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Any statement as to Kelley's early life must be pieced together from fragments now at hand over forty years after his death as a worn-out old man. That he was born at Northwood, New Hampshire, February 24, 1790, is set forth by the town records. He was a descendant of John Kelley, one of the settlers of Newbury, Massachusetts. His grandfather was Samuel Kelley of Salem, and his father was Benjamin Kelley, a native of Salem and a physician who practiced in the New Hampshire towns of Northwood, Loudon, and Gilmanton. His mother was Mary ("Polly") Gile of Nottingham.

Kelley was a boy of ten when his family went to Gilmanton after four years' residence in Loudon. He attended Gilmanton academy, and at the age of sixteen taught school at Hallowell, Maine. In 1813 he graduated from Middlebury college, Vermont, with the degree of A.B. From his own words it is possible to picture the sort of boy he was.

"Blessed with intelligent and pious parents, who led me in early youth to fear God, I came into active life serious minded; and much inclined to consider my ways, and to seek to know what could make me useful and happy. Before the years of manhood, I resolved on a fearless obedience to the divine commands Pious, maternal instructions, in early youth