Kelsey’s real claim to fame is that James Marshall spent the remainder of his life there, after he left Coloma in disgust and sorrow in 1871, when his fame as the gold discoverer had worn off and had turned to disrespect and persecution by the townspeople. In Kelsey he had friends. He located two famous mining claims in the Kelsey vicinity. The Big Sandy and the Grey Eagle, and did considerable amount of work on the latter. Marshall had a workshop and blacksmith shop at Kelsey and became of close friend of the town’s Kelly family, considering the place his real home and expressing an adamant wish to be buried there. He died in Kelsey in 1885 at the age of 75, in the old closed Union Hotel where he had lived.