Oliver hudson kelley biography of martin

The American agriculturalist Oliver Hudson Kelley (1826-1913) founded the Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry and was devoted to improving conditions for farmers.

Oliver Hudson Kelley was born and educated in Boston.

Oliver Kelley - Minnesota Historical Society

He went west to Illinois for awhile, then to Minnesota in 1849, where he became a farmer and Indian trader. Kelley's wife died in 1851, and the following year he married a schoolteacher who also had come west from Boston.

Kelley quickly became a champion of Minnesota and of the farmer, whom he considered the indisputable source of wealth in America.

Following a drought in 1862-1863, Kelley's Minnesota farm operations became unprofitable, and in 1864 he found employment as a clerk in the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. He returned to Minnesota in 1865 to prepare a report for the Federal government on agricultural conditions. In January 1866 he was commissioned to make a survey of the agricultural situation in the South.

He m Oliver Hudson Kelley - Encyclopedia.com REWI