(1758-1814). Corporal, Colonel Josiah Smith’s Regiment, 1st Regiment of Minutemen, Suffolk County Militia; associator, Huntington, New York. The application to the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) and the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Genealogy Search show Stephen’s birthyear as 1758 but his online family tree posted on the Ancestry website shows a birthday of April 22, 1759 in Huntington, New York, to Stephen and Anna née Platt Kelsey. The Find A Grave website also lists a birth year of 1759 with a baptism date of April 22, 1759 in Huntington and names his parents, Stephen (see) and Anna Kelcy and sibling, Platt Kelcy (1756-1816). Stephen’s surname has numerous alternate spellings on various documents but “Kelsey” is most frequently used for him. His gravestone, which has his surname spelled “Kelsey,” is difficult to read but indicates a death year of 1814 and that he was 55 when he died, suggesting a birth year of 1759. His father’s gravestone and his brother’s stone bear the surname “Kelcy.”
Both Stephen and his father served in the militia during the American Revolution as per The Compendium of American Genealogy, Volume III; both were also associators in Huntington who signed the Association of Huntington on May 8, 1775, supporting the Patriot cause.
As a signer of the Huntington’s 1775 Articles of Association (an associator), Stephen demonstrated that he was a patriot. On May 8, 1775, 403 men, most of them Huntington residents (a few were from Islip), “shocked by the bloody Scene” that had occurred just weeks before at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, where patriot Minutemen and British regulars had engaged in a bloody armed struggle, put their signatures on Huntington’s Articles of Association. Only 37 Huntington residents, either Loyalists or those wanting to stay out of the fray, refused to sign. The Articles noted that the signers affirmed their “Love to our Country,” agreed “to whatever Measures may be recommended by the Continental Congress; or resolved upon by our Provincial Convention, for the Purpose of preserving our Constitution, and opposition to the Execution of the several arbitrary, and oppressive Acts of the British Parliament,” and prayed for “a Reconciliation between Great-Britain and America.” The actions of these associators were seen by both patriots and the British as a step towards rebellion. The fact that these men signed these Articles, placing themselves in danger of British retaliation, including imprisonment, seizure of their property, and exile from Long Island, is proof of their patriotic service.
Records from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) indicate that Stephen Jr. served in the 1st Regiment of Minutemen, Suffolk County. Under Associated Applications and Supplementals, Stephen’s wife, Elizabeth Conklin, is listed as are Kelsey’s daughters Experience (spouse-William Sammis) and Elizabeth (spouse-Zephaniah Brush). Raymond Gould Brush, the great-great-grandson of Stephen and Elizabeth Conkling (Conklin) was approved for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution on January 21, 1926, citing that his ancestor, Stephen Jr., born in 1858, was both an associator in Huntington and a member of Colonel Smith’s 1st Regiment of Minutemen in Suffolk County. Brush notes that alternate spellings of Kelley, Keley and Kelcy were used. Brush made a separate application to the SAR as the great-great-great grandson of Stephen Kelsey, Stephen’s father. New York Genealogical Records, 1675-1920, lists a Capt. Stephen Kelcy who died in 1814 and is buried in Huntington, and who is most likely the subject of this biography; no records show a promotion to captain but Brush crossed out captain on his SAR application.
On December 11, 1780, Stephen Jr. married Elizabeth Conklin (Conkling), who was 15 at the time of their marriage (as per data on the family tree posted on Ancestry.com), at Smithtown, New York; another source states that Elizabeth was baptized in 1763 which makes her perhaps 17 at the time of her marriage. Their marriage certificate, which is on microfilm at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, bears the surnames of Kilse and Conkling. They were the parents of 11 children, several of whom died in infancy: Experience (1782-1834); Elizabeth (1784-1818); Mary (1786-1869); Anne (1791-1815); Caroline (1791-1815); Charles (1793-1867); Conklin (1793-1793); Charlotte (1795-1825); Sarah (1806-1806); Almira (1808-1808); and Walter (1800-?). There may have been other children, Angeline (1797-?) and Caroline (1799-?), as noted in Stephen’s Find A Grave biography, who died young.
There are several census records that name a Stephen Kelsey; the census record for 1790 might be for another man since Stephen had three daughters at that time. The 1790 census shows Stephen Kelsey in Huntington having a household with two free white males over 16, two white males under 16, two free white females, another free person and four enslaved people totaling 11 household members. The 1800 census reports a Stephen Kelsey, likely the subject of this biography, with a household consisting of one male and one female 26 through 44 years old, two females aged 16 through 25, two females aged 10 through 15, one female under 10 and two males under 10 totaling nine residents. New York Tax Assessment Rolls of Real and Personal Estates, 1799-1804, show that Stephen Kelsey Jr. of Huntington was one of its wealthiest residents. His total assessment of land and personal wealth was $3,328 with taxes of $3.32. The 1810 census reports a Stephen Kelsey living in Huntington with one male over 45 and one female 16 through 25; it is unclear which Stephen Kelsey this is.
Stephen died in Huntington on June 19, 1814, two years after the death of his father. His wife and seven children survived him as did his brother, who died in 1816, and his mother, who died in 1819. His widow died in 1853. Find A Grave cites the Old Burial Hill Cemetery as the place of Stephen’s interment; it is commonly called the Old Burying Ground. The Abstract of Graves of Revolutionary Patriots notes the burial of Stephen Kelcy at Old Huntington Cemetery (no year given). As per “Cemetery Inscriptions from Huntington, Long Island,” compiled by Josephine C. Frost in 1911, there was then a gravestone in the Old Burying Ground inscribed with “Capt. Stephen Kelsey” and noting that he died on June 19, 1814, at the age of 55.
