David French Boyd (1834 - 1899)

Born 4 Oct 1834 in Wytheville, Wythe, Virginia, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Esther Gertrude (Wright) Boyd — married 4 Oct 1865 in Rapides, Louisiana, United States

Died 27 May 1899 at age 64 in Baton Rouge, East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States

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Biography

David Boyd is Notable.

From the summary of a biography of David Boyd: ^[1]

David Boyd's biography is the story of one man's dedicated struggle to protect and preserve Louisiana's fledgling state university from the cumulative effects of war, Reconstruction, political hostility, and parochial greed. Boyd fought hard to promote his vision of higher education among a largely antagonistic or apathetic citizenry. Clearly those who governed the university in more prosperous days owed much of their success to the devotion and self-sacrifice of this heroic figure.

Edited from Wikipedia:

David French Boyd (October 5, 1834 – May 27, 1899) was an American teacher and educational administrator. He served as the first head of Louisiana State University (LSU), where he was a professor of mathematics and moral philosophy. He was also briefly the president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama (now Auburn University).

Boyd, the eldest son of Thomas J. Boyd, a wealthy lawyer and railroad promoter, was born in Wytheville, Virginia. He studied at the University of Virginia and migrated to Louisiana in 1860 to join the faculty of the newly created Louisiana State Seminary of Learning in Pineville in Central Louisiana. There, he became a close friend of the institution's superintendent, William Tecumseh Sherman^[2], who on the eve of the American Civil War famously warned Boyd, an enthusiastic secessionist, of the South's folly in pursuing a war with the North which it could not possibly win.

After the war in 1865, Boyd returned to the Seminary as superintendent and later wrote the charter that transformed the institution into Louisiana State University, based in Baton Rouge, under the terms of the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act. He left the University but returned and became president of LSU in 1884. During his hiatus, he served a year as the president of Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama.

He died in 1899, and is buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Baton Rouge.

Sources

1. ↑ Reed, Germaine M., David French Boyd, founder of Louisiana State University (Southern biography series). 1977.
2. ↑ David F. Boyd Papers, William T. Sherman Letters, Inventory. LSU Special Collections Letters consist of William T. Sherman’s original letters (1861, 1867-1886, 1890), typescripts (1861-1886, 1890-1891), and transcriptions of Sherman’s letters handwritten by David F. Boyd (1859-1864, 1875). Letters prior to the Civil War (Boyd’s transcriptions, no originals) pertain to Sherman's role as superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary and Military Academy and his views on the political conflict between the North and South (1859-1861). Letters by Gen. William T. Sherman to David F. Boyd, written primarily during Reconstruction, pertain to voting fraud in Louisiana, African American civil rights and suffrage, activities of the Ku Klux Klan, the election of 1876, the jetty system in New Orleans, LSU, and local, state, and national political issues. Letters offer advice to Boyd, reminisce about past events, and reflect Sherman's efforts to secure a post for Boyd at the Military Academy at Cairo, Egypt.

• David F. Boyd manuscripts, Walter L. Fleming collection, Louisiana State University, https://www.lib.lsu.edu/sites/default/files/sc/findaid/0890m.pdf

• Fleming, Walter L. (Married David F Boyd's daughter). Louisiana State University 1860 - 1896. LSU Press, 1936. At Hathi Trust

• David French Boyd at LSU Digital Library Search Results

• Photo collection, first faculty members of LSU in 1860 https://louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/lsu-ua-uap%3A325

• "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M8DB-5YD : 12 April 2016), David F Boyd in household of Thomas J Boyd, Wythe county, Wythe, Virginia, United States; citing family 3, NARA microfilm publication M432 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

• "Louisiana Marriages, 1816-1906," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F4ZM-XNG : 10 February 2018), David F. Boyd and Esther Gertrude Wright, 05 Oct 1865; citing reference ; FHL microfilm 1,316,050.

• "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MD6L-2RS : 7 September 2017), David F Boyd, 1880; citing enumeration district ED 103, sheet 331C, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d), roll 0452; FHL microfilm 1,254,452.

• Find A Grave: Memorial #7362165