By: Danny Leavy .
Tom Kelly was born in Killoughey, County Offaly, in 1808/1809.His parents were Tom Kelly and Mary Ellen Walsh. He had five brothers and a sister. In 1826, Tom emigrated to Canada with family members and in 1827, moved to Oswego, NY, where he labored on the Oswego Canal. The Oswego Canal was built between 1825 and 1829 and is part of the New York State Canal System. It connects the Erie Canal to Oswego Harbor on Lake Ontario. A large portion of the labor used for this project were Irish immigrants.
In 1829, Tom and some of his fellow Irish men traveled down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans in an effort to earn enough money to go back to Canada. Traveling back up the Ohio without his friends, Tom was robbed of $210 in gold and was forced to return to New Orleans. It’s believed it was this incident that shaped the way Tom would live the rest of his life.
In the spring of 1830, Tom made his way up the Mississippi River to St. Louis and on to the new lead mining region of Galena, Illinois where he successfully mined lead. Galena is situated in the northwest portion of Illinois about six miles from the Wisconsin border to the north and about six miles from the Iowa border to the west across the Mississippi river.
In 1832, he crossed the river into the Dubuque, Iowa area which was illegal as the land belonged to the Indians and was off limits to settlers. Tom built a cabin near hill street and 5th Streets and began exploring abandoned lead mines, but soldiers forced him to retreat to Illinois until the land was officially opened to settlers and miners a few years later. He came back in 1834 and began prospecting on a hill just outside Dubuque, on the banks of the Mississippi river. This became known as Kelly’s Bluff.
Soon after he struck a big vein of lead known as a lode. He then staked off as was the custom of miners at the time about thirty acres on the bluff. He was in business with the mining company Cardiff and Langworthy at the time and was one of the most productive in the region. A few years later he discovered another lead lode on the hill which yielded a huge amount. In 1838 he built a furnace on the hill and began smelting his own mineral. He lived all this time alone . His life was all about working hard, smelting, prospecting, or mining. Around this time, he brought family members from Canada.
In 1851 he shipped an enormous quantity of lead to New York via New Orleans. It was insured for $20,000 at the time, the equivalent of over $800,000 today. Unfortunately the entire load was lost at sea. He went to St. Louis to collect the insurance which he received in drafts to be collected in New York. While in New York with the drafts in his pocket he attracted some unwanted attention with his long hair and rough clothes from a group the newspaper described as ill-bred men. In an altercation Tom fired his pistol at the group and killed one of the men. He was tried, judged to be insane and sent to Utica Insane Asylum in upstate New York. The state authorities took possession of his drafts which they claimed were in the amount of $10,000 . What happened with the rest of the drafts is unknown.
It is believed he had been in jail for about three years when he escaped and made his way back to Dubuque. In 1862 the roof of his cabin caved in . Tom’s final home was built of stone and boasted about two rooms but still lacked the luxury of a window and was fairly primitive even for the time . The paper reported Tom mined every day and “always cultivated a garden and probably never starved himself as a matter of economy.” He built an eight-foot fence around his garden. He had his mine shaft, and his little hut, with only a dog and cat for companionship. He continued prospecting and in 1864 he struck another lead lode which added to his wealth.
His way of life and reputed wealth along with his rough appearance made him somewhat notorious and he was called the old hermit on the hill . It is believed the only money he gave was to Bishop Smith to build the Cathedral in Dubuque. Bishop Smith was born in Clare and was Dubuque’s second Bishop. Tom would venture into the town of Dubuque now and again to buy provisions for himself. He was once heard saying “winter is the most pleasant time nobody but cows come on the bluff in winter.”
In 1865, Tom was judged insane for the second time , and his brother William was named administrator of the estate.
Although Tom was a private man, he was not anti-social, and many disagreed with the insanity ruling. The newspapers reported, “Meeting in the shade of his trees, he would sit for an hour with one or half a dozen friends and talk intelligently on any topic of present or past interest. He was peculiarly fond of having children come in the summertime to see his grove,”
At the age of fifty-eight, Tom suffered a serious illness- an event announced in the newspaper the day before he died. Many came to visit, offering help, but his relatives Drs. Finley and Sprague and neighbors were already tending to his needs. In spite of all efforts, Tom died at 3:00 in the afternoon on May 15. 1867. A small funeral service was held the following day and Tom was buried in Linwood Cemetery near his brother Francis. Newspaper reports said “He leaves two brothers a sister, two nephews and a niece”. He made no will.
At the time of his death, Tom had accumulated a pile of ore estimated to weigh 100,000 pounds. His property was valued at $50,000-$200,000. Tom died without a will, but some claim he left a note saying if people wanted his gold, they could look for it. Tom’s heirs searched “vigorously” for his money and found a pot buried in his cabin containing $4,000 in gold. A year later, a boy found a cache of $1,800 in a tea canister near Tom’s workings. Two other caches of gold have been found to date. In 1900, two boys discovered a small iron chest with $10,000 in eagle and double eagle gold coins.
Countless articles have been written about Tom Kelly in the decades since his death. Some based on fact and some on fiction.
His reputed buried treasure has been an attraction to the area along with stories of the eccentric Irish Man and his way of life with some depicting him as a very old miser at the time of his death especially the 1936 article in the Des Moines Register. It shows an image of a decrepit old man counting his coins. The reality is as stated earlier he was only in his late fifties when he died. Decades of hard labor and his overall appearance made him appear older than he was. He was only ever dressed as a miner at work. The fact he lived to his late fifties while working with lead for over thirty years was a miracle.
J.C Wild was a well-known painter in the 1800s. Wild documented cities and towns in the upper Mississippi region. In 1846, from the banks of the Mississippi river on the Illinois side he painted a landscape view of Dubuque. You can see Tom Kelly’s smoking furnace in the top left portion of this well-known painting.
Tom was buried in Linwood Cemetery Dubuque . His parents were buried in Third Street Cemetery ,Dubuque . An article from The Telegraph Herald in 1939 about a campaign to clean up The Third Street Cemetery by the Rev.F.P,Mulligan is copied below .
“Among monuments which Father Mulligan dug from its covering of weeds and underbrush and found in excellent condition was that erected at the grave of Mrs. Mary Ellis (sic) Kelly, mother of the famed Tom Kelly.
The monument which stands about 10 feet high has been set upright again at Mrs. Kelly’s grave, it being apparent that her body was one of those not moved to Mount Olivet. Cemetery Records of the Key West Cemetery do not disclose that she is buried there.”
“One of a group of 28 markers representing 33 individuals and 11 or 12 sets of remains moved to Mount Olivet, 1945-1948.Mother of Richard, Patrick, Francis, George, James, Thomas, William and Elizabeth. From Parish of Killoughey, Kings Co., Ireland. Kings County is now County Offaly”.
Tom Kelly spent forty years of his life in the US . An eccentric or not he was successful because of hard work and his own determination to succeed . What he did with his money is irrelevant . By all accounts he looked after his family members.
From digging canals in Oswego ,New York to digging lead in Dubuque ,Iowa .Toms story is one of success .
A faithful son of Killoughey, County Offaly .
