Part of the Indiana Biographies Project
Samuel S. Boyd
Samuel S. Boyd, physician and surgeon, was born near Jacksonburg, Wayne Co., Ind., March 31, 1820, eldest son of John Boyd and grandson of Samuel Boyd, who was born in South Carolina in 1763, and was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, where he lost his left eye in a skirmish with the Tories. He was married Dec. 12, 1785, to Isabella Higgins, and in 1811 moved to Whitewater Valley, Ind., where he entered a quarter-section of land, remaining there till his death, Nov. 17, 1835. He became converted in 1801, during the Kane revival of Kentucky, after which he devoted the greater part of his life to the ministry. His wife died at the age of eighty-eight years. They reared ten children to maturity.
John Boyd, our subject's father, was married in 1819 to Susan Scott, a native of Bourbon County, Ky. They were the parents of thirteen children, three of whom died in the late war; nine of the family still survive. John Boyd died in 1872, and his wife's death occurred in 1878. Samuel S. Boyd, whose, name heads this sketch, remained on the farm till attaining his majority, after which he taught three terms in a district school. He then, in partnership with his brother-in-law, Joel Hipes, built a grist and saw mill, which he left in 1846 on account of failing health, during which time, in 1844, he was married to Monimia Bunnel.
In 1846 he began the study of medicine with his father-in-law, William W. Bunnel, in Washington, Ind. He took two courses of lectures at the Ohio Medical College of Cincinnati, and graduated in the spring of 1849. He then followed his profession in Jacksonburg, this county, until 1861, when his wife died, and he removed to Centreville, remaining there seven months. He entered the army as Surgeon of the Eighty-fourth Indiana Infantry, serving two years and seven months, or until the close of the war. During the last year he served he was on duty in No. 1 Hospital at Chattanooga, a part of the time having charge of the hospital.
After the war he located in Dublin, Wayne County, where he has since been actively engaged in the practice of his profession. He was married to his present wife, Miss Louise E. Vickroy, of Pennsylvania, Sept. 5, 1865. They have no children, but he is the father of three children by his first wife — Lawson A., living at Paris, Ky., superintendent of transportation for the Central Railroad, of Kentucky; Horace B., a physician of Cambridge City, and Julia M., wife of Dr. C. S. Bond, of Richmond, Ind. Dr. Boyd is a great advocate of temperance.
Source:
History of Wayne County, Indiana. Chicago: Inter-State Publishing Co. 1884. Volume 2