Peggy Smith-Hake's
"Window to the Past"
Note from Peggy:
Greenville & Jane (Freeman) Boyd were my great, great grandparents. I have heard my grandmother, Sarah Eliza Boyd-Smith, speak of her grandparents whom she could remember while a child. She remembered that Greenville owned race horses and ran them in races many Sunday afternoons as she grew up in Miller County.
Note from Peggy:
Ruth Eles Clark and James Boyd, of Greenup Co, Kentucky, were my gr, gr, gr grandparents who came to Miller County in the 1830s and settled in Osage township south of St. Elizabeth. Until 2 years ago (2012) I lived on original Boyd/Clark land in Osage township at our farm south of St. Elizabeth. The farm has since passed on to my stepson, Donald Hake, who is also a descendant of the Boyd family.
Wickham Cemetery
UPDATE (July, 2014):
The grave of Ruth (Clark) Boyd Mills has been discovered in Wickham Cemetery as Peggy Hake had surmised.
A fairly new stone (was anonymously donated) marks the spot where this ancestral pioneer grandmother of Peggy Smith Hake now lies peacefully in death....
Ruth Clark Boyd-James Boyd: Pioneers of Miller County, Mo.
(Printed in THE MILLER COUNTY AUTOGRAM-SENTINEL in the column, 'WINDOW TO THE PAST', Nov. 28, 2002)
​​(printed in THE MILLER COUNTY AUTOGRAM-SENTINEL in the column, 'WINDOW TO THE PAST', February,2012)
​​​Ruth Clark Boyd was my great, great, great grandmother who came to Miller County in the 1830s from Greenup County, Kentucky. She was the wife of James Boyd who was also from Greenup County. James was a son of Phillip and Sarah Boyd of Eastern Kentucky.
I have been to Greenup County, Kentucky on two occasions to do research and was able to find some interesting information concerning my ancestors.
When Ruth and James Boyd came to Miller County, they settled in Osage township, south of today’s St. Elizabeth. Ruth was a sister to John Patterson Clark (also known as ‘Hoppin’ Clark). John and his wife, Elizabeth/Betsy (Farmber) Clark also came to Miller County from Greenup Co., KY about the same time as the Boyd family and all settled near one another in Osage township.
Elizabeth/Betsy (Farmber) Clark is reputed to have been a Cherokee Indian woman and some delightful, colorful stories have been told about her and old 'Hoppin' Clark. Old 'Hoppin' supposedly bought Betsy from her tribe and brought her to Miller County and the stories just keep on being told of their escapades !!!!!
From research conducted in Greenup County, I believe the parents of Ruth (Clark) Boyd and John P. Clark were John Sr. and Susannah Clark. After the death of John Sr. (in Kentucky), Susannah married Robert Boyd, a brother to James Boyd and they are the ones who came to Miller County with Ruth and James Boyd. If this is all true, then Susannah would have been the mother of Ruth and also her sister-in-law - - I'd better stop while I am still ahead of this story !!!!!!
​Ruth Clark Boyd and her husband, James, were parents of several children including:
​1. Sarah Boyd b. 1830 KY m. Dr. Charles O. Curtman 1852
(she died as a young woman at the birth of her third child)
2. Susannah Boyd b. 1831 KY m. Thomas Hampton 1853
3. Lydia Boyd b. 1833 MO m. Thomas Goff 1859
4. Greenville Boyd b. 1836 MO m. Jane Freeman 1856
5. Robert Boyd b. 1838 MO m. Martha Jane Clark 1860
(Robt. died when he was about 25 years old)
6. Rhoda Boyd b. 1840 MO (no record after 1850)
7. Sidney Boyd b. 1844 MO (no record after 1860)
8. James Boyd Jr. b. 1847 MO (no record after 1870)
James Boyd husband of Ruth, died in Miller County in the late 1850s and in 1862, widow Ruth Boyd married Thomas Mills. He owned quite a large amount of land in the Old Capps area of Osage township.
In the Miller County Associate Probate Court are estate records for Ruth Clark-Boyd-Mills including her will and other legal instruments. She died in April 1869 and shortly before her death, she made out her last will and testament naming her son, Greenville, as her only heir.
She had two daughters living at the time (Lydia and Susannah), but apparently, for some unknown reason, she cut them out of her will...... I am sure there is a story within a story of this situation, but at the present time, one can only speculate.
​It is believed that Ruth Clark-Boyd-Mills is buried at an old family cemetery in Osage township. Today it is known as the Wickham Cemetery, located on land once owned by the late Floyd & Edith (Wickham) Johnson. There is no tombstone to mark Ruth’s grave, so it is only family legend that she is buried there.
There are many unanswered questions concerning our ancestors, and I suppose it is just as well that we do not always know the real stories because time takes care of many family secrets, feuds, misunderstandings, etc...................