Having returned from our trip to Ireland, I thought it would be good to document what I discovered while I was there. I have also done a lot of additional research to confirm what was written in the document my Dad shared with me, and tracked down a lot of primary and secondary sources cited in that document and elsewhere. I believe that at this point I may have reconstructed the most complete telling of the story of how Walter Kelly and other associated potential family members may have originally come to the United States.
Kelly Quakers in Ireland
When I went to the National Library of Ireland for my appointment a few weeks ago, the consultant told me that unfortunately he couldn’t locate any records of a Walter Kelly in Timahoe, County Kildare, Ireland. However, he did discover records of a Timothy Kelly and a Samuel Kelly. That rang a bell for me, and during the meeting I double checked in the information I had about Walter Kelly and saw that a Timothy and Samuel were mentioned as having traveled from Timahoe with him. Intrigued, I had him pull up the records and we looked at them. The first record he showed me was a marriage record of Timothy Kelly and Abigail Mickle in 1726:
This record also lists the attendees to the event, which happened to include several members of the Milhouse family. To recap, the Milhouses are the maternal ancestors of Richard Nixon. The Milhouses also married members of the Mickle family, so they would technically have been in-laws of Timothy Kelly and explains their attendance at the wedding. Several other family names were also present which became important later on in my research, including the Pearsons, Paines, and Wylys.
Another interesting record to note was the birth records of Timothy and Abigail’s children: Samuel, John, and Abigail:
This explains the relationship between Timothy and Samuel, however it doesn’t clear it up between Walter and the rest of the Kelly Quakers. Having confirmed in multiple other records as well later on, these seem to be the only three children that Timothy Kelly had, so it almost certainly rules out that Walter is a son of Timothy. Another record in the run up to the wedding also reveals that Timothy was from Edenderry, and Abigail was from Timahoe:
However I was still unable to find any further record of Walter Kelly in either of these communities. Given that Timothy was almost certainly much older than Walter since Timothy was already married in 1726, perhaps Walter was a nephew or a younger cousin? It’s very likely no one will ever know. A final document that the consultant shared with me was a letter that was sent to inform Quakers in North Carolina of Samuel Kelly’s intent to relocate there along with his parents in 1751:
The consultant wrapped with me by saying that if I wanted to investigate Walter Kelly any further, I should look into the Quaker communities in the United States to see if I could pick up the story from there.
Day Trip to Timahoe
On the last day of our trip in Ireland, we drove from Kilkea Castle to Timahoe to see the Quaker Cemetery and check out the Powers of Timahoe bar. What I found was pretty much the same as what I saw on Google maps, except I was able to see some of the plaques on the stone wall next to the Nixon monument much more clearly:
Apparently the graveyard is maintained by a group called the St. Mochua Historical Society. I learned online later that “Tigh Mochua” means “The House of Mochua” which was on several signs around town that I saw. St. Mochua was a person who established a church in Timahoe in the 6th century. I did find it interesting that many of the same family names on the plaque matched the family names on the wedding document for Timothy Kelly!
I didn’t discover anything really at the Powers of Timahoe bar, other than to find out that the bar was renamed from Kelly’s Bar after the current owner purchased it from a person with the last name Kelly. The bartender also couldn’t tell me any more about local history unfortunately.
Once I got back from Ireland, I did continue my research into the Timahoe Quakers who departed for North Carolina in 1751…
To Be Continued in Part 3
