CHIEF:  Alastair Ivor Gilbert Boyd 7th Baron Kilmarnock                                  

Richard G. and Jerri Lynn Boyd

568 W. Friedrich Street

Rogers City, Mich. 49779

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Thomas Boyd ~ Margaret Calhoun

Lenawee County, Michigan

Thomas Boyd.   Erin's Green Isle has given to the United States some of her worthiest and most energetic citizens.  They have been mostly men who commenced in life at the very foot of the ladder, and by a course of energy and perseverance worked their way up to the top-most round.  To these scarcely credit enough can be given, as none but themselves can realize what difficulties and discouragements they encountered, overcoming the peculiarities of a new and strange country, a foreign tongue, and at times, the indifference of a people who did not realize the strength that lay within them.

The subject of this sketch, a native of the North of Ireland, was born in County Antrim about the year 1830, and continued on his native soil until a youth of eighteen years.  He received a limited education, his parents, William and Jane (Preston) Boyd, having been people of very modest means, whose chief had necessarily been the providing their children with the mere creature comforts.  Young Thomas had always been a bright and ambitious lad, thoughtful beyond his years, and at an early age he made up his mind to escape from the beaten path which his father before him had trodden so wearily and with such unsatisfactory results.  At the age mentioned he bade adieu to his childhood friends and early associations, and boarding a sailing-vessel at Liverpool, found himself six weeks later on the soil of the Dominion of Canada and in the city of Quebec.  Thence he crossed into the State of Vermont, and not long afterward made his way to Livingston County, N. Y., where he engaged as a farm laborer for a period of four years.  In the fall of 1851, he joined the caravan migrating to the young State of Michigan, and for a period of six years thereafter was an employee on the farm of Pearley Bills.  Afterward he worked one year for Peter Adams, and had now saved up a little sum of money which he invested in eighty acres of land in that township, and proudly commenced farming on his own account.

Mr. Boyd, however, four weeks after commencing work on this land, not satisfied with the outlook, traded it for 160 acres in Raisin Township.  This he occupied six years, and then sold out for the sum of $5,000, feeling well repaid for his labor and the improvements which he had put upon it.  His next purchase was a farm three miles west of the village of Tecumseh, for which he paid $7,280, and which he operated five years; this he still owns.  He subsequently purchased ninety-two acres which was familiarly known as the Fuller farm, and which he now occupies, and has brought to a high state of cultivation.  He has remodeled the residence and added a good barn and other outhouses.  Mr. Boyd has been an apt scholar in the school of experience.  He landed in America with a cash capital of $1, a stranger in a strange land, and the fact that he is now numbered among the wealthy and representative farmers of Lenawee County, is indicative in no small measure of the resolution and energy which have marked his footsteps.

After he had laid the foundations for a future home and a competence, Mr. Boyd, when about twenty-five years of age, took to himself a wife and helpmeet, Miss Margaret Calhoun, one of his own countrywomen, but who at the time of their marriage, Nov. 22, 1855, was a resident of Tecumseh Village.  Mrs. Boyd is the daughter of Robert and Esther Calhoun, the former of whom died when she was but a little girl.  The mother subsequently came to the United States where she died at the home of Mrs. Boyd in November, 1874.  Mrs. Boyd became a resident of this county about 1846, and was considered one of the most estimable young ladies of her township. 

Of her union with our subject there have been born four daughters and one son.  The eldest child, Esther A., is the wife of Wallace Tilden, and resides in Tecumseh Township; Fanny Boyd married Chester A. Haynes, of Tecumseh Village; Maggie Boyd is at home with her parents; Hattie Boyd, Mrs. Arthur Dibble, lives in Adrian, while Wallace Lavern Boyd continues under the home roof.

Mr. Boyd, upon becoming a naturalized American citizen, identified himself with the Democratic party, of which he has since been a warm supporter.  Personally he is a fine representative of his warm-hearted Irish ancestry, liberal and public-spirited, always willing to put his shoulder to the wheel in carrying forward the enterprises calculated for the general good of mankind. 

Source: Portrait and biographical album of Lenawee County, Mich. : containing full page portraits and biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county, together with portraits and biographies of all the governors of Michigan and of the presidents of the United States. Includes index; Chicago : Chapman Bros., 1888.  - FHL Film 1000242 Item 1

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