W. J. Boyd ~ Jane Bradford

W. J. Boyd, farmer and a pioneer, was born in Mason County, Ky., about 1823, a son of J. and L. C. (Bailey) Boyd. The father, of Irish origin, was born in Kentucky in 1794, a son of Archibald Boyd, a native of Harper's Ferry. Archibald was a soldier of the Revolution, and a pioneer of Kentucky, where he served as sheriff of Louis County many years. The father was reared in Mason and Louis Counties, and married in 1819. In 1837 he removed to Gallatin County and resumed his work of brick-laying. He died in 1846. The mother, born in Summit County, Md., in 1796, died December 5, 1857. She was a daughter of Bowdoin Bailey, a soldier of the war of 1812, in the commissary department, and one of the "Baltimore Blues." Returning to Kentucky in 1815, he then went to White County, Ill., in 1826.

Our subject was limited in school advantages, and in 1847 married Jane, daughter of James and Margaret Bradford, and born in Ireland. Two of their six children are living: Rebecca Boyd, wife of James Rice (deceased) and Laura C. Boyd. He was then living in New Haven, engaged in the tanning, saddlery and harness business. With the exception of the years from 1874 to 1885 in Shawneetown in a livery and feed stable in connection with the Riverside Hotel, he has, since 1853, resided on his present farm which he carved out of the early wilderness. It has 240 acres besides which he has another farm aggregating in all about 370 acres, and town property in addition. He has served for about twenty-two years, since 1846, as justice of the peace, in Asbury Precinct, and in his present home, beginning in 1854 in the then Wabash Precinct. He is one of the few now living who were citizens of the county in early life. He is a Democrat, first voting for Polk. He is a Mason. His parents were Presbyterians, and his grandfather and elder who organized the church at Cabin Creek, Louis Co., Ky.

Source: History of Gallatin, Saline, Hamilton, Franklin, and Williamson counties, Illinois : from the earliest time to the present; together with sundry and interesting biographical sketches, notes, reminiscences, etc., etc. Micro-reproduction of original published: Chicago : Goodspeed, 1887. - FHL Film 873820 Item 1

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