Hugh Kelly

The Bar Harbor Historical Society has a bottle donated by Hugh Kelly's wife, Patty. I think she was around 88 years old and she walked in to the Historical Society with it. It is a half pint Kelly bottle that is melted a bit from being exposed to high heat. Hugh Kelly's barn was the first structure to burn in the Bar Harbor Fire of 1947. My father, “Jack” Clark was there when the fire jumped the road and the embers landed on the roof of Kelly's barn across from the school house on Norway Drive. The Maine National Guard was there too, going through some drill just as the fire jumped the road. My father always felt that fighting the fire would have been more appropriate instead of doing that drill.

Hugh's employee Milton Linscott bought the business from Hugh in June 1963 when Hugh became seriously ill. Milton didn't run it long, it eventually went back to Hugh. But before all that in 1939, Hugh Kelly was the book keeper for Thirlstane Ranch and took over the Bar Harbor routes when Thirlstane Ranch stopped operation. O.J.Clark (who was head milkman for Thirlstane) took the Southwest Harbor routes, each agreed to not compete on each others turf. Back then, Hugh had a small farm on Norway Drive in the Emery District (the old Howard Russell Farm reputedly), that was the barn that burned in the fire of '47. After that, Kelly bought Lakewood Farm on the Crooked Road where Thirlstane Ranch had a processing plant in 1939.