[2][a] Raised mostly in Cincinnati where her father Cornelius Ambrosius Logan ran the National Theatre, Connelly came from a theatrical family.

Her father and older sister, Eliza, were already well-known actors when Celia first appeared on the stage in March 1852, at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia.

On February 17, 1858, she married painter and art collector Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, more than 20 years her senior, in Paris.

Moving to San Francisco, James became the editor of the Morning Chronicle while Celia became a correspondent for the New York Graphic and continued to write.

Returning to New York, she became an assistant editor at Belford's Magazine, a project of Abram S. Piatt and his brother Donn, who had earlier employed her at the Capital newspaper in Washington, D.C. She also continued to write, as a journalist, as an author, and as a playwright.

[3] Like her sister, Olive, she wrote of her experiences in the theatre, writing a series of articles entitled "These Our Actors"[3] and also lecturing on the subject.