Original BOYD-mCgill Furniture

Original Boyd Rocker

Original Boyd Card Table

Original Boyd Bed

Original Boyd Dresser

Original Boyd Secretary

Original Boyd Chair

Original Boyd Hall Stand

In the summer of 2006, seven pieces of mid-19th century Boyd-McGill furniture came home to The Oaks for the first time in more than forty years. In 1960, Mary Nell Boyd McIntyre, a granddaughter of James Hervey Boyd and Eliza Ellis Boyd, purchased the furniture from the last Boyd descendants to live at The Oaks, shortly before the sale of the house to The National Society of The Colonials Dames of America in the State of Mississippi. Mrs. McIntyre died in 2001, and The Oaks House Museum Corporation acquired the furniture from her son, James Boyd McIntyre, who wanted it returned to The Oaks. The acquisition of the original Boyd furniture was made possible by a gift from the FedEx Corporation and by other generous friends of The Oaks.

Family history relates that the original walnut spool bed, matching washstand/commode, and chest of drawers with attached mirror were made by prisoners at the State Penitentiary. From 1840 until the end of the 19th century, the Penitentiary was located in Jackson where the new capitol stands. The Penitentiary was an active manufacturing concern in the state. Certainly there was a plentiful supply of beautiful native wood suitable for the crafting of such stylish furniture for the best bedroom of the Victorian cottage.

A walnut, serpentine flip-and-turn-top card table attests to game playing in the early Boyd household. Was it whist or checkers or chess? The family may have used the drop-leaf dining table for breakfast or supper or for extra seating in the entrance hall when company came to dinner.

The handsome burl walnut, cylinder-top secretary and bookcase must have been Mr. Boyd's pride and joy when he purchased it in the 1870s. Family records indicate he was in the furniture business after the Civil War and did fairly well at it.

Pictured: (front) Mary Nell Boyd McIntyre, (L) James Boyd McIntyre, Jr., (R) James Boyd McIntyre.

Original Boyd Trellis

Also back at home by the front door is the original Boyd-McGill hall stand, given by James Hallam Boyd, III, great-great grandson of the first Boyds to live at The Oaks.  This practical stand with seat, hat and coat hooks, mirror, and marble-topped cabinet is a stylistic testament to Victorian whimsy.  It must have been purchased for the house in the 1880s by Richard and Mary Boyd McGill who were living there with the widow Eliza Boyd.

In May 2012, six original dining chairs, dating to 1840-50, were given to The Oaks by Toni Tuyt Carroll, the last living resident of the house. When Toni was a baby in the 1940s, she and her mother were lodgers with Miss Mary McGill, her brother Richard F. McGill, Jr., and another long-time lodger, Miss Alva Marshall. Toni and her mother lived in the house until it was sold to the NSCDA-MS in 1960. On her recent visit, she enriched the museum’s archives with photographs of the interior and exterior of the house and delightful stories of life with the third generation of the Boyd-McGill family who owned the property and their dear friend Alva Marshall.

The Oaks collection contains two other pieces of original Boyd furniture. A rocking chair with shaped and curved back splat and a rustic pine dough board have remained in the Boyd House for more than 150 years.