Eugene Kelly (banker)

Eugene Kelly (November 25, 1808 – December 19, 1894) was an Irish-American merchant, banker, and philanthropist who founded corporations in San Francisco and New York City.

[1] At the age of twenty-four he emigrated to the United States, and became a clerk in the mercantile house of Donnelly Bros, New York.

When the California Gold Rush began, he saw the opportunity and went to San Francisco in the latter part of 1849, opening a mercantile establishment there in partnership with Joseph A. Donohoe, Daniel T. Murphy and Adam Grant.

He founded the Southern Bank of the State of Georgia and contributed largely to the rebuilding of the town hall of Charleston, South Carolina, after the Civil War.

He was also a trustee of Seton Hall College and a member of the committees which had oversight of the construction of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Washington Square Arch and the Statue of Liberty erected in New York Harbor.