Fayette County PA Archives Biographies.....Boyd, John July 11, 1817 - February 27, 1889
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Marta Burns marta43@juno.com August 29, 2024, 2:26 pm

Source: Gresham and Wiley, 1889: Biographical & Portrait Cyclopedia, Fayette Co, PA, pg 146
Author: John H. Gresham & Samuel T. Wiley

    Dr John Boyd is of a family that has produced a number 
of eminent, professional men, as well as men of note, 
gentlemen and scholars.  
    His grandfather, William Boyd, came from Kilmarnock, 
Scotland, and brought a grant for several hundred acres of 
land covering the present site of the city of Halifax.  This 
grant bore the sea of James VI, King of England; but his 
sympathy for the American colonists during the War of the 
Revolution caused the forfeiture of his lands to the crown.
    His father, Rev Eben L Boyd, was a noted preacher in 
South Berwick for many years.  
    His eldest son, Dr Eben L Boyd, was a graduate of 
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and had an extended reputation 
throughout the Eastern states as an able physician and 
surgeon, having performed some very wonderful surgical 
operations in his day.  He died at Wilkesbarre, 
Pennsylvania.
    Dr John Boyd was a man of considerable reputation, not 
only as physician and surgeon, but as a preacher of the word 
of God.  He was born in South Berwick, Maine, July 11, 1817, 
and was a son of Rev Eben L Boyd and Sarah Frazier Boyd.  He 
was married to Maria A Stevens, daughter of Joseph Stevens 
of Boston.  For eighteen years (?) and was at the time of 
his death Inspector at the Custom House in Boston.  His 
wife, Clarissa Cushing, was a lineal descendant of Caleb 
Cushing, the latter coming over in the Mayflower and whose 
portrait can be seen at the Independence Hall Museum in 
Philadelphia.
    Dr John Boyd was educated in the school of South 
Berwick, and afterwards read medicine with Dr Charles 
Trafton of the same place.  In 1835 Dr Boyd had a call to 
the ministry at Haverhill, Massachusetts, and subsequently 
preached at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Hampton and 
Kennebunk, Maine.  He was a strong advocate of temperance 
and delivered lectures through Maine in the interest of her 
first prohibition laws.  In 1848 on account of failing 
health, he accepted an agency for the American and Foreign 
Bible Society, and visited and preached at many of the 
principal Baptist churches throughout the state.  He was the 
pastor at Wilkesbarre for about five years, and later for 
about the same length of time pastor of the Baptist church 
at Washington, Pennsylvania.
    He came to Uniontown in 1864 and devoted himself to the 
practice of medicine, and built up a lucrative practice.  He 
continued to preach at Uniontown up to the time of his 
death.  He was endowed by nature with a strong mind, was a 
hard student, great reader, well versed in literature and a 
good thinker.  For fifty six years he was a devout Christian 
and his faith in the promises of God was firm and secure, 
and died in full trust and hope in them.  He was full of 
love and charity for his fellow men.
    In his library are some of the oldest books extant: a 
priestly Bible published in 1634; Oyer and Terminer of the 
city of London published in 1730; Court of the Gentiles 
published in 1674; and some very valuable medical works.  He 
kept a handbook of his practice of medicine, and registered 
every dose of medicine that he ever gave.  He also kept a 
register of all the patients he ever treated: giving a full 
history of each case in all its different stages.  
    The pension officials at Washington would often come to 
Dr Boyd for dates and facts in the history of applications 
for pensions.  He was made a life member of the American 
Baptist Missionary Union, Boston, September 30, 1846.  
    He had in his possession the family coat of arms which 
is several hundred years old.  The children of Dr Boyd are 
five in number: John Boyd, who died soon after the war at 
the age of twenty two years; Eben L Boyd, died in infancy; 
Sarah F Boyd, died November 4, 1882, at the age of twenty 
seven; Mrs Maria F Gribble and Mrs Clara F Johnson are the 
living children, and both reside with their mother at 
Uniontown.  
    Dr Boyd spent the last moments of his life in helping 
the sick: having gone out at 4:30 AM to see a patient, 
returning home at 9:30 AM and with a severe attack of 
hemorrhage, passed away February 27, 1889, "full of years 
and full of honors."  His remains rest with those of other 
members of the family at Newburyport, Massachusetts.  

Additional Comments:
Originally submitted 2000.

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