Tag: C. E. Kelsey

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Kelsey’s Rolodex

Kelsey brought some attractive attributes to the Northern California Indian Association and its chiefly female and ecclesiastical leadership. He had firsthand experience with Native Americans, knowledge of the Indian Office, and a law degree. As a white man, his actions and movements were unrestricted. He also brought his rolodex.

Being a university graduate and professional man, Kelsey had opportunities to develop connections with powerful Republicans. Among his neighbors in the Auzerais Building, where he had his San Jose law office, were fellow University of Wisconsin alumni Everis A. Hayes and Jay O. Hayes. In a time when newspapers had a significant voice in current affairs, the Hayes brothers published the San Jose Daily Mercury Herald. Everis Hayes gained even greater prominence when, in 1905, he began the first of seven consecutive terms in the US House of Representatives. In 1906 Kelsey was quoted in their newspaper, stating that “he was materially aided in his efforts to secure the [$100,000] appropriation [for California Indians] by Congressman E. A. Hayes, who took a great deal of interest in the movement.”

Kelsey also had a connection to President Theodore Roosevelt. Kelsey’s older brother, Otto, was active in state politics in New York, which was Roosevelt’s home base, and both were Republicans. When Roosevelt was governor, Otto was a member of the state assembly. During Roosevelt’s presidency, Otto served as state comptroller and state superintendent of insurance. C. E. Kelsey possessed an undated letter from Otto to the president, introducing “C. E. Kelsey, whom I recommend to you with utmost confidence.”

President Roosevelt visited San Jose in May 1903 on his Great Loop tour, the grand cross-country excursion during which he famously camped in Yosemite with John Muir. The NCIA used his visit to launch its formal campaign by presenting Roosevelt with a memorial about the history and current status of the landless Indians of northern California. A cover letter signed by C. E. Kelsey introduced the memorial. It is not known whether Kelsey personally presented the document to Roosevelt, but it seems likely. Kelsey alone among NCIA leaders had the connection–and the letter of introduction–to facilitate exactly that.

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Signs of Appreciation

Photo of basket made by Lucy Hite
Basket made by Lucy Hite for C. E. Kelsey

Like most of his contemporaries, C. E. Kelsey was an assimilationist. Even as he collected Native American artifacts and linguistic data, Kelsey believed Indigenous people should aim to take their place in the dominant white society as Christian citizens. The people Kelsey sought to help may not have appreciated his efforts to advance a goal that they did not choose. Perhaps as a result, I have found few signs of appreciation of Kelsey’s work from California Indians. Here are three I know of:

  • Kelsey helped Lucy Hite (Miwok) by protecting her land in Mariposa County. According to her land entry file at the National Archives, she was in a common law marriage with a wealthy white miner who left her and later died without providing for her. Hite was not able to obtain title to the land on which she had lived since about 1890. By 1909 others desired her land and she was having trouble holding it. Hite’s son wrote to the commissioner of Indian affairs for help, and the commissioner asked Kelsey to investigate. Kelsey visited Hite and helped her file an allotment application. He reported that she was “about seventy years old but as smart and vigorous as most people a good deal younger. She may live to demand a final patent yet.” As a thank you for saving her home, Hite made a basket for Kelsey (photo above), telling him as she presented it that it looked like an empty basket, but it was really her grateful heart. The basket and Kelsey’s handwritten account of the story were passed to his granddaughter.
  • After giving a lecture in California many decades after Kelsey’s death, his grandson was approached by an Native American man who told him with great emotion, “Your grandfather’s name is sacred to our family. He saved our ranch from some bad men who had filed a claim on it.”
  • The Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians named a restaurant and bar “Kelsey’s” at their resort casino in Temecula, California. According to a news release of November 11, 2015, “Kelsey’s restaurant is named after C.E. Kelsey, a United States Bureau of Indian Affairs agent assigned to work with and address concerns of California tribes in the early 1900s. In 1906, C.E. Kelsey sent a report advising the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (the title at the time) to allot additional land to the Pechanga Tribe as its existing 3,600 acre reservation contained less than 300 farmable acres and no sustainable well water source. In 1907, the U.S. government purchased an additional 235 acres to be added to the Pechanga Tribe’s land. This would be known as the Kelsey tract which nearly 100 years later, Pechanga Resort & Casino would be built.”
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Doppelgängers

1880 news clipping: C. E. Kelsey, formerly a grocery merchant in Emporia, Kansas, has been appointed land receiver at Little Rock, Arkansas.
Source: The Weekly News-Democrat (Emporia, Kansas), 10/22/1880, from https://www.newspapers.com/clip/20161172/c-e-kelsey-now-works-in-little-rock/

It’s easy to confuse C. E. Kelsey with other men of the era who had the same name, and there are a number of cases where this has occurred. Some sources wrongly state that “our” CEK graduated from Amherst College. Letters written by “our” C. E. Kelsey are erroneously filed under the name Clarence Earle Kelsey in the C. Hart Merriam papers and Philip Stedman Sparkman papers at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Here’s a rundown of men named C. E. Kelsey who were contemporary with the subject of this website, C. E. (Charles Edwin) Kelsey, 1861-1936.

Charles E. Kelsey, US Land Receiver in Little Rock, Arkansas: As noted in the news clipping above, this Charles E. Kelsey was a “grocery merchant” in Emporia, Kansas at some point in the 1870s and was appointed as US land receiver in Little Rock in 1880. A news item in the Daily Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock) on September 11, 1884, reports that this CEK is leaving for a month’s vacation that will include a visit to his old home in New York. “Our” CEK never lived in Kansas, Arkansas, or New York. Moreover, he would have been just 19 years old in 1880, which is a young age for the presidential nomination and Senate confirmation required for the position of US land receiver.

Clarence Earle Kelsey, 1882-1989: Clarence Earle Kelsey is a dangerous double because he lived in the Bay Area and Southern California at roughly the same times that “our” CEK did. According to his memoir, Down Memory Lane (Santa Paula, Calif.: Kelsey, 1961?), Clarence Earle Kelsey graduated from the University of California with a degree in engineering in 1905, dabbled with airplane engines in the San Francisco Bay Area, took up farming in Ventura County, and served as president of the Conservation Association of Southern California in the 1920s.

Charles Edward Kelsey, 1862-1931: The birth and death dates of Charles Edward Kelsey are similar to those of “our” CEK. According to Who Was Who in America, volume 1, 1897–1942 (Chicago: A. N. Marquis Co., 1943), Charles Edward Kelsey graduated from Amherst College in 1884 and was a publisher connected with The Youth’s Companion. “Our” CEK’s advanced education consisted of graduation from the Janesville Academy of Telegraphy and a law degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison; he never lived in Massachusetts.

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California Tour

News clipping, ca. 1904-09, reporting the visit of Commissioner of Indian Affairs Francis E. Leupp to San Jose, where he was the guest of honor at a luncheon given by Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Kelsey.
News clipping about Commissioner of Indian Affairs Francis Leupp's visit to San Jose, ca. 1904-09, from the Kelsey family

For diehard fans of C. E. Kelsey and Cornelia Taber, here’s a little tour of their California addresses. Much of the information comes from city directories at the San Jose Public Library’s California Room. It appears from the links to Google Map’s street view that few of the structures have survived.

C. E. Kelsey

69-70 Auzerais Building, 47 West Santa Clara Street, San Jose – Office (attorney at law), 1901. Kelsey rented an office in the Auzerais Building, which was “rapidly filling,” according to the San Jose Evening News of July 12, 1901. Among his neighbors in the building were fellow University of Wisconsin alumni Everis A. and Jay O. Hayes. The Hayes brothers published the Daily Mercury Herald in San Jose and Everis served in the US House of Representatives starting in 1905. Kelsey said that “he was materially aided in his efforts to secure the appropriation [for California Indians] by Congressman E. A. Hayes, who took a great deal of interest in the movement,” per the Mercury News of June 24, 1906. Kelsey gave up his office when he entered government service in 1905. The Auzerais Building was heavily damaged in the 1906 earthquake.

22 Clay Street, Santa Clara (?) – Rooms or residence, 1902.

1127 South 1st Street, San Jose – Rooms or residence, 1905.

81 North 2nd Street, San Jose – Kelsey joined a number of groups in San Jose and the Bay Area, including Trinity Church, a Protestant Episcopal church where he was a vestryman, the Trinity Men’s Club, and the Trinity chapter of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, where he served as director. At the time, the local newspaper described Trinity Church as “the wealthiest and most fashionable church” in San Jose.

145 South 12th Street (Formerly 145 South Whitney Street), San Jose – Residence, 1912. Kelsey notified the commissioner of Indian affairs of his change of address effective January 1, 1913: “I have not changed my residence, but the City Council, in its wisdom, has changed the name of South Whitney Street to South Twelfth Street, to take effect January first.”

302 First National Bank Building, 1st and Santa Clara streets, San Jose – Office (lawyer), 1915. This was a nine-story concrete building on the southwest corner. Built in 1910, it was the tallest building in the city, “finely appointed,” with a lobby worthy of a postcard. The 1920 city directory calls Santa Clara and First street “the principal business sts.”

Saratoga, Santa Clara County – Home, 1918. The Kelseys rented out their home in San Jose and moved into a larger house in Saratoga, which they shared with Abigail’s older sister Martha and her husband Dr. Charles E. Wintermute. The widowed Mrs. Burleson, Abigail’s mother, also lived with them. While living in Saratoga, Kelsey retained his law office in San Jose.

Vista, San Diego County – Home, 1919. Kelsey had bought property in Vista years earlier with the intention of retiring there. In 1919 he moved his family there, to a home next to a small lemon and avocado orchard that Kelsey figured would provide some income in his retirement. He continued working until 1932 for the Land Department of the Southern Pacific Company, where he was in charge of leases.

270 South 13th Street, San Jose – Home, 1922. The Kelseys rented their Vista home in 1920 and returned to San Jose so that their daughter Mary could attend a good high school. After Mary graduated from San Jose High in 1924, C. E. and Abigail returned to Vista. C. E. was unexpectedly felled by a heart attack at his home on July 3, 1936, at age 74. His body was cremated and shipped to the Kelsey family plot in Temple Hill Cemetery in Geneseo, New York, where Abigail and Mary were later interred.

Cornelia Taber

14534 Oak Street, Saratoga – Home. According to a draft historic walking tour, the “two, single-style Craftsman cottages were the home for the Parson and Taber families. Mr. Edward Parsons was a widower with two teenaged children. The house next door was built for his socially active mother-in-law, Mrs. Augusta Taber and her activist daughter, Miss Cornelia Taber.” The cottages were designed by Wolfe & McKenzie, an architectural firm in San Jose. NCIA founder Anna Taber died in 1911, and Cornelia eventually moved to the East Bay. A February 1917 news item reported that the Taber home had been rented to the Knapp family. The home was sold in 1918 to the Lundblads, who turned it into the “very popular guest house and resort” known as Lundblad’s Lodge.

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Clifton Kroeber

It is thanks to a researcher, Clifton Kroeber, that I located C. E. Kelsey’s descendants and obtained these family photos.

Clif wrote to the National Archives at San Bruno in 2000, inquiring about Kelsey’s records as part of his research on Ishi. Even though I wrote back and told him that the archives did not have what he sought, Clif stayed in touch, writing to me occasionally using his typewriter and US mail. At some point he kindly shared with me copies of several letters written in the early 1960s by Kelsey’s wife and daughter to Theodora Kroeber, which he found among the Theodora Kroeber Papers at the Bancroft Library. Clif recognized that the address on the letters might be a lead to the whereabouts of C. E. Kelsey’s papers. However, what caught my eye was daughter Mary’s mention of her son–Kelsey’s grandson–attending grad school at Stanford University.

Knowing how well my alumni association keeps up with my movements, I figured the Stanford Alumni Association would be equally sharp tracking Mary’s son. So I wrote a letter to this son, added a stamped, unaddressed envelope, and sent them with a cover letter to the Stanford Alumni Association. I asked the association to read my letter to Mary’s son, and if they were comfortable with it, forward it to him in the stamped envelope.

It worked. About two weeks later, I received a reply to my letter. It came from Kelsey’s granddaughter rather than his grandson, but that was just fine by me. It was from them that I learned that Kelsey’s papers had not survived. All that remained were some photographs and notebooks.