Daniel Floyd

Daniel Floyd (about 1808 to 1900) was a Billerica carpenter and farmer who represented the town in the General Court in 1853, served on the School Committee in 1861 and 1862, and was one of the town's registrars of voters in the 1880s. When his daughter Caroline was born on November 22, 1849, the town clerk recorded him as a carpenter, with his wife Susan. In the federal agricultural census of 1870 he was listed among Billerica's farmers, with a farm valued at about four thousand dollars.

Hazen's list of representatives shows Floyd as the representative for 1853, between Henry Rice (1852) and Charles H. Hill (1854). In the school year 1861 to 1862 he served on the School Committee with George Proctor and Jesse G. D. Stearns, and the three signed the committee's annual report. It found the schools "in a prosperous condition," but saw "need of great improvement; and especially in the very important branches of spelling and mental arithmetic," and explained that because the examining committee of the Howe School would admit no scholar who did not know Colburn's Mental Arithmetic, the committee had brought the book back into the public schools, calling its earlier removal "a great mistake."

His carpentry served the town's roads: the town reports of 1865 and 1866 record payments to him for repairing bridges. He was still a voter in Billerica in 1880, and in the mid-1880s he and Joseph S. Holt were paid as registrars of voters; the 1886 report also records payment to him for journeys to Cambridge about printing the new town by-laws and entering them at court. He died in Lowell on March 19, 1900, aged 91 years, 11 months and 18 days, and was brought back to Billerica for burial.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 305, list of representatives: Daniel Floyd, 1853
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 313, list of voters in 1880: Floyd, Daniel
3. Vital Records of Billerica (1908): birth of Caroline, daughter of Daniel Floyd, carpenter, and Susan, Nov. 22, 1849
4. Billerica Town Report 1865, highway accounts: Daniel Floyd, repairing bridges
5. Billerica Town Report 1886: D. Floyd, journeys to Cambridge about printing and entering by-laws at court
6. Billerica Town Report 1886: paid Daniel Floyd and Joseph S. Holt, services as registrars
7. Billerica Town Report 1901, burials in Billerica of non-residents dying elsewhere: Daniel Floyd, died at Lowell March 19 [1900], aged 91 years 11 months 18 days