William O'Kelly

The Life of James O'Kelly

by MacClenny

Page 14, and 15

In Betham's Baronetage of England With General Tables, Vol. 3 page 124, mention is made of William O'Kelly of the Chetewode family, and on page 126 under twenty-0ne of the family line we find "James, who went to Virginia."

Page 15

John Chetewode, James O'Kelly's maternal grandfather, took Holy Orders and was a Doctor of Divinity, and one of his descendants was later a minister and stationed near Cork, Ireland, while another was a Captain in the Thirty-third regiment, in recent years.

Page 15

In the view of the above facts, and the early traditions of Christians, we come to this conclusion: James O'Kelly was born and educated in Ireland, came to American in early life, seems to have settled near Moring's Post-office, in Surry County, Virginia, and lived there for some time before he moved to North Carolina.

Page 17 and 18

"As to the date of his marriage to Elizabeth Meeks, who through his long and checkered life shared his joys and divided his sorrows, we have no definite information. Tradition is dumb, except that they knew each other long before marriage. Certain it is they were married not very late in life; Mr. O'Kelly being under twenty-five and she under twenty. This would put the date of their marriage about 1760."

To this union two sons were born, John and William. As John's name is mentioned first in the will of his father we presume that he was the older. Again as only two sons were mentioned in the will we presume that these were all the children he had. William O'Kelly was born April 29th, 1763. To the influence of his son, his father perhaps owes his prominence today. He was named William O'Kelly, after his grandfather O'Kelly.

The above is from Mr. MacClenny's book published in 1910. These statements would indicate that William was James' father and William had two sons with the second one unnamed. Is this second son Thomas O'Kelley, brother to James?

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