Daniel E. Kelley

Daniel E. Kelley (Rhode Island, February 1843 – Iowa, 1905) was a musician and entertainer, who after moving to Kansas in 1872, wrote the music for “Home on the Range”, which became the state song. Kelley played violin with his brothers-in-law in the Harlan Brothers Band, but was primarily a carpenter by trade. He married Mary E. Harlan in Kansas and they had four children. He moved to Iowa in 1889 and died of a stroke there in 1905.[citation needed] He was buried in Fairview Cemetery, Waterloo, Iowa.