Background
Kelley was born in Silver Creek Township, Cass County, Michigan, near Dowagiac.
United States representative politician
Kelley was born in Silver Creek Township, Cass County, Michigan, near Dowagiac.
He attended the district and village schools and in 1887 graduated from the Northern Indiana Normal School in Valparaiso. He attended the Michigan State Normal School at Ypsilanti (now Eastern Michigan University) and then graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1900.
He served as United States. Representative from Michigan"s 6th congressional district from 1915-1923. He taught school at Fair Plain in Berrien County for several years. In 1912, he was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-third United States Congress as an at-large candidate for an increase in Michigan"s Congressional delegation as a result of the 1910 census, technically becoming the first to represent the 13th district.
He was then re-elected to the four succeeding Congresses from Michigan"s 6th congressional district.
In 1922, Kelley did not seek renomination, but was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate, losing in the Republican primary to Charles East. Townsend. He resumed the practice of law in Lansing.
He died while on a visit to Washington, District of Columbia and is interred in Mount Hope Cemetery in Lansing.
Kelley served as a member of the State board of education 1901-1905, as the State superintendent of public instruction 1905-1907, and as the 33rd Lieutenant Governor of Michigan 1907-1911 serving under Governor Fred M. Warner.