Boynton Beach, Florida is name for Nathan Smith Boynton. Boynton invented the Boynton fire escape, the Boynton hook and ladder firetruck and the Boynton system of rope trussing for fire ladders. He also founded the Order of the Maccabees. Under his leadership the order’s membership grew from a handful to almost half a million. Boynton’s father, Granville P. Boynton helped pioneer Michigan in 1827.
Here is a timeline of Boynton life:
- 1837 born in Port Huron, MI
- 1850’s worked as grocery-store clerk and a buggy-whip manufacturer before making a tidy sum of money with his own grocery business
- 1857 invested his savings in Michigan pine lands and was promptly wiped out by the Panic of 1857
- 1860 Living in Cincinnati, OH, occupation listed as a physician
- 1860’s he lived in Cincinnati, New Orleans and St. Louis working alternatively as a farmer’s work hand, carpenter and a salesman of electrical apparatus for “curative” purposes
- 1865 Left his wife and child to enlist as a private in the Eight Michigan Calvary of the Union Army.
- 1870 Living in St Clair, MI with wife Annie and children Charles Lincoln, Annie, George, Francis. Boynton was an Editor
- 1870’s returned to Port Huron as a Major and became the editor and publisher of the Port Huron Press.
- 1894 he and Congressman William S. Linton, traveled to Florida, Boynton pointed around him and said, “I’ll take this.”
- 1896 began construction of the legendary Boynton Beach Hotel that cemented his name to the area and outlived its creator by fourteen years.
- 1880 living at 279 Broad St, Pt Huron, St Clair, Mich with Annie and children Lincoln, Annie, Geo, Francis, and Edith
- 1910 living at 1005 Huron Ave, Pt Huron, St Clair, Mich with wife Annie, and child Jane, Sister-ia-law Jesse Patterson, and grandson Nathan
- 1911 died in Port Huron, Michigan
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