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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Nathan Boynton Biography BOYNTON,
Nathan Smith, founder of the Order of the Knights of the Maccabees, was born
June 23, 1837, in Port Huron, Mich. He received his education in the primitive
district schools and in 1852 passed through the high schools at Waukegan, Ill.
In 1856 he engaged in mercantile business in Port Huron, Mich.; the following
year he went to Ohio; thence to Cincinnati, New Orleans and St. Louis, Mo. In
1862 he enlisted as a private in company C, eighth regiment, Michigan cavalry,
and was promoted to first lieutenant of company L; in 1863 was promoted to
captain, and in the winter of 1864-65 was commissioned major of his regiment,
making an honorable record as a soldier. Lieutenant Boynton, at the head of a
detachment of one hundred men, cut off the retreat of General John Morgan, whom
he finally captured. In 1868 he was elected to the lower house of the Michigan
state legislature; in 1874 he was elected mayor of Port Huron, receiving the
re-election. For several years he was editor and owner of the Port Huron Press,
and since 1883 has given his time, energy and ability to building up the Order
of the Knights of the Maccabees, of which he is past supreme commander and
supreme record keeper and great commander. Thomas William Herringshaw, Herringshaw's Encyclopedia of American Biography of the Nineteenth Century (Chicago: American Publishers' Association, 1901) 137. |