CHIEF:  Dr Robin Boyd, MA (Oxon); MB BS; LRCP, MRCS; DCH; AFOM, 8th Baron Kilmarnock

Richard G. Boyd

NEW EMAIL ADDRESS

RichBoyd (at sign) Charter.net

W. L. Boyd / Margaret Meaken

 Ireland to NY, MI, WI and Bowdle, SD

W.L. BOYD -  In America labor is king and the sovereignty that her liberty loving people acknowledge is that of business. The men of influence in a community in this enlightened age are its enterprising and progressive representatives of commercial interests and to this class belongs W.L. Boyd, a prominent business man of Bowdle, South Dakota.

He was born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1852, and his parents THOMAS and JANE (GIVING) BOYD, were also natives of that country and of Scotch-Irish descent. The father was foreman in a linen factory for twenty years and also engaged in farming at the same time. Our subject was named for a grand uncle who was a surgeon in the British army and he also had another grand uncle, ROBERT BOYD, who was a Presbyterian minister.

W.L. Boyd was reared on a farm in his native land and also served a four years' apprenticeship as a finisher in the process of bleaching linen. At the age of twenty one he left home and came to America, landing in New York. He settled in Southern Michigan, where he bought land and through the winter months engaged in getting out ship timbers, being interested in the lumber business for some time. Immediately after his arrival in this country he learned the brick layer's and mason's trade in Wisconsin, and worked at the same from 1876 until 1896. Fifteen years of this time was spent in the Badger state, where he was engaged in business on his own account as a contractor and builder. There he was married, in 1877, to MISS MARGARET MEAKEN, a native of Illinois, who was left an orphan at the early age of three years, her father being killed in the Civil war. She was adopted by a hotel keeper and brought up in the village of Montello, Marquette county, Wisconsin. To our subject and his wife have been born five children, four sons and one daughter, all at, home attending school.

Mr. Boyd first came to Bowdle, South Dakota, in 1888, but did not locate permanently in this state until the following year, when he purchased a farm of three hundred and twenty acres in Spring Lake Valley, Walworth County, upon which he made his home until the fall of 1898, when he removed to Bowdle. In connection with general farming and stock raising, he also worked at his trade to some extent. On coming to Bowdle he erected an elevator and embarked in the grain business in partnership with J. McKoane. In the spring of 1899 they bought the gristmill of W. W. Brant, and in connection with their other business now deal in flour and feed and do a general milling business. Mr. Boyd still owns a valuable farm of four hundred and eighty acres, and operates altogether five quarter- sections of land, and is extensively interested in the live stock business, his specialty being horses and cattle. He ran a wagon and carried milk to the creamery until 1899, and has been one of the largest patrons of that industry. He is a most progressive, energetic and reliable business man and in his under- takings has met with well-deserved success, becoming one of the substantial and prosperous citizens of his community. In his political affiliations he is a Republican. He is a charter member of Hiddenwood Lodge, No. 117, F. & A. M., in Bowdle, of which he was the first senior warden and the second past master. He was also the first worthy patron in Eastern Star Lodge and has held that office continuously since 1888.

SOURCE: "Memorial and biographical record; an illustrated compendium of biography, containing a compendium of local biography, including biographical sketches of prominent old settlers and representative citizens of South Dakota..." Published by G. A. Ogle & Co., Chicago, 1899. Pages 541-542

NOTE: Use this data as a finding tool, just as you would any other secondary source. When you find the name of an ancestor listed, confirm the facts in original sources.

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