In memory of Wm. A. McKellipAuthor of the memorial page is Cemetery Manager

Born in Taneytown on December 25, 1835, Lieutenant Colonel William McKellip was an influential figure in Westminster during and after the Civil War. McKellip, a lawyer by profession, enlisted in the Union Army on August 12, 1862 as a Captain in Company A, Sixth Maryland Infantry. As an influential citizen, Captain McKellip was responsible for encouraging many other men from Westminster and the surrounding area to enlist in Company A as well. McKellip was promoted to the rank of Major on September 2, 1862, and promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel on March 27, 1863, the rank that he held when he left the army in 1863 due to injuries sustained in the explosion of a powder magazine. Following his military service, Lieutenant Colonel McKellip returned to his successful Westminster law practice, eventually becoming the Clerk of the Court for Carroll County. He married Anna L. Smith McKellip on February12, 1866, and they had one daughter, Julia. Anna died on May 1, 1880, and McKellip married Sarah Conkling Burroughs McKellip, a relative of the very powerful Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, on January 7, 1885. During much of the final decades of the century, the McKellips travelled about Europe on federal government business including McKellip being appointed U.S. Consul to Magdeburg, Germany by President Theodore Roosevelt. It was in Magdeburg that Lieutenant Colonel McKellip died suddenly on April 4, 1904. His body was returned to the United States with great fanfare, and he was given an elaborate funeral at Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church in Westminster with participation of the local Burns Post No. 13, Grand Army of the Republic, for which he had previously served as Commander.