William W. J. Kelly

Who was William W. J. Kelly?

William Washington Jones Kelly was the first Lieutenant Governor of Florida.

Kelly was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, to Hanson Kelly and Susan Clark Kelly, an entrepreneurial merchant. The Kelly family moved to Pensacola about 1830. Hanson Kelly became the postmaster for Pensacola, an office he held until his death in the 1850s.

William studied law and entered the Bar of Escambia County, Florida, on November 11, 1832. He served in various court capacities and seems to have never really practiced law.

In 1837, he served as a private with his father in a company of men that was formed in Pensacola to cross the bay and round up wayward Creek Indians, slated for removal to Oklahoma.

He served in the Florida Territorial legislature and later in the state House of Representatives, representing Escambia County, until the split of Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties in 1845. He served as a justice of the peace from February 10, 1831, until his death for both counties.

In 1846, he was elected an alderman for Pensacola. During this year he also was a founding member of the Masonic Lodge in Pensacola.

From Mar 1847 until June 1848, served as captain of Company A of the Florida Volunteers for the Mexican War, a part of the Florida Battalion, of which he commanded while the group was in Mexico.