Born in Williamson County, Tennessee
This incredible legacy had its roots in Williamson County, Tennessee where it is believed that Abram Boyd was enslaved by the family of Marcus Boyd Sr and his wife Eliza Hamilton. The couple had married in Williamson County in 1825 and lived there until the early 1840s. During his time in Williamson County, Marcus Boyd was active as a trustee for the Nolensville Turnpike Company and the Arrington Male Academy. The family was enslaving seven people. Around 1842 the couple moved their family of four boys (ages 6 to 12) to Springfield, Missouri. It is likely that they brought along enslaved people, including 4-year-old Abram Boyd. Marcus Boyd was the receiver for the US Land Office, Postmaster, prominent Mason, and state legislator in Springfield. By 1860, he was enslaving 13 people - including a 22-year-old man who may have been Abram. When the Civil War began, Marcus Boyd and his oldest son Sempronius “Pony” Boyd were Unconditional Unionists who sided with the US. In 1862, Pony Boyd was elected to the US House of Representatives and served throughout the Civil War. His younger three brothers served in Confederate regiments.
Service in the US Colored Troops.
On February 7, 1864, Marcus Boyd presented Abram for service in the US Colored Troops in Springfield, MO. According to his enlistment papers, Abram was delivered “by Moses Boyd, his master” whose “ownership [of Abram] and loyalty [to the US] having been satisfactorily established.” Abram Boyd joined the 4th Regiment of Missouri Infantry, African Descent - later renamed the 68th US Colored Infantry. He was described as being 25 years old, mulatto (biracial), 5’9” tall, and born in Williamson County, Tennessee.
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| Colored Volunteer Descriptive List for “Abraham Boyd |
Life As A Freedman - Marriage and Family
1866 - Marriage to Mariah Hendricks. Abram appears to have returned to Springfield, Missouri, because soon after he mustered out, on September 30, 1866, he married a woman named Mariah Hendricks in Greene County, Missouri. Mariah was born around 1849 in Missouri. Three children - James, Lizzie, and Lula - were born to Abram and Mariah over the next four years.
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| Marriage Record, Greene County, Missouri. Marriage of Abram Boyd to Maria L. Hendricks |
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| 1870 Federal Census - Campbell, Springfield, Missouri. |
Death of Mariah and Children. It is not clear what happened to Mariah and the three children born to the couple. They may have died because they appear to have disappeared from written records.
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| Street Scene, Baxter Springs, KS - Kansas Historical Society |
Moved to Baxter Springs, Kansas. By 1872, Abram Boyd had made his way to Baxter Springs, in Cherokee County in the far southeastern corner of Kansas just one mile from the border of Indian Territory (today Oklahoma). Baxter Springs was a frontier town made popular by cowboys driving their cattle north out of Texas. It had a population of about 4,000. During this time, Boyd was involved in “draying” (hauling goods with a cart) and drove a wagon between Baxter Springs and Seneca, Missouri - a trip that took about four or five hours. He made the trip twice each day.
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In June 1872, Boyd was paid $6 by the Baxter Springs town council to move the calaboose - a single room jail cell - to a new location. Baxter Springs Sentinel, Baxter Springs, Kansas, 08 Jun 1872, Sat • Page 3 |
Boyd wasn’t the only African American with Middle Tennessee roots who settled in Baxter Springs. The first Exodusters left Nashville in 1873 for the same area. Led by Benjamin “Pap” Singleton a group of 300 people moved from the Nashville area to Baxter Springs to form the "Singleton Colony." (Read more about this movement here).
1874 Birth of Son Joseph Otto Boyd. On March 31, 1874, a son Joseph Otto was born to Abe and a woman named Ellen Plasters in Baxter Springs. Little is known about Ellen other than that she was born in Missouri. Her name appears only on Joseph O. Boyd’s marriage license application in 1911.
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| Portion of Marriage License application for Joseph O. Boyd, 1911, Spokane, Washington |
1878 Marriage to Mariah McLemore. On October 4, 1878, 40-year-old Abe married again to a 19-year-old woman named Mariah McLemore. This Mariah was born around 1859 in Williamson County, Tennessee and was likely enslaved by the McLemore family that lived in the Spring Hill area of Williamson County. Maria, along with her parents Eaton and Jane McLemore, moved to Baxter Springs the same year as the wedding. Eaton McLemore was a mail carrier between Baxter Springs and Peoria, Illinois.
Driving Stagecoach in Baxter Springs. Around the time of the wedding, several Galena, Kansas newspaper clippings mentioned that Abe was driving the stagecoach for Spencer & Botkins’ stage company running routes to Short Creek, Kansas, and Joplin, Missouri. Short Creek is about 10 miles northeast of Baxter Springs. Joplin is about 18 miles northeast of Baxter Springs.
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| The Galena Banner Galena, Kansas 12 Oct 1878, Sat • Page 5 |
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| The Times Baxter Springs, Kansas 17 Oct 1878, Thu • Page 3 |
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| The Times Baxter Springs, Kansas 22 May 1879, Thu • Page 3 |
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1879 Baxter Springs newspaper ad for Abe Boyd’s employer The Times Baxter Springs, Kansas 22 May 1879, Thu • Page 3 |
1880s Driving The Omnibus in Baxter Springs.
On June 2, 1880, the Federal Census counted Abram and Mariah Boyd living in Baxter Springs, Kansas. Abraham Boyd (42) was driving the omnibus - a large wagon designed to transport groups of people. According to the National Cowboy Museum, they tended to be plush and sophisticated. Omnibuses usually had curtains or glass windows to protect passengers from inclement weather and could seat up to 14 passengers plus standees. Some omnibuses had a second level of seating on the roof.
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Stillwater city bus [omnibus]. Cabinet card photograph. Photographer unknown, Stillwater, Oklahoma Territory, ca. National Cowboy Museum 1900 2000.005.17.0024 |
During this time, Maria (21) was keeping house and raising their son James William (1) and her step-son Joseph (6). Living with them was Maria’s nephew Frank McLemore (3), who had been born in Kansas.
Life in Indian Territory 1884-1887.
Around 1885, the couple moved to the Indian Territory, where they worked for and lived with Col. Daniel Dyer and his wife Ida. Dyer was appointed Agent for the Cheyenne-Arapaho at the Darlington Agency in March 1884. The Boyds may have first met Dyer in 1880 when he was appointed Indian Agent to the Quapaw Agency (i.e., reservation) just south of Baxter Springs.
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Image above - Chief Joseph when young, National Archives. |
Interactions with Native Americans. In an interview late in his life, Boyd described how around this time, he was hired to transport a group of 14 Native American men from Kansas to lands nearby in Indian Territory. The men had been arrested “out west.” Boyd described the men as, “Blanket Indians. They wore blue blankets and blue leggings with white stripes .. the Indian Chief Joseph came.” These were almost certainly Nez Percé Indians. When the United States government attempted in 1877 to force the dissenting Nez Percé to move to a reservation in Idaho, Chief Joseph reluctantly agreed. While preparing for the removal he learned that three young men had killed some white settlers. Afraid of retaliation by the U.S. Army, Chief Joseph led his community on a long trek toward Canada. In late 1877, they were captured and assigned to the Quapaw Agency where Abram Boyd was living at the time. This is likely when and where he came into contact with them.
During this time, Abe Boyd also interacted with Stone Calf, an important Cheyenne chief. He was the only Cheyenne chief to attend a meeting of tribes at what was to become the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency in Indian Territory in April 1870. This was where Abe and Mariah Boyd would be living in the 1880s. Stone Calf was a vocal opponent to the US government policy of leasing reservation land to white cattlemen. In a newspaper interview, Boyd recalled that in 1885, Stone Calf “ordered the government agents out of the reservation. … The white people had leased the lands for grazing purposes, but the government gave them 40 days to move out their cattle elsewhere.”
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Photograph of Cheyenne War Chief Stone Calf and his wife (Lame Woman), 1873. Studio photograph taken in Washington D.C., Oklahoma Historical Society |
In April 1885, Abe Boyd was an “Industrial Teacher” and butcher working at the reservation. He reminisced, “It took 450 beef a month to feed two tribes. There were about 600 Indians in the tribes. A man had the contract to furnish the beef. Every Saturday evening he brought in the cattle and they were killed on Monday. The animals were handed to each chief and the Indians did the killing. If a chief had from 40 to 50 followers he received two beeves. If there were more people under one chief that means more animals and if there were less the number of cattle was decreased.” The article continued to describe, “Every Monday morning Mr. Boyd took a different officer and went to brand cattle. Soon after the animals were branded the interpreter called every chief and gave him his dues. When he became in possession of the cattle he either first cut a mark with his knife anywhere on the animal, shot at it, or cut the tail and hung it from its horn. This was going on in [Darlington] Okla. one mile this side of Fort Reno.”
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Official Register of the United States, Containing a List of Officers and Employees in the Civil, Military, and Naval Service, Volume 1. Agency, Indian Territory, July 1, 1885 |
Teamster in Wichita, Kansas 1887 - 1892
The couple lived in the Indian Territory until around 1887, and then they moved to Wichita, Kansas, where Abe continued his work as a teamster.
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| Baxter Springs News Baxter Springs, Kansas 22 Aug 1885, Sat • Page 3 |
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| Baxter Springs News Baxter Springs, Kansas 27 Feb 1892, Sat • Page 5 |
1890s Life as a Veteran.
Fire destroyed both the Federal Census for 1890 and the special Census of Union Veterans and Widows for Kansas. However, we know that in August 1890, Abe Boyd applied for a pension for his service in the US Colored Troops while he was living in Wichita, Kansas. That pension file is not accessible due to restrictions at the National Archives from the COVID pandemic. However, once it can be obtained, it will likely hold many clues to further telling Abe Boyd’s story.
Around 1892, Abe and Maria moved back to Baxter Springs.
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| Baxter Springs News Baxter Springs, Kansas 27 Feb 1892, Sat • Page 5 |
In 1897, 59-year-old Abe Boyd joined the Baxter Springs Post No. 123 of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization for federal veterans of the Civil War. Post No. 123 appears to have been a racially-integrated organization, although Boyd was one of just a few Black members.
That same year, in April, Abe was appointed to be a delegate to the Republican County Convention, representing the 2nd Ward of Baxter Springs.
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| Baxter Springs News Baxter Springs, Kansas 18 Sep 1897, Sat • Page 4 |
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| Cherokee County Republican Baxter Springs, Kansas 20 Apr 1899, Thu • Page 5 |
The following year, Abe’s 25-year-old son Joseph enlisted in the 23rd Kansas Infantry, an all-Black regiment that served in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Unlike Abe’s experience in the US Colored Troops, Joseph O. Boyd served under a Black officer.
1900s A Growing Family
In June 1900, Abe (aged 56) and his wife Mariah (42) were counted in the Federal Census as still living in Baxter Springs. Abe was described as a farmer. Living with them was Abe’s son and war veteran Joseph O. Boyd (26), and their son James William (21) and his new bride Pearl Pointer. Pearl’s parents, Solomon and Louisa Pointer, and her older siblings had emigrated to Kansas from Williamson County, Tennessee in the early 1870s. Solomon Pointer was active in politics in Baxter Springs, and had also served several times as a Republican delegate to the Cherokee County convention.
In late November 1900, Joseph O. Boyd married Lula Bond in Baxter Springs. According to a newspaper account, “A large number of guests were present from Baxter and the surrounding towns. … The groom is an amiable young man and was a member of the 23rd Kansas in Co. C.” Lula was the youngest daughter of Thomas and Lydia Dodson Bond Sr.. Thomas and Lydia had also moved from the Williamson County, TN area to Baxter Springs, Kansas in the 1870s. They brought a large family - many of whom became leading citizens in Baxter Springs and across Kansas.
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| Thomas Bond family - children of Thomas Bond, Sr. and Lydia Dodson Bond of Williamson County, TN and Baxter Springs, KS |
On March 1, 1905 Abe and Mariah were counted in the Kansas Census still living in Baxter Springs. In this Census, Abram reinforced that he was born in Tennessee and then went to Missouri before moving to Kansas. He gave his occupation as a teamster. Mariah said that she was born in Tennessee and had come to Kansas directly from that state.
A few months later, on July 23, 1905, Abe’s wife Mariah McLemore Boyd died at their home in Baxter Springs. In her obituary, it described that she was survived by two grown sons - probably referring to James and her step-son Joseph whom she had raised. She was buried in the Baxter Springs City Cemetery.
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| Cherokee County Republican Baxter Springs, Kansas 27 Jul 1905, Thu • Page 6
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| Baxter Springs News Baxter Springs, Kansas 27 Jul 1905, Thu • Page 4 |
In 1907, Abe’s son Joseph O. Boyd enlisted again - this time in the US Army’s 25th Infantry, Company M, one of the all-Black regiments that were first organized as Buffalo Soldier regiments following the Civil War. At the time, Boyd was a married father of two young children - a two-year-old disabled daughter named Ellen, and a 1 year old son Chester. Joseph O. Boyd was sent with his regiment to Spokane, Washington and lived on an Army base while his wife and two children lived nearby.
Abe continued working in Baxter Springs hauling materials for pay. Several notations in the newspaper remarked on him being paid by the City of Baxter Springs to haul brick and other materials and perform street work.
1910s Looking for Love
Following Mariah’s death, Abe married again - to a woman named Rebecca Mariah “Mira” who was born in Missouri around 1840. In 1910, the couple were counted in the Federal Census living in on Lincoln Avenue - a location where Abe’s descendants would live for decades - in Baxter Springs with Mira’s daughter Mamie.
This census record leads to more confusion than answers about Mira. It states that this was a second marriage for both - when likely it was Abe’s fourth. It also claims that the couple had been married for 35 years which was not possible.
Abe’s attempt to find happiness was brought up short in March 1911 when his son Cpl. Joseph O. Boyd was shot during a confrontation between members of his Company in Spokane. According to a newspaper account of the incident, “The pelvic bone was injured, and a portion of the bullet remained in the wound.” In June, newspapers were reporting that “a delicate operation” would be needed to “relieve an aneurysm” before he could recover
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10 Mar 1911, Fri • Page |
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| The Spokesman Review (Spokane, Washington) Sunday April 2, 1911, page 6 |
Cpl. Boyd appears to have suffered for six months before dying in an Army hospital in Spokane, Washington on November 14, 1911. His remains were transferred back to Baxter Springs, where they were buried in the Baxter Springs City Cemetery - Soldiers lot, a separate part of the cemetery that is operated by the US Department of Veterans Affairs as a national cemetery.
The Cherokee County Republican newspaper in Baxter Springs erroneously reported that Joseph Boyd had died in Kansas City.
Tragically, during Joseph O. Boyd’s illness, and about a month before he died, his father Abe Boyd had to suffer the loss of another wife On October 9, 1911, Mira died after their brief marriage. She was buried in the Baxter Springs cemetery.
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12 Oct 1911, Thu • Page 8 |
And then, Abe Boyd’s string of terrible fortune continued. In August of 1912, his team of horses died - robbing him of his primary source of income. The newspaper account said that, “This is a great loss to Abe, who made a living by teaming, and now he is down and out, afoot and quite lonely. Abe has the sympathy of his many friends.”
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Cherokee County Republican Baxter Springs, Kansas 01 Aug 1912, Thu • Page 1 |
However, Abe Boyd appears to have been an eternal optimist - at least when it came to love. Two years later, 76-year-old Abe Boyd married again - for the fifth and final time. On March 19, 1914, the local newspapers reported on his marriage to Susan Crutcher Hurt, a 74-year-old widow who had emigrated to the area from Maury County, Tennessee - just south of Williamson County.
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Baxter Springs, Kansas19 Mar 1914, Thu • Page 4 |
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Baxter Springs, Kansas10 May 1917, Thu • Page 2 |
Abe Boyd appears to have been a much beloved member of the Baxter Springs community. On May 10, 1917, the 79-year-old early settler of the frontier town was interviewed by the local newspaper - reminiscing about what Baxter Springs had been like 50 years earlier.
Death at 80 Years Old.
One year later, on August 26, 1918, 80-year-old Abe Boyd died at his home in Baxter Springs, Kansas. He had lived an extraordinary and rich life. The local newspaper described him as "one of the eldest and earliest residents of Baxter Springs."
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Baxter Springs, Kansas 30 Aug 1918, Fri • Page 8 |
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Burial in the Baxter Springs City Cemetery. Sgt. Boyd was buried in the Baxter Springs Cemetery - Soldiers' Lot. The same National Cemetery where his son Joseph O. Boyd had been buried a few years earlier. Nearby in the main Baxter Springs City Cemetery, at the time of his death, were the graves of two of his wives, Maria McLemore Boyd and Rebecca Mariah "Mira" Boyd. In 1921, his granddaughter Ellen Boyd was buried in the Baxter Springs Cemetery. In 1969, his grandson Otto Augusta Boyd, a World War II veteran, was buried in the Soldier's Lot in the Baxter Springs Cemetery - joining Abe and his uncle Joseph O. Boyd. In 1990, Abe's stepgrandson Marion Norman Davis, a World War II veteran, died and was also buried in the Baxter Springs' Soldiers Lot. In 1993, Otto Boyd's brother Carl Philander Boyd Sr. was buried in the Baxter Springs City Cemetery.
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| Sgt. Abe Boyd's headstone in the Baxter Springs City Cemetery's Soldiers' Lot |
Abe Boyd’s Legacy
Abe Boyd was survived by his wife Susan Crutcher Boyd, son James William Boyd and James’ three sons, 18-year-old Charles Sumner Boyd, 16-year-old Otto Augusta Boyd, and 11-year-old Carl Philander Boyd. He was also survived by Joseph O. Boyd’s two children, 13-year-old Ellen and 12-year-old Chester.
James William Boyd Family.
Abe’s son James had divorced his wife Pearl Pointer around 1915 and married Cora McClaren (McLemore?). He followed in his father’s footsteps and worked as a teamster in Baxter Springs. In 1920, James and Cora were living at 326 Lincoln Avenue there. I suspect they were living in Abe’s former home. James and Cora raised Cora’s son Marion together at their home at 331 Lincoln Avenue in Baxter Springs. In 1940, James Wiliam Boyd died at the age of 61 and is buried in the Baxter Springs Cemetery. Soon after, his step-son Marion served in the US Army during World War II. When he died, he was buried in the Soldiers Lot of the Baxter Springs Cemetery, along with Abe Boyd, his step-grandfather and his step-uncle Joseph Boyd.
Meanwhile, soon after their divorce, James’ ex-wife Pearl had remarried and moved to Omaha, Nebraska with their three sons
Charles Sumner Boyd (Abe’s grandson) worked as a packer at a meat plant in Omaha, Nebraska. During World War II he worked in a munitions plant there. Around 1948 he moved to Los Angeles, California and died there in 1959. He is buried there.
Otto Augusta Boyd (Abe’s grandson) worked as a meat packer in Omaha, Nebraska in his teens and then moved to Sioux City, Iowa where he continued that work. In the 1930s, he took a strong role in working to unionize the Cudahy Packing Company in Sioux City. When he was fired for his involvement, the National Labor Relations Board took up the case and Boyd and several other men were given their jobs back with backpay. Around 1942, he moved back to Baxter Springs where he lived some of the time with his aging mother. Otto was married to a woman from Joplin, Missouri and he appears to have traveled back and forth between Baxter Springs and Joplin, where he worked for a car dealership. Otto died in 1969 and is buried in the Soldier’s Lot of the Baxter Springs Cemetery, near his grandfather.
Carl Philander Boyd Sr. (Abe’s grandson) moved as a teenager to Omaha, Nebraska with his older brothers and mother. He appears to have moved back to Baxter Springs, by the mid-1920s where he fathered a son, Carl P. Boyd Jr. with a local woman named Marguerite Norman. Marguerite’s parents were William Norman and Jennie Hurt (the daughter of Abe Boyd’s last wife Susan Hurt from Maury County, TN). Carl P. Boyd Sr. appears to have raised his son with the help of his mother. The three lived together while he worked as a repairman for a furniture store. In the 1930s he married a woman named Ester. The couple lived on Lincoln Avenue. They lived next to Carl’s stepmother Cora and her son Marion Davis. Carl Sr. worked for Jayhawk Ordnance Works in Baxter Springs and was an active member of the Masons. He died in 1993 at the age of 87 and is buried in the Baxter Springs Cemetery.
Carl P. Boyd Jr. (great grandson) lived as a young child with his father and grandmother in Baxter Springs, Kansas. When he was 18 years old, he enlisted in the Air Force at the Tuskegee Air Fields in Tuskegee, Alabama in January 1946. He was attending the Tuskegee Institute and a soldier in the US Army two years later when he married Mary Lee Stubbs there. In 1957, he and Mary Lee divorced and Carl Boyd Jr returned to Baxter Springs and he lived with his uncle Otto Boyd, also a World War II veteran. Soon after he married his wife Emma and the couple had several children including twin girls Karen and Sharon, and a son Carl P. Boyd III.
Carl P. Boyd III. (great-great grandson) graduated from Baxter Springs High School and Fort Scott Community College. He pursued a career in law enforcement and served the City of Weir, KS as Chief of Police. He died in 2015 following a brief illness. He was buried in the Baxter Springs Cemetery.
Family of Joseph O. Boyd.
Following the death of Abe’s son Joseph O. Boyd in Tacoma, Washington, his widow Lula moved back to Baxter Springs with their two young children Ellen and Chester.
Ellen Boyd (granddaughter) appears to have been born with a disability. In the 1920 Census, when she was 15 years old and living with her recently widowed mother, the Census taker noted that she had been “an invalid all her life.” Sadly, she died in 1921. She was buried in the Baxter Springs Cemetery.
Chester Lorenzo Boyd, Sr. (grandson) was just five years old when his father died. Following his return to Baxter Springs with his widowed mother and sister, he became an exceptional student at the segregated public Douglass School that he attended. Frequently, the newspaper reported on his academic accomplishments. When he was about 21 years old he married Helen Marie Petersen and the couple had two sons, Chester L. Boyd Jr, and Robert Johnson Boyd. Chester Boyd supported his family by working in a furniture store. They lived with Chester’s mother Lula Boyd at the family home at 327 Lincoln Avenue in Baxter Springs. In the early 1930s, Chester moved his family and his mother to Kansas City, Missouri. Chester worked as a custodian at the US Post Office. He served in the US Army during World War II. Later in life he lived in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. He died in 1997 at the age of and was buried in the Leavenworth, Kansas National Cemetery.
Chester L. Boyd Jr. (great-grandson) took after his father and was also a strong student. He attended the University of Kansas and received his master’s degree at American University.
Robert Johnson Boyd (great-grandson) was likewise a strong student. When he graduated from Lincoln High School in Kansas City he was voted “Smartest Boy.” He served in the US Army during the Korean War and was a Chaplain for the City of Detroit.
All of these descendants can trace their roots directly to Williamson County, Tennessee. Their lives are a testament to the strength and resourcefulness of Abram Boyd and credit to him. It was a true privilege to share their stories.
