Stories from the Tree - The Boyd Clan

In the genealogical record of our family there are more than 300 individuals with the Boyd surname. It's an important branch of the family tree; my great grandmother was a Boyd and the line stretches back to Ireland. The Find A Grave website lists more than 230 Boyds buried in Laurens County, South Carolina and 137 Boyds buried in Johnson County Texas graveyards. There is also a Boyd Cemetery in Washington County Texas. The city of Cleburne, Texas was (and still is) full of Boyds. While not all of these are relatives, the Boyd line is a big part of the family history.

William Blanton Boyd appears to be the immigrant ancestor of our Boyd clan in the United States, but the record is very sketchy about William. There are at least two different versions of who this man was, where he came from, and who he married. Family records favor the William Blanton who emigrated from Belfast Ireland on the ship Hopewell, arriving in 1772 in Charleston, South Carolina.

Apart from this we know little about William, but we do know more about his children, thanks to a 10-page single-spaced, typewritten document titled "Notes from Della Boyd Culbertson's Diary."  Mary Lou “Della” Boyd Culbertson, my first cousin (twice removed), was born on the banks of the Reedy River in Laurens County, South Carolina in 1862 and died in 1937 in Greenville County, South Carolina, just a few miles north of where she was born. She wrote the diary sometime after 1929, based on the oldest date included in the transcript.

I don't know if the original diary survives, or who typed up the "notes" document, but what was passed to me contains a wealth of information and insight into many of the individuals listed.

For instance, about William Blanton Boyd's oldest daughter Katie she writes:

“Katie married Mr. Pinson – had three small children. Her husband was not a good provider, she had a hard time. One day when he came in the house and his wife gave him a basket to go get chips to finish dinner, he walked out and she never saw or heard of him again She sewed and spun thread and wove cloth to make a living for the children.”

And she writes about a child of his oldest son James:

“William (Billie) Boyd, [was a] Baptist preacher. He married first, Miss Madden. His wife died and he married Cindy Paine. She was very wealthy. She died and he married Savilla Henderson, a widow who had two children. He became a drunkard for years, reformed before he married the third time. Became a devout christian before he died. One night he was feeling bad, went to his medicine chest, took a dose of medicine, and died in a short time – thought to have taken the wrong medicine."

But Della's story begins in earnest with William Blanton's sixth child, Samuel Boyd, her great grandfather and my three-great grandfather.

“Samuel Boyd married an Irish girl named Nancy Henry about 1812 and Samuel and Nancy bought land on the Reedy River, eleven miles west of the Court House in Laurens County, and with an abundance of water power there, built a mill and began grinding corn and wheat. They built a home on the east side of Reedy River, about a quarter mile from the mill and raised a family of eight children, five boys and three girls.”

Business was good, and the family enterprise eventually included a couple of grist mills, a saw mill, a cabinet shop for making furniture, and a thirty spindle carding and spinning plant. 

"All of his boys except one followed the same trade, and son David's three oldest sons, Nathan, Bradford and John Henry also worked there. In all, Samuel handed down his profession as miller and wood worker to at least four generations - sons, grandsons, great, and great great grandsons. "

Samuel seemed to have been a kind father and husband, and good neighbor, except for one thing – he was a drunkard. From the minutes of the Poplar Springs Baptist Church: 

"Brother Samuel was excluded from the church several times for the sin of drunkenness. He would be received back into the church by recantation and then several months later would be up before the church again."

"After Nancy died in 1850, he sold his business to his sons, David, Bradford, and Sanford, and to a son in law, John Puckett. He lived alone in a house joining the yard of the sawyer's house (a grandson) at Boyd's Mill, and was cared for by his family, preferring to live a solitary [if not sober] life until his death in 1861. His son Sanford bought his home, rebuilt the house and lived there all of his life except for a few years, raising a family of nine children there."

"In 1845, 'the dry year,' as we were taught to call it, nearly all the mills in the whole country around could grind scarcely any at all, because of a scarcity of water. When the water in old Reedy was low, they found a wonderful spring just below the dam. They prepared a race and ran all the water on the mill wheel. They ground corn and wheat day and night, and a few Sundays.   Men came from miles to get grinding done. Sometimes they would have to wait for days to get their grinding, so many would be waiting. That is why they ground on Sunday. Sanford Boyd was the miller at that time, but the others helped with it."

When Della was born, just a year after Samuel's death, her grandfather David was still active in the family business, as were most of her uncles and her father, Nathaniel, Davids oldest son. Unfortunately, she never knew her father. But let her tell the story:

“Nathaniel Fonzy Boyd, the oldest son, married Barbara E Godfrey Jan. 31, 1861.    Their home was on the Boyd's Mill property, on the east side of the river. He enlisted in the war between the states on July 11, 1861 at Hamilton's old field in Laurens County, left home August 11 to go to the camp of instruction at Camp Butler. He was mustered into service in Sept. 1861, and was ordered to Port Royal in December 1861. His only child, Della, was born Jan. 22, 1862."

"When she was two weeks old, her father got a furlough and came home, remaining there with his wife and baby for one month. This was the last time he came home and the only time that Della ever saw her father. When he went to war he had been married only six months. Elizabeth and the child went to the home of his father and stayed there, Nathan went to Richmond, Va. in May or June or 1862.   He was a member of S.C. Company C, 14th Regiment in Leeds army, and was in the seven days fight around Richmond, was wounded at Chancellorsville in May of 63, was taken to a hospital in Richmond Va. and died about 18 days later of blood poison. He is buried at Richmond, Va.”

Della had much more to say about members of the Boyd clan, and there's more to the Boyd Mill story. More to come.