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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Lonoke County, Arkansas published by Goodspeed Publishing Company in 1889.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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Henry L. Boyd owes his nativity to Christian County, Ky., where he was born in 1841, being a son of Moses and Lettie L. (Barkley) Boyd, natives of North Carolina, who moved to Kentucky in 1836, and in 1859 to Arkansas, locating in Brownsville, then the county seat of Prairie County. There they lived until their death. Henry L. Boyd’s maternal grandfather served in the War of 1812, and was of Irish descent. He died in 1869, at the age of ninety-two. Moses Boyd was the father of fourteen children, nine of whom lived to maturity, and of these six are still living. Six of the sons served in the late war. Henry L. enlisted in the Confederate army, in 1861, in Company C, of the Second Arkansas Mounted Riflemen, and remained in service until the close of the war, receiving a wound through the neck, in the battle of Murfreesboro, by a ball entering below the throat and coming out at the back of the neck. He was taken to North Carolina, where, after being treated, he again joined his regiment as soon as he was able to do so. At the battle of Franklin he was knocked down by the explosion of a shell, though not injured. Mr. Boyd was in some of the most prominent battles of the war. He was paroled at Greenville, N. C., soon after the battle of Richmond, following which he returned to Brownsville, Ark., where he engaged in farming, and afterward in clerking in a general store, for several years. In 1868 he moved to a farm near Carlisle, and in 1882 settled upon the farm on which he still resides. Mr. Boyd was first married to Elizabeth J. Dedmon, who died October 26, 1868, leaving one child, Bobbie Lee. He was subsequently married to his present wife, Mrs. Laura S. Perceful (nee Gray), who was born in North Carolina, her parents moving to Arkansas when she was two years old. Her father died in 1866. Mr. and Mrs. Boyd are the parents of three children: Richie L., Laura L. and Susie B. Mrs. Boyd is a member of the Presbyterian Church, to which Mr. Boyd’s father also belonged, having acted as an elder when only eighteen years old.

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This family biography is one of 143 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Lonoke County, Arkansas published in 1889.  For the complete description, click here: Lonoke County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

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