March 17, 2026
Introduction: In this article – to help celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day today – Melissa Davenport Berry writes more about an Irish romance from Colonial America. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
In observance of Saint Patrick’s Day today, I am providing a continued account of the descendants resulting from the notable union referred to as “Gaelic Love on Cape Cod: David, the Irishman, and Jane, the Welsh Maid.”
To recap: The surname Kelley was spelled 14 different ways in the Yarmouth Vital Records. Read all about it in Part One, which covers the love story of David Kelley and Jane Powell in 1655, and introduces some of their descendants.
Ezra Kelley
Among those descendants is a clockmaker, Ezra Kelley (1798-1895), one of the six children born to Cyrenius Kelley, a blacksmith, and Jerusha (Baker) Kelley.
When Ezra married Nancy Simmons, daughter of Allen and Silence (Rice) Simmons, he was expelled from the Society of Friends because she was a Methodist. Ironically, he left their church because of his staunch anti-slavery views. More on that story to come.
Below are photocards of Nancy and Ezra taken by George F. Parlow.
Ezra’s Sister, Eunice (Kelley) Gidley
Here is a photo of Ezra’s sister, Eunice (Kelley) Gidley.
The photo caption for this next picture says that Eunice (Kelley) Gidley of Dartmouth “was 100 years old in August,” and “is the most aged New England Friend [Quaker]” – and probably in the world.
According to this article, Eunice was born in Dennis (on Cape Cod), 20 August 1804, and is the daughter of Cyrennis and Jerusha (Baker) Kelley.
She attended the public schools, and later the Friends school in Providence, Rhode Island. Then she taught in the schools at Dennis, Yarmouth, Padanaram, and Bakerville in Dartmouth.
Her salary, while teaching on the Cape, was $1 a week.
In February 1839, she married Philip, son of Benjamin Gidley of Dartmouth, at the residence of her brother Ezra Kelley, on 4th Street in New Bedford.
She is the mother of six children, including Job S. Gidley, for many years the town clerk of Dartmouth and a prominent Quaker, and Angeline, the widow of Daniel Ricketson (1813-1898), New Bedford’s historian.
Eunice’s son-in-law Daniel Ricketson wrote the first History of New Bedford in 1858.
The article goes on to explain that Mrs. Gidley now lives with her son Job, and on her last birthday, when she turned 100, she received her friends as she sat knitting by the fireside.
A manuscript was read to her, a transcript by Daniel Ricketson of a narrative she told about a journey in 1823 from South Dennis to the Friends boarding school in Providence, which occupied a week on account of a snowstorm. She recalled Moses Brown, Enoch Breed and others named in the narrative, as it was read to her.
Several of her family attained a great age. Her father died at the age of 70 and her mother at 76, but one sister, Lucy (Kelley) Sherman, lived to the age of 93.
Another sister, Hannah (Kelley) Sears, was 95 at her death, and her brother, Ezra Kelley, lived to the age of 97.
Kelley-Gidley Family Lines
Below is a photo representing three generations of the Kelley-Gidley and allied family lines, taken at the Gidley Homestead, corner of Russells Mills Road and Chase Road, North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, on 20 August 1902.
In this group photo, we see: (back row) Susan Tucker Gidley; Job. S. Gidley; Laura Gidley Kelley; Issac Kelley; Angeline (Gidley) Ricketson; Mary (Gidley) Gifford; Clarkson Gifford; Annie B. Gidley; and Ellwood Gifford; (middle row) Eunice (Gidley) Wilbur; Stella Gifford; Edward Kelley; Eliza Kelley; Eunice (Kelley) Gidley; Henry T. Gidley; Alice W. Gidley; Walter Hathaway; and Helen Gidley Hathaway; (front row) Roger Gidley Wilbur Jr. (on the lap of Eunice Wilbur); Elizabeth Gidley; Marion Wilbur; Phillip Gifford; Eunice Kelley; Martha Wilbur; Ralph Kirk Wilbur; Dora Wilbur; and Lemert Quaintance Wilbur.
Kelley Descendant’s Writing Career
One interesting find was Ethel May Kelley (1878-1955), an author and poet bred in Dennis, who began writing at a very young age. At age 12 she became the Dennisport correspondent for the Harwich Independent, and by age 15 was contributing to magazines. She went to New York where she authored books.
Ethel is the daughter of Gershom Hall Kelley and Laura Etta (Small) Kelley, and an eighth-generation lineal descendant of David and Jane Kelley.
She is also a direct descendant of Mayflower passengers Stephen Hopkins, William Brewster, and Gov. William Bradford.
Below is a newspaper clip from the Boston Herald featuring one of Ethel’s books, a Cape Cod novel, Heart’s Blood, published by Alfred A. Knopf.
This article reports:
Ethel M. Kelley… is descended on both sides from a line of Cape Cod sea captains. Her first Cape Cod ancestor was “David O’Kelley, the Irishman,” who contributed funds for a war against Indians in 1730. He was a Quaker. Miss Kelley’s great grandfather dropped the “O” along with his Quaker garb. Miss Kelley was educated on the Cape and in Boston, and began writing poems and short stories for the magazines at [age] 15.
More Kelley descendants to come…
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Note on the header image: an AI-generated image of David Kelley and Jane Powell, by Melissa Davenport Berry.
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