redbluff, a distance of forty-five miles. Those were desperate times, and the stage-driver took his life in his hands in the same way that he did in the days of the discovery of gold and the rush of early argonauts. After a year of stage- driving he engaged in farming in Colusa, now Glenn county, until 1895, and then repaired to Randsburg, which was then making a start as a mining center. He was one of the first to place any faith in its future, and remained there in active mining for several months, in time pur- chasing property, which he still owns. Mr. Kelly's active political career began in 1897, when he was appointed constable of Rands- burg, a position maintained until his election to the office of supervisor in 1900. Upon being elected sheriff of Kern county in 1902, he resigned the supervisorship, and has since devoted himself uninterruptedly to making the life and property of citizens as safe here as elsewhere in the state. He is admirably adapted for his work, possesses authority of manner, and while humane in his tendencies, and always willing to help a man to better things, he knows no mercy for the habitual evildoer. During his maintenance of his present office he has been called upon to per- form dangerous service in the interests of good government, not the least of which was his posi- tion as leader of a posse which surprised a desperado in the Chinese quarter, April 19, 1903, and succeeded in shooting him only after he had added to his crimes the killing of two of. the officers under Mr. Kelly. In Glenn county, Mr. Kelly married Ida Perry, a native of California. He is one of the prominent men in fraternal circles of Kern county, and is identified with the Masons, Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Eagles, all of Bakersfield. Mr. Kelly is a brave, tolerant and broad-minded citizen, a keen reader of human nature, and an ardent worker for the best welfare of Kern county.