Sylvester Joseph Keely

SYLVESTER JOSEPH KEELY and CHARLOTTE AMELIA DEAN

Charlotte Amelia Dean is our earliest American-born ancestor. She was born in New York City in November of 1836 to immigrant parents named William Dean and Bridget “Delia” Cooney. Nothing is known about her childhood. She probably did not have much schooling, as later records indicate that she was unable to write.

Sylvester Joseph Keely was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1830. As an adult, he was described as being 5’6” tall, with black hair and blue eyes. In 1849, he boarded the S.S. Aeolus in Dublin and made the journey to the U.S. in the steerage compartment. He arrived in the port of New York on June 19, 1849. He found a place to live on the Bowery, where he sold cigars. Seven years after he arrived in the United States, he became a naturalized American citizen.

Sylvester and Charlotte probably married around 1853. By this time, Sylvester was making a living as a printer and directory compiler. Seventeen-year-old Charlotte gave birth to the couple’s first child, Mary Ann, on March 13, 1854 in New York. Their second child, William, was also born in Manhattan a little over a year later on August 31, 1855. James Edward, their third child, was born in May of 1857 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. Near the end of the decade, the couple moved to Chicago, where their daughter Charlotte Amelia was born in May of 1859. Their stay in Illinois was brief; the family was back in New York City by 1860. Their fifth and final child, Sylvester, was born in New York in 1861. Charlotte’s mother, Delia Dean, also lived with the Keely family.

On April 12, 1861 the Civil War broke out. The following month, on May 28, 1861, Sylvester Keely enlisted in the 62nd New York Infantry of the Union Army. His unit, nicknamed the “Anderson Zouaves,” headed to Washington D.C., where they joined the Army of the Potamac in defending the capitol. On May 31st and June 1st, Sylvester fought in the Battle of Seven Pines (also known as the Battle of Fair Oaks) in Henrico County, Virginia. .By July 7, 1862, Sylvester’s division was quartered near Richmond, Virginia. On that day, he penned a letter to an unknown friend describing the previous week’s battle. He enclosed some papers which he had removed from the body of a dead Confederate soldier and a gold dollar to be passed onto his wife. Thirty years later, a portion of this letter was reprinted in The New York Daily Tribune, and here are Sylvester’s own words on being in battle:

I cannot attempt to describe the fight; all I can say is that the sensation is very particular. It is not fear; it is a feeling of awe, such as you feel when in a heavy thunderstorm with lightning flashing all around you. This is before you commence firing. After you get the word you lose all such feeling and your rammer seems to fly as you load and fire. I have often wondered how they managed in the smoke between two armies, but Lord Bless you! You aim so naturally for their line of fire and as coolly as you would at a bird. The most exciting feeling that can be experienced is when you get the order to “charge.” I cannot describe the feeling. Did you ever get up on a warm night to hunt mosquitoes and notice with what satisfaction you squish one on the wall with the sole of your shoe? This is something like the feeling with which you give a fellow-creature the bayonet on the field. It is nothing at the time; but the thought is almost sickening after all is over. A man does many things to almost regret in calmer moments. One brigade has been badly cut up; to what extent you will probably never know. Everything is now quiet: how long it will remain so, we cannot, of course, tell. * * * We had to skedaddle once; made 2:40 time though.

They were involved in some of the most violent battles of the war. On September 17, 1862, Sylvester’s unit may have been present at the Battle of Antietam, where over 23,000 men died in a single day. This was bloodiest day of the entire Civil War.

After the Battle of Antietam, the 62nd was quartered in Downsville, Maryland. On October 22, 1862, Sylvester failed to show up for a drill and was fined $1.00. He did not show up at any subsequent roll calls; he had deserted the army.

After deserting, Sylvester returned to New York and, over the next decade, continued to work as a printer and a clerk. Records suggest that he may not have reunited with his wife. Even though Charlotte was in her mid to late 20's and had borne Sylvester 5 children in 7 years early in their marriage, the couple had no more babies after the war. In an 1870 census, Charlotte and her children are all living in New York City with a Scotsman named Thom Drummond and bearing his surname. Sylvester is not part of this household.

On January 19, 1872, Sylvester Keely died in a tenement apartment on 54 Frankfort Street, New York of cirrhosis of the liver and complications due to alcoholism. He was in his early 40’s.

Charlotte was now a widow with five children, whose ages ranged from 10 to 17. She made money by doing laundry for others. About a year and a half after Sylvester’s death, on June 10, 1873, Charlotte married James E. Carr at St. Christopher’s Chapel in New York City. She was 36 years old; her groom was about 18 – just a year older than Charlotte’s firstborn daughter. They settled into a tenement with Charlotte’s children, but the union was short lived. Less than a year after the wedding, James Carr, who was working as a laborer, fell through a hatchway on the second floor of 143 Chambers Street and landed in the basement. He died of his injuries on May 3, 1874.

Several years after her second husband’s death, Charlotte dropped the name Carr and returned to using the Keely surname. Two more children also appeared in her household as Keelys. Charlotte’s son, John, was born circa 1876, and her daughter, Emma, was born in approximately 1878. The paternity of both of these children is unclear.

Even after raising seven of her own children, Charlotte’s parenting duties were not over. In 1895, her son, James, and his wife of seventeen years were going through a contentious divorce and unable to care for their children. Charlotte took in at least three of her grandchildren: two boys named Sylvester and William, and a baby girl also named Charlotte Amelia. Charlotte’s infant namesake died of pneumonia while in her care on January 27, 1897 at the age of fourteen months.

Over the next few years, Charlotte worked occasionally as a janitoress. On May 3, 1883, she wed for the third and final time. She married Michael John Smith, an Irish-born tinsmith roughly her own age, in an Episcopal ceremony at the Floating Church of our Saviour at 34 Pike Street in Manhattan. He died twelve years later of heart disease on February 10, 1895.

Charlotte continued to head up a household consisting of her two grandsons and her youngest daughter Emma, who was now a twenty-three year widow with two small boys of her own. Emma eventually remarried, and Charlotte lived with her daughter and son-in-law for the rest of her life.

Charlotte Smith died of chronic meningitis on December 19, 1911 in New York City at the age of 75.