Boyd, Linn

Born: 1800-11-22 Nashville, Tennessee

Died: 1859-12-17 Paducah, Kentucky

Linn Boyd was a state legislator, U.S. representative, and speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Boyd pursued preparatory studies in his native Tennessee. He moved with his parents to Trigg County, Kentucky. He worked in agricultural pursuits in Calloway County. Boyd won election to the Kentucky House of Representatives, serving from 1827 to 1832. He married Alice C. Bennett in 1832. Boyd returned to Trigg County in 1834. He won election, as a Jacksonian, to the House of Representatives, serving from 1835 to 1837. Boyd was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1836. In 1839, he returned to the House of Representatives as a Democrat, serving from 1839 to 1855. He gained prominence through his work on behalf of the Compromise of 1850, and he was speaker of the House from 1851 to 1855. In 1850, he married Anna L Dixon. Boyd moved to Paducah, Kentucky, in 1852, and built Oaklands, a spacious manion. He won election as lieutenant governor of Kentucky in 1859, but when it came time to assume the office he was too ill to perform his duties.

Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 694; John E. L. Robertson, "Boyd, Linn," The Kentucky Encyclopedia, ed. by John E. Kleber (Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 108; Gravestone, Oak Grove Cemetery, Paducah, KY.