Bureau County IL Archives Biographies.....Boyden, Albert W.
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Virginia Perry vperry@midwest.net January 1999

Biography for Albert W. Boyden, Bureau County, Illinois

Albert W. Boyden, Sheffield, son of Dr. Wyatt and Elizabeth Woodbury 
Boyden, was born in Beverly, Mass., May 24, 1833.  His father was a 
practicing physician of Beverly, and intended his son should be a 
farmer, consequently, when old enough, he was placed on a farm during 
the summer seasons, and was also employed in a band for some time, and 
there was taught lessons which have been valuable to him in his business 
career.  In September, 1853, Mr. Boyden came West. clerking a while in 
Chicago, and for the Stevens firm in Tiskilwa, and then settled on his 
farm north of Sheffield.  Not being suited with farming, he removed to 
Sheffield in the fall of 1858, when for two years he was Deputy Sheriff 
of Bureau County under Sheriff David E. Norton.  His name was then 
announced to the Bureau County Republican Convention as a candidate for 
the office of Sheriff, when, fortunately he did not secure the 
nomination.  After clerking three years for Scott and Boyden he bought 
the interest of Mr. Porter, and the firm was changed to Scott & Boyden.  
In 1870 Mr. Boyden sold to Scott & Co., and engaged in business with Mr. 
H. C. Porter, and banking was added to their mercantile business.  Mr. 
Porter died in October, 1875, and January 1, 1876, the firm was changed 
to Boyden & Dewey. (See sketch of B. F. Dewey.)  Since Mr. Porter's 
death Mr. Boyden had been Secretary and Treasurer of the Sheffield 
Mining Company.  He is also engaged in mercantile, limber and grain 
business in Mineral (W.W. Dewey & Co.), and in mercantile business at 
Sioux Rapids, Iowa (F. D. White & Co.,), and is pre-eminently one of the 
successful business men of Bureau County.  In politics he is Republican, 
and an active member of the Congregational Church.  In 1884 he was 
nominated by the Republican Convention of the Twenty-fifth District one 
of the candidates for Representive to the State Legislature, and elected 
the November following.  Mr. Boyden married, April 2, 1856, Ellen R. 
Webb, (born in Skowbegan, Maine, April 18, 1837.) daughter of Joseph B. 
and Martha (Weston) Webb, who came to this country in 1851.  They have 
the following children: George W. Boyden, born January 3, 1858, now a 
member of the firm of Boyden & Dewey, married in Rock Island, Ill., June 
28, 1881, Ella Wiser, and they have Albert W. Boyden second;  William C. 
Boyden, April 6, 1864, in Junior Class Harvard College; Mattie F. 
Boyden, July 21, 1866; Charles W. Boyden, July 31, 1872; Albert A. 
Boyden, April 10, 1875.

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