The husband of Ruth Ellsworth was Ebenezer Boyd, who based on his reported age in the 1850 census was born about 1798.

Primary sources for Ebenezer’s life are scarce, consisting of four census records, and a mention in the death certificate of one of his daughters. Some of his biographical details occur in secondary genealogical sources.

Ebenezer’s father’s family is listed in the 1910 census, enumerating family members including one the right age to be Ebenezer.

Ebenezer’s father’s family is listed in the 1820 census in South Berwick, Maine and included 1 male between 16-25. Ebenezer would have been about 22 at the time. The ages of people in the household indicate that the younger Ebenezer had two younger brothers (under 10) and five younger sisters (3 under 10, and 2 10-15) and so he was the eldest of 8 siblings.

His name is also listed in the 1830 census in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The ages of people in that earlier census match the known ages of his eldest daughter Sarah and his wife Ruth (with the fourth and final member of the family being a boy under 5 who does not appear in other records, and might be a son who died early).

Note that at least one secondary source has Ebenezer’s marriage to Ruth on September 1833. If correct, that would indicate that Ruth was his second wife, and that the wife in the 1830 census was another woman (and the mother of both the unnamed son and of Sarah). It could also be that the secondary source is wrong about their marriage, and they were married more like 1823. However, two marriages would explain the long gap between the birth of Sarah (1827) and Caroline (1836).

The 1840 census indicates that Ebenezer’s son in the 1830 census was still alive (now listed as between 10 and 14 years of age). It lists one male 40-49 (Ebenezer himself), 2 females under 5 (his daughters Carrie and Fannie were that age), 1 female 10-14 (the age of his daughter Sarah), and one female 30-39 (his wife Ruth).

The 1850 census is the first one with names and other details, and it includes Ebenezer, his wife Ruth, his two younger daughters Carrie and Fannie, and an unrelated laborer living with (and possibly employed by) the family. Sarah had married and appears in a separate household with her husband in 1850. The son recorded in 1830 and 1840 is also not listed, and might have died or moved away. This census records Ebenezer’s birthplace in Massachusetts.

The secondary sources for Ebenezer, as mentioned, provide some more detail. One suggests that he was a fairly recent descendant of a member of the Scottish nobility:

Notes and queries : historical, biographical and genealogical, chiefly relating to interior Pennsylvania, [1st-2d ser., v. 1-2, p. 167. Edited by Wm. H. Egle, 1881. (Ancestry membership required)

“[Dr. Boyd] was the son of Hon. James Boyd, of Boston, and grandson of Hon. Robert Boyd, of Kilmarnock, Scotland, who was the youngest son of William, 9th Lord Boyd and 1st Earl of Kilmarnock and his wife Lady Jean Cunninghame, eldest daughter of William, 9th Earl of Glencairn.”

This account appears to skip a generation, as Dr. Boyd (who married Ruth Ellsworth) was actually the son of another Ebenezer Boyd (1768-1841), a minister, who married Sarah Frazier (1780-1837). This elder Ebenezer Boyd (as “Elder Ebenezer Boyd”) is the head of household in the 1820 census in South Berwick, Maine.

From the elder Ebenezer you can find records that support his father James Boyd, and James’ father Robert Boyd. It is not certain that this Robert Boyd is the same person as the son of William, 9th Lord Boyd, but from that point the line is well-supported back several centuries to many prominent names and families.

Note that The Scots Peerage by Paul James Balfour, p. 174, has this to say about Robert:

Robert. He is claimed as an ancestor by several families, but nothing appears to be known about him. According to one account he was born in Kilmarnock August 1689, baptized there 24 October following, and died November 1762, having married there, 25 October 1714, Margaret Thomson, by whom he had eleven children, one of whom the fourth son, William, is said to have gone to Buchan with James, Lord Boyd, after he succeeded (1758) to the earldom of Erroll, and to have settled as a manufacturer in Turriff, Aberdeenshire. This latter statement is borne out by the registers, as his fourth child, Erroll, is baptized at Kilmarnock 15 September 1761, and the fifth, Janet, at Turriff 3 June 1763. The Kilmarnock registers, however, contain no entry for the birth or baptism of a Robert Boyd in 1689, and the Robert who was married in 1714 is described as a “glover in Kilmarnock,” and no reference is made to his being an Honourable or the son of the Earl.

So based on this information, it’s quite likely this line of descent is incorrect either entirely or in some particular (with the Robert Boyd having some other relationship to the earlier Lords Boyd). The profile on Wikitree plainly states “This connection is fanciful and disproved.”

Nevertheless, the account on this page provides the purported direct line of descent from Scottish royalty and nobility, links names to Wikipedia articles where they exist, and provides brief bios for some other ancestors in the line.

Descent from James IV

James IV, King of Scotland (1473-1513)

+ Margaret Drummond (c. 1475-1501)

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Margaret Stewart (b. 1497), Lady Gordon

m. John Drummond (b. 1486), 2nd of Innerpeffray

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Isabel Drummond (b. 1533)

m. Matthew Campbell (d. 1593)

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Marion (or Margaret) Campbell

m. Thomas Boyd (1547-1611), 6th Lord Boyd

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Robert Boyd (d. 1597)

m. Jean Kerr of Lothian

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James Boyd (1596-1654), 9th Lord Boyd

m. Catherine Crayk (b. 1619)

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William Boyd (1646-1692), 10th Lord Boyd, Earl of Kilmarnock

m. Jean Cunninghame (c. 1645-1692)

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Robert Boyd (1689-1762)

m. Margaret Thomson (b. 1694)

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James Boyd (1732-1798)

m. 1757 Susanna Coffin (1735-1788)

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Rev. Ebenezer Little Boyd (1768-1841)

m. 1796 Sarah Frazier (1780-1837)

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Dr. Ebenezer Little Boyd (c. 1798)

m. 1st ? (d. bef. 1833) ———————————-> son (c. 1820) Sarah (1827)

m. Sep 1833 Ruth Ellsworth (1802-1861)

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Fannie Edwards Boyd (1839-1915) Carrie Boyd (1836-1918)

Descent from Robert II (and James II)

Note that there is an alternate royal lineage from King Robert II (grandson of Robert the Bruce and founder of the House of Stewart) to Jean Kerr of Lothian (wife of Robert Boyd (d. 1597) in this line), which also includes a separate (illegitimate) descent from James II:

Robert II, King of Scotland (1316-1390)

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Egidia Stewart

m. 1387 William Douglas of Nithsdale (c. 1370-1391)

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Egidia Douglas

m. 1407 Henry II Sinclair, Earl of Orkney (c. 1375-1420)

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William Sinclair, 3rd Earl of Orkney, 1st Earl of Caithness (1410-1480)

m. Marjory Sutherland

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Marjory Sinclair (d. 1480)

m. Andrew Leslie, Master of Rothes

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William Leslie, 3rd Earl of Rothes (d. 1513)

m. Margaret Balfour

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George Leslie, 4th Earl of Rothes (1484-1558)

m. Margaret Crichton (notably an illegitimate daughter of the Princess Margaret Stewart, a daughter of King James II of Scotland (1430-1460)

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Helen Leslie, Lady Newbattle (1520-1594)

m. Mark Kerr, Abbott of Newbattle (d. 1584)

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Mark Kerr, 1st Earl of Lothian (1553-1609)

m. Margaret Maxwell

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Jean Kerr

Robert Boyd (1689-1761)

As mentioned earlier, it’s quite possible that the Robert Boyd who was the father of James Boyd is not the same person who was the son of William Boyd, 1st Earl of Kilmarnock.

There does appear to be a wedding of a Robert Boyd, a glover, and Margaret Thomson, a bonnet maker, in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland in 1714. Those professions do not suggest people with recent noble ancestry.

On the other hand, the land granted to James Boyd in New England (see below) does not seem likely to have been granted to mere craftworkers, either. The wealth and family connections of James Boyd and his children (the Boyds were connected by marriage to the first governor of Maine, for example) suggest someone of a more prominent background.

It seems most likely to me that the Robert Boyd and Margaret Thomson identified as parents of James Boyd are from a different family, and the immediate family of origin of James Boyd has not been identified correctly in any of the secondary sources. That doesn’t mean that he was the grandson of William Boyd, Earl of Kilmarnock, but it does mean that is a possibility, as is some other connection to the earl’s family.

The dates here are of unclear origin but mentioned in secondary sources. They probably apply to the Robert Boyd who was a glover. So the actual biographical details of this person (or even if his name was Robert Boyd) remain unknown.

James Boyd (1732-1798)

James Boyd was born in Scotland, possibly on 3 May 1732 in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, though there are no good sources for his actual baptism record or birth date. The couple usually attributed as his parents (Robert, a glover, and Margaret Thomson, a bonnet maker, married in 1714) seem too modest to have origins in the nobility.

However, according to family legend, though not well-supported by contemporary records, James was the grandson of William, the first Earl of Kilmarnock.

The earldom passed from William to his son William, and then his son (William, the 3rd Earl) who was (supposedly) James’ first cousin. The 3rd Earl was a Royalist in the Jacobite rising of 1715. His son William, the 4th Earl, changed sides in the 1745 Jacobite rising in support of Charles Edward, the Young Pretender. He fought at Falkirk and Culloden, was defeated and imprisoned, and was beheaded for treason on 18 August 1746. The title was taken from the family, possibly recovered by a later descendant, and then sold and merged with the Earl of Erroll.

All of this family discontent and upheaval would be good reason for members of the family to leave Scotland. James arrived in Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1756 with a grant of land from George II (suggesting that if there was any family connection to the Earl of Kilmarnock and the 4th Earl’s Jacobite sympathies, it did not transfer to James).

James married Susanna Coffin 11 August 1757 in Newburyport. Susanna was the daughter of Joseph Coffin (1702-1773) and Margaret Morse (1702-1775), both from colonial families that arrived in New England in the 1630s.

Their children were Robert (1758), Joseph (1760), Margaret (1762), John Parker (1764), Frances (1766), Ebenezer (1768), Charles (1770), William (1776), and Mary (1778).

Some secondary sources suggest that James lost his land granted by King George II by siding with the colonists in the Revolutionary War against George III, but given that the revolution succeeded I’m not sure this makes sense. However, he did clearly in late colonial times own quite a bit of land, which does seem unlikely for someone who was the son of a mere glover. There is some circumstantial case to suggest he was the son of Robert, son of the first earl.

James died March 1788 in Boston and was buried in Newburyport.

Rev. Ebenezer Little Boyd (1768-1841)

Ebenezer Little Boyd was born about 6 July 1768 in Newburyport, Massachusetts to James Boyd (1732-1798) and Susanna Coffin (1735-1788).

He married Sarah Frazier on 30 June 1796 in Boston, Massachusetts. Sarah’s sister Ann was married (in 1800) to William King, the first governor of Maine. The Frazier ancestry beyond these two sisters is unknown.

Their children included Ebenezer (1798), Abdiel (1799-1802), Theophilus (1800), Cleopas (1802), Joanna (1804), Sarah Frazier (1812), and John (1817).

The 1810 census in Exeter, New Hampshire has sons the age of Ebenezer, Theophilus, and Cleopas, and five daughters (one born 1795-1800 and four born 1800-1810), so that matches Joanna and indicates 4 other daughters not listed in later records.

Ebenezer was a Baptism minister, with a congregation in South Berwick, Maine. In 1817 he bought the William Lambert House on 194 Portland Street. The house was in the family until 1852.

The 1820 census in South Berwick, Maine includes two sons born after 1810 (so one more not listed here), does not include the three brothers born between 1799 and 1802 (suggesting they had died or moved away by 1820), and includes 3 sisters born between 1810-1820 and two born 1805-1810 (so three sisters not listed here).

Ebenezer and his wife also appeared in the 1830 and 1840 censuses in South Berwick, presumably still living at the William Lambert House.

Ebenezer died 24 July 1841 in South Berwick and was buried in his home town of Newbury, Massachusetts.

(Google Maps) Places associated with Rev. Ebenezer Boyd