Boyd, Amos Preston
1/1/1944
July 17, 1879 - 1944 |
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| Amos Preston Boyd was born in Booth Bay,. Maine, on July 17, 1879. He was the son of Angeline and Amos Boyd. His parents were South Carolinians and he spent much of his life in the South, preferring the climate here to the cold of the far North where he was born. His father was a sea captain and wished his sons also to follow the sea. Not wishing to pursue such a life young Boyd left home at the early age of twelve going to the city of Boston where he could find employment. Here he lived in the home of earnest Christian people who exerted a good influence upon his life. At the age of seventeen he made a public profession of his faith in Christ and declared his purpose to enter the ministry. To prepare himself for his chosen work, he went to New York City to attend an academy, where he also did missionary work. Later he completed his preparatory schooling at a school known as Berea in Cleveland, Ohio. He then attended Baldwin-Wallace College in Cleveland, from which he received the Ph. B. degree. Later in life, he pursued a course of study in Temple Bar College of Seattle, Washington, and received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from that institution on Feb. 11, 1941. Bro. Boyd began his ministry in the Baptist Church while he was a student in Cleveland and developed a mission Sunday school into a church of that denomination. In 1905 he was received into the traveling connection of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as a minister from the Baptist Church, by the Oregon Conference. The record of the charges that he served shows that he labored in Oregon, in Atlanta, Ga., in the Holston Conference, in Vermont and in New Hampshire. For almost sixteen years he was Chaplain at the United States Marine Hospital at Carville, La. During this time he was a member of the New Hampshire Conference. On Dec. 1, 1941, he severed his connection with the leprosarium at Carville. Early in 1942 the pastorate at Plaquemine became vacant and Bro. Boyd went there as supply pastor. At the November session of the Louisiana Conference in 1942 he was transferred to this Conference and returned to Plaquemine for a second year. At the 1943 session of the Louisiana Conference he was assigned to Kentwood. Soon after going there to take charge of the Methodist Church, he suffered .a heart attack and had to go to a Baton Rouge Hospital. He returned to Kentwood, hoping again to take up his work, but found this to be im-possible and gave up his work there on January 15, 1944. His condition grew gradually worse. Kind ministrations of his wife and loved ones could not restore his health. After much suffering and great distress he passed away on March 6,1944. He was firm in his faith and in his confidence in God to the last. The writer visited him frequently during his last illness and was often assured by him of his faith in God and of his preparation for the home going which he knew would soon come. He was tenderly laid away in the Roselawn cemetery in Baton Rouge. Bro. Boyd was married three times. Of the first marriage little is known. While moving from Oregon to Atlanta he was in a train wreck and received serious injuries himself. His wife and small son were killed in this accident. Some years after this he was married to Miss Elizabeth Scott of Knoxville, Tenn. They lived together for some eighteen years when she passed away. On April 16, 1933, he was married to Miss Lillie Wileman of Baton Rouge, who survives him. Of this union were born Joanne, ten years of age, and Preston, three years of age. Both these survive him. His greatest work was perhaps done at Carville at the Marine Hospital there. Of his work there Mrs. Boyd writes, “He grew to love the patients there, and, although it had been a great sacrifice for him to go there, it was a greater sacrifice, or hardship, when he left the leprosarium. From that time till his death, he never forgot his friends at Carville for a moment, and they had a great love and respect for him. On his few visits back there, they were overwhelmingly glad to see him. Bro.Boyd looked forward to pleasant associations with the brethren of the Louisiana Conference, but this fellowship was cut short all too soon after he became a member here. He loved the Methodist Church and its teachings and labored diligently at Plaquemine to build up the church there. His faith in God was abiding to the end. His wanderings and labors have come to an end and he has gone to the rest that awaits those who seek to do the work of God here in this world. |
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| Source: Journal of the Louisiana Conference of the Methodist Church, Pages 89, 1940 by W. L. Doss, Jr. | |
