William D. Kelley - Early Life

Early Life

William Darrah Kelley was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Hannah and David Kelley; his father died when he was two. He had been a watch and clock-maker, and later in life, William Kelley bought one of those clocks to adorn his library. His daughter Florence Kelley told of an incident immediately after the death. Since the law at the time said that all a man's possessions must be sold to discharge his debts, with no exemptions allowed for widows or orphans, all of the family's treasures were spread out on tables to be auctioned off. A "substantial" Quaker woman appeared with two large baskets, filled them with as much as she could carry, and walked away expressing indignation that "Friend Hannah Kelley should not have returned precious heirlooms" to her. Weeks later, after the auction, the woman sneaked the treasures back to the Kelley family.

His mother opened a boarding house to support her children. William Kelley started working at eleven to support the family, apprenticing as a jeweller and educating himself in law. Later, a reporter described him in the United States House as "slightly noticeable for the disfigurement of the lid of one of his eyes, received in a machine shop in which his youth was educated -- a man who literally hammered his way up in life, and who is capable of hammering his representative way through life, on whatsoever paths social tyranny or political injustice seek to bar man's progress to a pure democracy."