Creator: Boyd, John, 1783-1858.
Collection number: 1096-z
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Abstract: John Boyd was born in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, on 18 February 1783, and died on 30 July 1858 at his plantation, “Oak Grove.” He owned a plantation on Bayou Lettsworth in Pointe Coupee Parish, La., which may or may not have been this “Oak Grove.” He may also have owned property near Donaldsonville, La. One of his daughters, Margaret Bruce, married Col. Henry T. Williams of Montgomery County, Md., and the Williams’s daughter, Clara D., married Lt. Edward D. Seghers of the Confederate Army. The collection is a diary with brief, irregular entries, 1 January to 25 June 1850. Expense accounts and planting records were entered in the book in 1859 and 1866, and additional expense accounts were apparently added in 1870 and 1871. The diary begins with a description of a trip Boyd took in 1850 to New Orleans. Boyd also noted in January of that year that he traveled up the Mississippi River to his plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish and briefly described the condition of his slaves and land. Other entries concern the weather, visits to and from his neighbors, various trips he made by boat, and, in May, descriptions of the water level in a river, possibly the Mississippi, which rose and fell after a series of storms.
Repository: Southern Historical Collection