Kelleys Island is both a village in Erie County, Ohio, United States, and the island which it fully occupies in Lake Erie. The area was originally known by the British as Sandusky Island, and later officially designated by the U.S. as Island Number 6 and Cunningham Island. It was renamed Kelleys Island in 1840 by brothers Datus and Irad Kelley, who had purchased nearly the entire island.Kelleys Island was previously occupied by Native Americans. During the beginning of The War of 1812, the island was utilized as a military rendezvous post, first by the British and later by the US Military. During the early 19th-century, the island was mostly uninhabited. After the Kelley brothers purchased the land, the population began to grow as a result of commercial extraction of the island's limestone and lumber resources, as well as grape-growing. As of the 2010 census, the island's population was 312.