Mossom Boyd

Boyd, Mossom

Mossom Boyd, lumberman (b in India 1814; d at Bobcaygeon, Ont 23 July 1883). A member of the Anglo-Irish gentry, Mossom Boyd emigrated to the Sturgeon Lk area of Upper Canada in 1834. He became assistant to Thomas Need, owner of the Bobcaygeon sawmill and took over the mill when Need returned to England in 1843. Boyd quickly developed it into a multifaceted lumbering enterprise with sawn-lumber sales in Albany, NY, local retail outlets in the Kawartha region and timber sales in Great Britain. By the 1870s Boyd's enterprise was among the largest in the region.

An enthusiastic promoter of local economic development, Boyd was a constant proponent for the Trent Valley canal. After his death in 1883 the family business was run by Mossom Martin Boyd (b at Bobcaygeon, Ont 19 Jan 1855; d at Philadelphia, Pa 8 Jun 1914), who extended its operations to Québec and Vancouver Island as well as moving into steamboating, stock raising and railway development. Mossom Martin Boyd is included in the Agricultural Hall of Fame for his work in developing the N American strain of polled Hereford beef cattle.