I am a new member & interested in tracing my surname, 5th Ggrandfather Walter Kelly who arrived from Ireland with a Quaker Group in 1751. On borad the same ship was a Samuel & Timothy Kelly but I don't know their kin, brothers, cousins, father/son etc. Walter Kelley/Kelly (spelling seems to depend on the author) had a brother William because in 1773 both were killed & scalped near present day Cedar Grove, WV. William is not mentioned (in my records) as being onboard the same ship & may have come to the colonies earlier, not sure. I have that Walter married Elizabeth (last name unknown) but another GEDCOM I've seen has that his wife's name was Sadie (last name unknown). Walter & family leased for a year then sold their SC (350 acres, surveyed 1754 by Mr. Wyly) property to John Pain (Payne) in 1759 & moved to Pittsylvania County VA where a son James Kelly was born (My 4th Ggrandfather) Not long after Walter was killed the family returned to Kershaw County SC where James married (name of wife unknown) & raised 7 children as he stated in his Rev. War Pension Application. But he did Not mention the gender nor name of his wife or children. >From SC to TN: My 3Ggrandfather was William Thomas Kelly b. 1787 in SC (his wife was Rutha Alexander) raised 12 children in Perry County TN. Starting with William Thomas Kelly to present I have documentation. BUT prior to William Thomas Kelly is only MOST PROBABLE as to my ancestors. I am looking for documentation that William Thomas Kelly's father was James Kelly & his father Walter Kelly of the Bush River Quakers. Supplementing my search I have a Y-DNA file & am looking for male Kelley/Kelly descendants with a matching Y-DNA profile. All help appreciated. My email address is (all lower case) GLKELLY at JSCOMM dot NET ( [email protected] ) Thank you. George .

Fredericksburgh Township on the Wateree River was established in 1734. The township, and the adjoining region on the west side of the Wateree River, included nearly 100 settler families by 1750. One of the early settlers was a William Kelly, who arrived from "the Northward" with his wife and 9 children in June 1748. (That usually meant PA, but might include MD, DE or VA.) He settled on Swift Creek, east of the Wateree and across from the land that would become known as "Friends Neck" after the arrival of the Irish Quaker settlers. William Kelly was not a Quaker. The language of the petitions for land identified Quakers very clearly. The process for getting an SC land grant, at the rate of 50 acres per "headright" (members of household, including family, servants and/or slaves), involved swearing to the size of the family. Quakers do not swear oaths, so their land petitions said "affirmed after the manner of his Profession as a Quaker to the Truth of his said family right." In 1751, six Quaker families from Ireland formed the nucleus of the community that resulted in the Monthly Meeting called (alternately) Wateree or Fredericksburgh. Samuel Wyly and Josiah Tomlinson petitioned for land on 25 Oct 1751; Robert Milhouse, Samuel Russell, John Wyly and Timothy Kelly submitted their initial land petitions on 6 Nov 1751. Timothy Kelly's two sons, Samuel and John, were among the first settlers of the Bush River (Newberry Co SC) Quaker community in ~1762. Joseph Evans, a Quaker, had land surveyed in the Wateree community in 1752. He had had a previous survey in 1748 near the Congaree River (lower portion of current Richland Co SC), but exchanged it for land near fellow Quakers. More Irish Quaker families joined the community following land petitions dated 7 Aug 1753. They were Joshua English, John Alexander, John Dixon, Margaret Warburton, and Ebenezer Bagnall. All had recently arrived in Charlestown on the snow Hitchcock, Capt. Peter Gibson, sailing from Whitehaven, England. Other Irish families who were not Quaker arrived on the same ship. Passengers included the large Belton family, several of whom became Quakers after arriving in SC. Besides these twelve families, no other resident of the Fredericksburgh/Wateree settlement before 1756 can be identified as Quaker. After that date, the meeting grew as new families were accepted by certificates from MM's in PA, VA, NC and elsewhere, in addition to local residents who chose to become Quakers. Walter Kelly petitioned on 2 Apr 1754 for an extension of his warrant for 350 acres of land. The petition did not include "Quaker language" or reference to an affirmation. The land was granted on 9 Jun 1755. The original (earlier) petition was not recorded. His land near the mouth of Twenty-Five Mile Creek (western side of the Wateree River across from the town of Pine Tree Hill/Camden) was not adjacent to Quakers, and he witnessed no documents in common with Quakers. It is unclear why Kirkland and Kennedy, "Historic Camden, SC" (1905), believed that Walter Kelly was probably a Quaker, since the only available SC documents imply that he was not. Walter Kelly Sr., cordwainer of Craven County, and his wife Elizabeth (who signed with a mark) sold 150 acres of his 350-acre grant to John Pain on 2 & 3 Feb 1759 (SC Deed Book V-V, p. 466). They sold the remaining 200 acres to James Adamson on 13 Feb 1765 (SC Deed Book E-3, p. 178). This Walter and Elizabeth Kelly were living just west of the town of Camden from (at least) 1754 through (at least) 1765. They were not affiliated with the Bush River Quakers. In the meantime, a Walter Kelly in far-distant Pittsylvania Co VA had a son James born in 1760 (when it was Halifax Co VA), before becoming a first-settler of Greenbrier Co VA/WV. Some of the non-Quaker Kellys of central SC (including the part that became Kershaw Co SC) might possibly have been related to some of the non-Quaker Kellys of southwestern frontier VA. However, there were at least two different Walter Kellys in at least two different locations as of 1760. Your yDNA research is probably going to help a lot! ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Kelly" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 2:40 PM Subject: [SC-BUSHRIVERQUAKERS] New Member 12-02-08 (George Kelly) I am a new member & interested in tracing my surname, 5th Ggrandfather Walter Kelly who arrived from Ireland with a Quaker Group in 1751. On borad the same ship was a Samuel & Timothy Kelly but I don't know their kin, brothers, cousins, father/son etc. Walter Kelley/Kelly (spelling seems to depend on the author) had a brother William because in 1773 both were killed & scalped near present day Cedar Grove, WV. William is not mentioned (in my records) as being onboard the same ship & may have come to the colonies earlier, not sure. I have that Walter married Elizabeth (last name unknown) but another GEDCOM I've seen has that his wife's name was Sadie (last name unknown). Walter & family leased for a year then sold their SC (350 acres, surveyed 1754 by Mr. Wyly) property to John Pain (Payne) in 1759 & moved to Pittsylvania County VA where a son James Kelly was born (My 4th Ggrandfather) Not long after Walter was killed the family returned to Kershaw County SC where James married (name of wife unknown) & raised 7 children as he stated in his Rev. War Pension Application. But he did Not mention the gender nor name of his wife or children. >From SC to TN: My 3Ggrandfather was William Thomas Kelly b. 1787 in SC (his wife was Rutha Alexander) raised 12 children in Perry County TN. Starting with William Thomas Kelly to present I have documentation. BUT prior to William Thomas Kelly is only MOST PROBABLE as to my ancestors. I am looking for documentation that William Thomas Kelly's father was James Kelly & his father Walter Kelly of the Bush River Quakers. Supplementing my search I have a Y-DNA file & am looking for male Kelley/Kelly descendants with a matching Y-DNA profile. All help appreciated. My email address is (all lower case) GLKELLY at JSCOMM dot NET ( [email protected] ) Thank you. George