Stephen Miller Boyd, Sr.

Information about this photo:

This family photo was taken in the 1920s most probably in the area known as Boyd’s Mill.

The man on the far right is Stephen Miller Boyd, Sr. Sitting behind him is his brother, John Boyd, and to his immediate left is his wife, Ruth Ann Bell Updike Boyd. On Ruth’s left are their daughter-in-law, Mildred Brown Boyd (wife of Stephen Miller Boyd Jr) and their grandson, Godfrey. We do not know the name of the woman sitting on the far left. Ruth was the eldest daughter of Lafayette Updike, an important figure in the history of Browntown. She would die in 1927, just a few years after this photo was taken. Stephen, her husband, would outlive her by nine years and die in 1936. 

This family photo was taken in the 1920s most probably in the area we know as Boyd’s Mill. The man on the far right is Stephen Miller Boyd, Sr. Sitting behind him is his brother, John Boyd, and to his immediate left is his wife, Ruth Ann Bell Updike Boyd. On Ruth’s left is their daughter-in-law, Mildred Brown Boyd (wife of Stephen Miller Boyd Jr.) and their grandson, Godfrey. We do not know the name of the woman sitting on the far left. Ruth was the eldest daughter of Lafayette Updike, an important figure in the history of Browntown. 

This branch of the Boyd family played a very significant role in the history of the Gooney Valley. Stephen Miller Boyd went into the mill business that we know as Boyd’s Mill, located about one mile north of Browntown, with his father, James Wilson Boyd, in the early 1880s. He would take over fully control of the mill in 1900. Stephen and Ruth built a house across the road from Mount Echo, and operated the mill until it failed in 1910. In 1907 Stephen and Ruth Boyd sold to the South River School District, No. 2, a site for a graded school building at Browntown. That school was built by Jacob Masemer and opened in the fall of 1907. It would continue to be used as a school until it closed in 1970 when it became the Browntown Community Center.