Boyd family

The Boyd family, in Canada, originated with Mossom Boyd who was born in India in 1814 and died at Bobcaygeon, Ontario July 23, 1883. He was a member of the Anglo-Irish gentry and emigrated to the Sturgeon Lake region of Upper Canada in 1834. In 1844 Mossom married Caroline Dunsford. He became assistant to Thomas Need, owner of the Bobcaygeon sawmill and he eventually took over the mill when Thomas Need returned to England in 1843. Mossom was able to develop the mill into a large lumbering enterprise with land holdings and timber rights in Albany, New York; Bobcaygeon, Peterborough, Prince Albert in Saskatchewan, 20 000 acres around Cowichan Lake in British Columbia and 260 square miles in Quebec. By the 1870's he had the largest enterprise in the region. After his death the business was run by his son, Mossom Rater Boyd, who extended the business into Quebec and Vancouver as well as moving into steamboating, stock raising and railway development. (Taken from: "The Canadian Encyclopedia." Vol. I A-For. Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1985.) The Boyd enterprises not only included lumbering but also breeding polled Hereford cattle and cross-breeding cattle and buffalo. The Boyds were involved with the Lindsay, Bobcaygeon and Pontypool Railroad and the Trent Valley Navigation Steamship Company. This diversification helped the Boyd's through the lumber depression of the 1890's. Mossom Martin and his half-brother William Thornton Cust Boyd were active partners along with their cousin John MacDonald of Albany, New York in the firm of Boyd & Company. When Mossie died in 1914, the next generation became involved in the administration of the various estates and gradually disbanded the huge operation. The third generation of Boyds tended to have their own interests and professions although all were involved intermittently with the lumbering and stock farm concerns. Please see the end of the finding aid for the Boyd family genealogy.