CHIEF:  Alastair Ivor Gilbert Boyd 7th Baron Kilmarnock

Richard G. and Jerri Lynn Boyd

568 W. Friedrich Street

Rogers City, Mich. 49779

William Boyd / Elizabeth Wade

Granville County, Canada to Washington State

WILLIAM BOYD - It is very interesting to note in the case of such men as Mr. Boyd, the labors performed and the trying questions met the Colville for the ingress of civilization. As an instance of what is required of the pioneer farmer, when Mr. Boyd first came here, he threshed seven hundred bushels of grain with a flail.  Such marked labor as that indicates beyond doubt the energy and stamina of the man of whom we speak.  But such was only one of many trying things to be accomplished, and suffice it to say that in everything which presented itself to be done or solved, Mr. Boyd never failed to find a way.  Then
again we notice that the pioneers who stand so badly in need of the various appliances for farming are obliged to pay a double price for everything, and Mr. Boyd well remembers that the first farm wagon cost him about one hundred and fifty dollars.  Provisions were also very high. Sugar cost him twenty-five cents a pound, and other things in proportion. All these things but brought forth in our subject the corresponding increase of energy to overcome and accomplished as he had planned.  Dame Fortune could not resist such wooing as that and the result is as it should be, that Mr. Boyd is to-day, one of the leading and prosperous men of northern Washington.

Reverting more particularly to detailed account of his career we note first that Mr. Boyd was born in Granville county, Canada, on March 16, 1846, the son of JOSEPH BOYD and  MARY (MALONEY) BOYD, natives of Ireland. The fact that his parents came from the Emerald Isle, opens to us the secret of Mr. Boyd's energy and capability. They came to America when young and located in Canada where they remained for fifty-five years; they went into the wild forest and with their own hands built a home, cleared a farm and became wealthy. The paternal grandfather of our subject was a great sportsman and owned many fine horses and dogs in Ireland. The humble little frontier home in Canada that afterwards became the headquarters of a prosperous farmer, was the birthplace of seven children, including our subject; MARY BOYD,  ELLEN BOYD, SARAH BOYD, THOMAS BOYD, TAMER BOYD, JOSEPH BOYD and WILLIAM BOYD.  Our subject was reared and educated in his native place and continued faithfully and industriously assisting his parents until he reached the age of twenty-eight; then he came west to Colorado and afterwards mined in Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico and California.  He returned again to Arizona and in 1887 came to Stevens county, Wa.  He first selected a farm near Spokane but sold that and came to his residence four miles south of Chewelah where he has remained ever since. Like his father in Canada, he took hold with his hands, staked out the wild farm, fenced it, built a cabin and began bringing it under tribute to crops. He now has two hundred acres, nearly all under cultivation, and about seventy-five cattle.  In November, 1885,  Mr. Boyd married MISS ELIZABETH WADE, whose parents were natives of Illinois, she herself, being born in Cass county of that state in 1853.  Four children have been born to this union: JOHN BOYD,  WILLIAM J. BOYD, THOMAS BOYD, and THEODORE BOYD, all with their parents. Mr. Boyd is a good, active Republican and a man of substantial quality and worth; he and his wife are members of the Congregational church.

Source: THE HISTORY OF NORTH WASHINGTON, 1903

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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