Oliver Kelley

About me......

• I was born January 20,1826 in Boston ,MA
• he arrived in St. Paul via steamboat in 1849, the year Minnesota was established as a territory.

Just the being

• The following year he moved to Itasca a small town Near Present-day Elkrive
• Kelley was a progressive farmer anxious to adopt the newest methods.
• He built one of the first frame barns north of St.Anthony.
• He planted the first timothy Hay.

Still here.....

• In 1864 Kelley became a clerk for the U.S bureau of agriculture.
• In 1867, on a bureau visit to the South, the idea of a national farmers' organization first occurred to him
• he went there to make them read and think and plant crops

On December 4, 1867, Oliver Kelley and six of his associates from the US Bureau of Agriculture founded the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry. Within two years, Minnesota had forty Grange chapters and a state organization, and Granges were in the works in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

The Grange was, in Kelley's mind, both a social organization and an advocacy group. He wrote newspaper articles that were increasingly critical of manufacturing and processing monopolies that fixed prices at rates unfair to farmers and of railroads with exorbitant freight rates. As its influence grew, so did the Grange's membership. By the end of 1873, there were 379 chapters in Minnesota and about 9,000 across the country, with a total membership of almost 700,000. As of 2007, the National Grange had 300,000 members from 3,600 branches in 37 states.

how i helped in gilded age...

• I was the founder of the granger movenment during the gilded age

Leaving my mark

• The Oliver H. Kelley Farm is a historic farmstead once owned by Oliver Hudson Kelley,
• located 15788 Kelly Farm Rd NW, Elk River, MN 55330

My day have come

• Sadly Oliver kelley passed away 

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