Joseph Hopson Boyd (1861 - 1927)

Born 27 Jul 1861 in Hall County, Georgia

Ancestors

Husband of Nancy Letitia (Gunnin) Boyd — married 30 Dec 1879 in Franklin County, Georgia

Descendants

Died 11 Jul 1927 at age 65 in Hall County, Georgia

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Biography

Joe was the son of Wiley Boyd and Frances Chapman and named for his his grandfathers Joseph Chapman and Hopson Boyd.

When Joe was one year old, his father died from an illness and his grandfather Chapman served as his guardian. His mother remarried when Joe was 4 years old to a recent Civil War lieutenant, Dock Suddath. He grew up farming his step-father's land just north of Gillsville.

Joe was 18 when on 30 December 1879 in Franklin County, Georgia, he married a local country schoolteacher, Tishie Gunnin. Their grandson Joseph A Boyd, Jr., who served as Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court, noted that Joe and Tish were better educated than most working people at that time.^[1]

The next year, his grandfather Boyd left him $15 in his will.^[2]

His grandson Justice Boyd also remembered that Tishie inherited a 40 acre farm from her parents near Homer, Georgia which they lived on until about 1900 when financial troubles forced them to seek wage-paying work in cotton mills in Anderson and other South Carolina towns.^[3] About 1906 the couple returned to the Commerce, Jackson County, Georgia before settling on another farm in the fork of the Big and Little Mulberry Rivers south of the road connecting Winder to Hoschton.^[4]

Like his grandfather Chapman, Joe was a preacher who once pastored several churches.^[5] Though he grew up a Missionary Baptist, he later joined his wife as a Primitive Baptist.^[6]

When Joe was a very young boy, his grandmother Chapman had inherited a life interest in a very large estate. As she continued to live a long life, her children (including Joe's mother) grew interested in selling in advance what they would eventually inherit when their mother died. His grandmother Chapman passed away in 1911 at age 85.^[7]

However, Joe had lost his mother 15 years earlier when he was in his early 30s.^[8]

Joe argued that his mother had not actually inherited from his grandmother Chapman because his mother passed away before his grandmother and so whoever had purchased his mother's inheritance from her had paid for something she had no right to sell. Joe contended that he should inherit his proportional share of his deceased mother's proportional share directly from his grandmother. At first Joe was successful at keeping his lawsuit from being dismissed.^[9]

According to Joe's grandson, "When people thought the Boyds were about to become rich they became so popular people who barely knew them invited them to their homes. The Boyds bought a rubber tire surrey with two seats and fine horses. They bought fancy clothing and moved in polite society until the suit was lost.^[10] Then it was back to the cotton fields and painting houses."^[11]

It is not known why he and Tishie are buried in different counties: he at Silver Shoals Baptist Church near Homer in Banks County^[12] and she at Bethabra Baptist Church near Winder in Barrow County.^[13]

Sources

1. ↑ <Joseph Arthur Boyd, Jr., A History of the Boyd Family (Tallahassee, Florida 1981) at page 16
2. ↑ Hall County, Georgia Will Book A 1868-1890: 145-147
3. ↑ <Joseph Arthur Boyd, Jr., A History of the Boyd Family (Tallahassee, Florida 1981) at pages 16-17
4. ↑ <Joseph Arthur Boyd, Jr., A History of the Boyd Family (Tallahassee, Florida 1981) at pages 16-17
5. ↑ <Joseph Arthur Boyd, Jr., A History of the Boyd Family (Tallahassee, Florida 1981) at page 16
6. ↑ <Joseph Arthur Boyd, Jr., A History of the Boyd Family (Tallahassee, Florida 1981) at page 16
7. ↑ Gainesville (Georgia) News, 21 June 1911 at p 2[1]
8. ↑ Gainesville (Georgia) Eagle, 02 April 1896, p 3[2]
9. ↑ 81 Southeastern Reporter 205[3]
10. ↑ 98 Southeastern Reporter 439[4]
11. ↑ <Joseph Arthur Boyd, Jr., A History of the Boyd Family (Tallahassee, Florida 1981) at page 16
12. ↑ Find-A-Grave at [5]
13. ↑ Find-A-Grave at [6]

• Franklin County, Georgia Marriage Records now in the custody of the Franklin County, Georgia Historical Society.
• Joseph Arthur Boyd, Jr., A History of the Boyd Family (Tallahassee, Florida 1981)
• "United States Census, 1870", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MCSF-L9C : 28 May 2021), Joseph H Suddeth in entry for Benj Suddeth, 1870.
• "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M8LB-ZGK : 13 January 2022), Joseph H. Boyd, District 212, Franklin, Georgia, United States; citing enumeration district , sheet , NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), FHL microfilm .
• "Georgia Deaths, 1914-1927", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JDJF-J4W : 23 February 2021), Joseph Hobson Boyd, 1927.