The tercentenary of the 1718 migration from Ulster

Hundreds of people from the North of Ireland travelled to America, often in groups together. Some of the leaders are featured in the DIB. Read the entry on William Boyd, who arrived in Boston in late July 1718, by Dr Linde Lunney, below.

Boyd, William (1685–1772), presbyterian minister, was born in 1685; it is possible but not certain that his father was the Rev. Thomas Boyd (d. c.1699), minister (1660–99) of Aghadowey, Co. Londonderry, who was one of the ministers ejected for non-conformity in 1661 and survived the siege of Derry in 1689. His successor in Aghadowey was James McGregor (qv). William Boyd graduated from the university of Edinburgh in 1702, and read divinity at Glasgow; he was licensed by the presbytery of Route in 1707 and ordained 31 January 1710 as presbyterian minister of Macosquin, Co. Londonderry. 

In March 1718 Boyd was sent by over 300 petitioners from the Bann valley to bear their petition to Samuel Shute, colonial governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire; discontented in Ireland, they sought Shute's backing for a planned emigration. Boyd arrived in Boston in late July 1718, and the main parties of emigrants, who had not awaited an outcome of the petition, arrived in August before any land had been allocated, though Boyd had been favourably received. Boyd remained for some months in Boston, becoming well known as a preacher, and impressing the prominent ministers Cotton and Increase Mather. An altercation in a Boston bookshop (February 1719) with a man who had accused Boyd of sexual misconduct with a maidservant in an inn did not affect Boyd's reputation; his antagonist was subsequently fined £20. 7s. 0d. After giving his farewell sermon, Boyd was asked to dine with the governor, Cotton Mather, James McGregor, and the Rev. James Woodside, who had ordained him in Macosquin. (It is possible that William Boyd was related to Archibald Boyd of Maghera, Co. Londonderry, who is known to have been a minister in America with McGregor, and to Adam Boyd of Co. Antrim, who was ordained in America in 1724.) 

Boyd did not remain in America; he returned to Macosquin, and in 1725 accepted a call to Monreagh in Donegal, where he was installed 25 April 1725. Problems arose when his predecessor, without the permission of presbytery, returned to the area; he attracted many of his former hearers to his services in a disused cornkiln in St Johnstown, and despite presbytery's support for Boyd, the congregation acrimoniously split between the ministers, and Boyd's stipend was considerably reduced. He was selected as moderator of synod in 1730; his final sermon as moderator was printed, and reveals his strong support for the orthodox position against the non-subscribers, who had been grouped in their own presbytery since 1725. He held, in opposition to John Abernethy (qv), that the human conscience is subservient to the law of God as expressed in the scriptures and interpreted by the church. Boyd was one of ten ministers given the task in 1747 of drawing up a ‘Serious warning’ against unorthodox doctrines ‘creeping into our bounds’. 

He lived till 2 May 1772, in poor health for the last years of his life, and was buried in Taughboyne. He was survived by some of his children; no details of them or of his wife are known.