Kelly the Baker left his mark

#Middlebury

This house on Route 64 was built for the Kelly family in 1898. It is owned by the McDonald family. (Image from Middlebury Assessor database)

By DR. ROBERT L. RAFFORD

Several prominent landmarks remind Middleburians that the family of Thomas and Margaret (Bergin) Kelly once lived here, among them Kelly Road and Kelly Point (or Neck) on Lake Quassapaug. In addition, when you travel westbound on Route 64, just before you enter Woodbury, the Kelly house stands prominently on the right. It is now owned by the McDonald family (see picture).

Thomas Kelly, known in the area as “Kelly, the Baker,” was born in County Roscommon, Ireland, about 1846, and immigrated to the United States about 1870. When he died in 1931, his obituary in the Hartford Courant listed him as an “outstanding figure in the business field [in Waterbury].” In 1895, he married Margaret Bergin, the daughter of Daniel and Margaret (Phelan) Bergin, who was born in 1864 in Waterbury.

The couple had three children: Thomas Kelly Jr. was born in 1897, but died as an infant 20 months later. Son Franklyn Joseph Kelly (1898-1927) became an attorney and married Genevieve Freeman (1900-1975), but died at the age of 28. Their third child, daughter Margaret Mary Kelly (1900-1987), was married to Michael Francis McDonald (1902-1986), son of Daniel and Margaret (Magner) McDonald, establishing the McDonald family connection. Son Franklyn and his wife had a daughter, Ellen Mary Kelly (1926-1993), who married Robert Raymond Negreira (1924-1993), a production engineer with U.S. Time.

This Kelly the Baker ad with the rooster icon he adopted is from an 1880s Waterbury Evening Democrat. (Scanned image)

Thomas Kelly was in the bakery business in Waterbury at least as early as 1880. By 1891 he had stores at 8 North Main and 78 South Main Streets and 282 Bank Street in the Brooklyn section of Waterbury. He sold not only baked goods and dairy products but also bon bons and chocolate creams and Irish caramels.

The bakery generated scads of very competitive advertising, some very playful. For example, advertising in the Waterbury Evening Democrat seemed like a crusade for more business: in 1888, he dropped the price of a loaf of bread from eight to five cents (by 1891, his competitor, “Brennan the Baker,” was selling bread for four cents a loaf), and eggs from 38 to 22 cents per dozen, thence to 16 cents! In 1889 pies were reduced to 10 cents each.

In 1890 Kelly announced that he had been appointed “sole mill agent for the sale of the celebrated ‘Niagara Falls’ Brand of Flour” and promised “This is the only Flour that will make Genuine New England Bread.” He had a style of waxing on politically while selling his products. That same year his advertisement read, “Kelly The Baker Says if this country did not export wheat or pork, or beef [prices would be much lower] … Kelly is hammering down the price of flour. Kelly is selling apple pies cheaper that you can buy the apples.”

A religious man, he mounted an effort in 1892 to supply families of striking unionized workers with bread, but was criticized for it in a letter to the editor of the Waterbury Evening Democrat. He defended labor unions by quoting a recent papal encyclical, adding that, “The very hope for the workingmen, who are the very life of the country, is in organization, with laws well made and wise executed.”

In late 1897 the Kelly family bought land on the south shore of Lake Quassapaug from the Whittemore family and proceeded to build the house that still stands, now owned by the McDonald family.

Bob Rafford is the Middlebury Historical Society president and Middlebury’s municipal historian. To join or contact the society, visit MiddleburyHistoricalSociety.org or call Bob at 203-206-4717.