This collection includes various letters, newspaper clippings, legal instruments and court records from cases in which Dandridge E. Kelsey was either plaintiff or defendant (including the 1890s case involving Kelsey and his son Scott in a dispute over ownership of title to the Shawnee County farm), records regarding Salida, and materials related to his membership in fraternal orders such as the Order of Odd Fellows and the Order of Good Templars. Kelsey served with the 83rd Indiana Infantry, Company B during the Civil War. He traveled around much of the country during his enlistment and then returned to Indiana, though he thereafter began taking exploratory trips out to Kansas. In 1868, after moving to Kansas, he continued his life as a farmer for the next ten years. In 1878, he joined a railroad surveying gang and went to Colorado. Between 1878 and 1892 he divided his time between Kansas and Salida, Colorado, where he was involved in mining, land subdivisions, and other speculative adventures, which apparently did not prosper. He returned permanently to Shawnee County in 1892 and died there in 1904.
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