Ancestors

Julia Ann Kelly

Julia Ann Kelly was born in Canada on 24 March 1838, the daughter of Sidney Kelley and Nancy Agnes Hendry. A family record printed in 1923 makes her the twin of her brother Silas and puts their birth at Ryegate, Vermont, in 1837. Her own obituary and gravestone give 1838 and Canada.

Her parents had moved from Barnet, Vermont, into Canada. They found conditions there, in her obituary's words, "unsatisfactory owing to insurrections." These were the rebellions of 1837 and 1838 in Lower and Upper Canada, armed risings against British colonial rule. The family moved back across the border to Brandon, Vermont, where her mother's family, the Hendrys, lived. Julia grew up there.

Her childhood at Brandon held two losses. Her little sister Charlotte died of accidental burns in November 1850, a month before her second birthday. Her mother died on 21 October 1851, when Julia was thirteen.

About 1853 she married Jesse G. Snow, a Brandon farmer. Their three daughters were born on the home farm: Nancy Agnes in 1854, Marion Wallace, called Minnie, in 1857 or 1858, and Inez Etta, called Etta, in 1859. Jesse died in October 1866, leaving her a widow at twenty eight.

On 19 October 1871, by her obituary's account, she and her three daughters came to Barnet, and she married Alexander Roy. Alexander was a widower with four sons. In 1848 he had bought the sawmill on the east side of Harvey's Lake and put in the second circular saw ever brought into Barnet, and he later farmed the land that had been his grandfather William Gilfillan's. The printed Barnet records give their wedding as 19 October 1868 in one place and 27 October 1870 in another.

The two families then joined a second time. On 11 April 1877 Julia's daughter Marion married Alexander's eldest son, Ezra J. Roy. On 22 April 1878 her daughter Inez married his son Moses A. Roy. Her eldest, Nancy, married Denzil Mansfield Crane of Danville in January 1877.

Her brother Thomas Hendry Kelly had spent years in the West as a government relay dispatch rider and a bridge builder in Arizona. He came back to Barnet and died at Julia's house on 10 June 1882.

Alexander Roy died on 31 January 1907. Julia stayed in her house in Barnet village until it burned in September 1921. She then went to McIndoes to live with her daughter Nancy, Mrs. D. M. Crane, who her obituary said "has tenderly cared for her mother during her declining years."

She died at the Crane home on 24 January 1923, aged 84. By then Marion and Inez were both dead. Her obituary named as survivors her daughter Mrs. Crane and four stepsons, Moses Roy of Barnet, Ezra of West Barnet, John G. Roy of East Barnet and Elmer Roy of St. Johnsbury, together with twenty one grandchildren and several great grandchildren. The Rev. C. B. Bliss conducted the funeral at the Crane home on the Friday.

She is buried in McIndoe Falls Cemetery. Her flat stone reads JULIA ANN ROY (KELLY) (SNOW), BORN 1838, DIED 1923.

If Julia Ann Kelly is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Julia Ann Kelly (1838-1923)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/julia-ann-kelly-1838-1923-716879.