William Boss Kelly was born on November 1, 1834 at Kellys Corners, Town of Covert, Seneca County, New York, the eleventh of fourteen children of Joseph C. and Sarah (Smith) Kelly. William was the eighth son in the family. His grandfather, Charles Kelly, was a pioneer settler of Seneca County, having moved there from New Jersey in the late 1700s. Based on available information, William would have spent at least his early years at Kellys Corners where his father farmed. He would have been seven years old when his father died in March, 1842 at the tragically young age of fifty. For a time, he was probably living with his older sister Roxy in Covert and then later with her in Ulysses, perhaps Trumansburg specifically, in Tompkins County, New York. During the Civil War, William served with the 50th New York Volunteer Engineers which built pontoon bridges across rivers to facilitate the movement of Union troops and also constructed and maintained roads and fortifications. He joined the unit in January, 1864 and was involved in the so-called Overland Campaign in May and June of that year, the goals of which were to defeat the South in Virginia and to take the Confederate capital of Richmond. The inclusive dates of his service were January 1, 1864 to June 13, 1865, and he rose to the rank of corporal. He would later receive an invalid pension under the Dependent Pensions Act of 1890. On January 25, 1870, William married Anna Lodoiska Powell, the daughter of Benjamin Franklin Powell and Cynthia E. Bailey. The couple eventually had five children: Anna Rose (1871-1954), George Powell (1872-1905), Helen Josepha (1874-1948), Ralph William (1877-1949) and Frank Delano (1881-1936). After the Civil War, William Boss completed training as a dentist in Ithaca, New York and began a practice in Towanda, Bradford County, Pennsylvania. The family lived at 206 Poplar Street in Towanda. Tragedy struck the family on October 19, 1905, when the oldest son, thirty-two-year-old George Powell, was killed as a result of an accidental fall from the second-floor balcony of the Stimson Hotel in Athens, Pennsylvania. Because of health problems, William retired from his dental practice sometime between 1907 and 1910. He died in Towanda on October 20, 1915, less than two weeks before he would have turned eighty one. His wife survived him by about twelve years, dying on November 12, 1927. They and all of their children are interred in the Oak Hill Cemetery in Towanda.