John Boyd (Connecticut politician)

John Boyd (March 17, 1799 – December 1, 1881) was an American politician who served as a Connecticut state legislator and the Secretary of State of Connecticut.

Boyd, son of James and Mary (Munro) Boyd, of the borough of Winsted, in the town of Winchester, Connecticut, was born March 17, 1799. After graduating from Yale College in 1821, he studied law in New Haven, with Staples and Hitchcock, and was admitted to the bar in 1825.

He settled in his native town as an iron manufacturer, retiring from business in 1853, and was also largely occupied with public trusts. He was a representative in the Connecticut General Assembly of the State in 1830 and 1835, and a member of the Connecticut State Senate in 1854. For fifteen years he was Judge of Probate, and for twenty-six years Town Clerk of his native town. He was Secretary of State in 1859, 1860, and 1861.

In 1873 he published the Annals and Family Records of Winchester (octavo, pp. 632), a laborious work.

He was married, in New Haven on May 17, 1831, to Emily W. Beers, daughter of Elias Beers, who died November 25, 1842, at the age of 37, leaving three children, of whom one daughter only survived him. He next married on December 10, 1843, Jerusha Rockwell Hinsdale, a daughter of Solomon Rockwell, and the widow of Theodore Hinsdale, of Winsted, who died March 11, 1875, aged 72 years. He died in West Winsted, in Winchester on December 1, 1881, in at age 82.