Early Life
Kelly was born in Troy, New York to Michael Kelly Sr. and his wife Catharine, both Irish immigrants. Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, his father joined the Union Army, and Mike likely learned to play baseball while living with his mother and younger brother James in Washington D.C.. After the war, his ill father moved the family to Paterson, New Jersey. Kelly's parents apparently died within about five years of each other and he was orphaned by age 18. A best guess, based on tracking Paterson city directories, is that his father died around 1871, and his mother around 1876, when Michael was 18. According to the 1870 census, a Michael Kelly of his age was working in a silk mill in Paterson as of that year.
Read more about this topic: King Kelly
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)