Samuel Boyd, Esq., P. O., Marshall. Mr. Boyd is a native of Fleming county, Kentucky, where he was born, December 20, 1834, grew to manhood, and received a collegiate education. In 1854 he commenced the study of law in his father’s office; and in 1859 moved with his father to Bloomington, Illinois, and was there admitted to the bar. In the summer of the same year he moved to Marshall, in this county, and being admitted to the Saline county bar by Judge Russell Hicks, soon after his arrival, he at once entered on the practice of his profession. During the canvass of 1859 and ’60 he had editorial charge of the Saline County Standard, which he conducted with marked ability. In the summer of 1861 he went south with Gen. Price’s army, but remained in the army only a short time; then returned to Marshall and resumed his practice, to which his mind has since been wholly devoted. At present he stands at the head of the Saline county bar, and among the foremost attorneys of the bar of central Missouri. As a criminal lawyer he has had no equal in this county for many years, and few, if any superiors in western Missouri. For fifteen years he has held one side or the other of every leading case in the county; and in criminal cases, has been employed in every important case not only in this circuit, but has been employed in Kansas, Nebraska, and north Missouri. As a lawyer he possesses the abilities of a high order—keen, quick to discern the strong points of his own case, and the weak ones of his antagonist, his memory and his sagacity are rarely ever at fault; and his power over a jury consists in the clearness and forcible simplicity with which his arguments are addressed to their intelligence. His father, Wilson P. Boyd, Esq., and his mother, Susan E. (Lacy) Boyd, moved from Flemingsburg to Bloomington, Illinois, in 1857, and there Mr. Boyd practiced law until his death, in 1867. Mrs. Susan E. Boyd, after the death of her husband, moved to Arcola, Illinois, where she resided with her daughters until her death, March 10, 1877. Mr. W. P. Boyd was at one time a member of the state senate of Kentucky, and was appointed by the legislature of Kentucky chairman of the committee to receive Gen. Zachary Taylor at Louisville on his way to be inaugurated president, in 1849. He was a whig until 1858, when he affiliated with the democracy. Mr. Samuel Boyd was married March 12, 1861, to Miss Fannie M. Clarkson, daughter of Dr. E. S. Clarkson, of Saline county, formerly of Kentucky, who died February 10, 1866, leaving three children: Caroline Russell, Wilson Porter and Francis H. Mr. Boyd was again married July 21, 1868, to Miss Marguerite M. Clarkson, sister of his first wife, and to this union have been born five children, two of whom Samuel, Jr., and Isabelle, are living.
