Kelly, James., 1885-1966

James Angelo Kelly, Jamie to friends was born May 27, 1885 on a farm in Longford County, Ireland. He arrived in Brooklyn at age 6, with his widowed mother. There he settled in an Irish community in the old 10th Ward, near Warren Street and 3rd Avenue. He began work with the Interborough Rapid Transit Construction Company in 1907, extending the first local train service from Bowling Green to Atlantic Avenue. By 1916 he was Team Foreman, working at the intersection of Greenwich and Dey Street in lower Manhattan. There, at what had originaly been Manhattan's shoreline, his team found a sunken ship. It turned out to be the Tiger, a Dutch ship captained by Andriaen Block that had burned in November 1613. Welll preserved under water for over 300 years, Kelly unearthed as much as possible, and relocated it to the Marine Museum at the newly created South Street Seaport. This miraculous begining to Kelly's career in history was complimented by work as an amateur boxer, vaudeville performer, soldier and politician. A popular performer in his neighborhood and at parties with his excavation crew, Kelly was discovered to be a talented singer and composer. He toured the vaudeville circuit in the United States, England, Canada and Australia. While in Australia, Kelly boxed a three-round exhibition with heavyweight Tom McMahon. Upon his return to America, Kelly served as First Lieutenant in the United States Army, where he was stationed in France during World War I. After the war, Jamie Kelly entered poliitcs. He was appointed First Deputy County Clerk of Kings County on January 26, 1926, and served in that position until February 1964. Due to Kelly's interest in local history, he was appointed to the position of Brooklyn's first Borough Historian in 1944, where he was also in charge of the newly formed Historical Division of the County Clerk's Office. He held this unsalaried position even after he retired from his job as Deputy County Clerk in 1964. As Borough Historian, Kelly produced an exhibit at the newly finished Supreme Court Building, where documents from local history changed on a weekly basis, helped form the Brooklyn Historical Studies Institute at St. Francis College, where he taught a course on the history of Brooklyn, established Brooklyn as birthplace of Winston Churchill's mother Jennie Jerome, made a historical contribution regarding Giovanni de Verrazano who discovered New York Harbor on April 17, 1524, and helped preserve the historic Wyckoff House, among many other projects. He also served as the Director and Executive committee member of the Long Island Historical Society, received the Distinguished Service to Brooklyn award at the 10th annual dinner of the Library Associates of Brooklyn College on December 12, 1959, and had an official day named after him by the Long Island Historical Society: James Kelly Day, January 31, 1966.