Boyd, Thomas Jefferson, 1804-1893

Thomas Jefferson Boyd was born on June 15, 1804, in Albemarle County, Va. He received a law degree from the University of Virginia in July 1828 and practiced law briefly in Charlottesville, then in Wytheville, Va. He married Minerva French in 1833 with whom he would have ten children. Both their eldest child, David French Boyd (1834-1899), and their ninth child, Thomas Duckett Boyd (1854-1932), served as presidents of Louisiana State University. Thomas Jefferson Boyd became a trustee of the town of Wytheville in 1839, a position he would hold for over fifty years. He also was elected to a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates for two terms as a Democrat beginning in 1848, and in 1853 was elected as a commissioner to the Virginia Board of Public Works for the Southern District. Boyd later built and managed the Hotel Boyd, an inn located at the Wytheville Train Depot, and served as the quartermaster of the depot for the Confederate Army at nearby Dublin, Va. He died February 16, 1893.