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Warren F. Kelley, planter, Murfreesboro, Ark. This well-known and esteemed
agriculturist of Thompson Township was born in this county, in 1858, and was
the fourth of a family of seven children born to Elijah and Priscilla
(Dickson) Kelley, natives of Arkansas, and both born within a few miles of
Murfreesboro. The paternal grandfather, Elijah Kelley, was a native of
Tennessee, and came to Arkansas in 1815, settling in what is now Pike
County, and was one of the earliest pioneers of this section. He was one of
the commissioners to select the county seat of the county on its
organization, and was one of the leading citizens of the county in his day.
He was one of the early representatives to the General Assembly from this
county, and filled that honorary position at a time when there was but one
house in Little Rock. He was county judge, was a preacher in the Christian
Church, and he and his brother William organized the first church in
Murfreesboro. He died in 1884. The father of our subject, Elijah Kelley,
remained at home until his majority, married here, and bought a farm of 320
acres, three miles southwest of Murfreesboro, and cleared nearly 100 acres
himself. His death occurred in 1883. The mother is still living on the old
homestead, which is being rapidly improved by the boys, and now has 150
acres under cultivation, and being principally bottom land, is one of the
best farms in the county. Warren F. Kelley remained under the parental roof
until his majority, and was married in 1886 to Miss Cordelia Mobley, a
native of this county, and the daughter of William Mobley, one of Pike
County's early settlers. After the father's death, Warren F. remained at
home and assisted the mother in the management of the farm until 1887, when
he moved on his present farm one-half mile north of town, and consisting of
160 acres, nearly all bottom land. He has 40 acres under cultivation, and
has cleared 25 acres more, on which he expects to raise a crop this year.
He has an interest with his brothers in a mercantile establishment in
Murfreesboro. He is an earnest support of good schools and in all public
improvements, and is a good business man as well as farmer. The family are
members of the Christian Church. By his marriage Mr. Kelley became the
father of one child, a girl, Rosa May.
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Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Southern Arkansas, 1890, Pike
County, pages 330-331.
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