Kelley, Oliver Hudson (1826–1913)

US farmer who, in 1867 with six other men, founded the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry of which he was secretary. He promoted the benefits of the Grange in the agricultural press, and by 1874 there were more than 20,000 granges. (Originally activist/reformist organizations for farmers' rights, they would survive more as social/community clubs.) He wrote Origin and Progress of the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry 1875.

He was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He worked in Illinois and Iowa before moving to Minnesota in 1840 where he traded with Dakota Sioux and farmed. In 1864 he became a clerk in the Bureau of Agriculture, wrote articles for the National Republican on the greatness of Minnesota and undertook the Bureau's survey of agriculture conditions in Minnesota in 1865. In 1875 he established the Grange secretary's office in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1878 he resigned his office and became a land speculator in northern Florida, founding the town of Carrabelle.