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A HISTORY OF TEXAS AND TEXANS
By: Frank W. Johnson, 1914

See Also: Captain Boyett, Thomas Pinkney Boyett: http://www.pbase.com/daveb/image/84591480/original

WILLIAM CARSON BOYETT

As a merchant, as a stock raiser and farmer, and in public affairs William Carson Boyett has been identified with Brazos county for many years and in the community of College Station is now serving in the capacity of postmaster.

William Carson Boyett was born in Brazos County, Texas, August 8, 1860. His father, James Boyett, who settled in Texas before the war, was well known in his time in Brazos county, and among his other children is Captain Boyett of Bryan, whose Career is noted elsewhere in this work. In the community now known as College Station, William C. Boyett spent his boyhood, and had acquired all his education before the state established the Agricultural and Mechanical College at that point. He therefore began his career as a farmer and stockraiser without the scientific equipment and laboratory experiments with which young farmers in that vicinity now execute their business, and his own educational advantages were simply those of the country school. He was interested in and aided from early boyhood the stock business as conducted by his own family, and when he became of age he located within a mile of College Station and continued the cattle business as a grower, feeder and shipper. That industry he followed actively for twenty years, and is still more or less closely identified with it, and owns a large and well improved and valuable farm in Brazos county. In 1887 Mr. Boyett engaged in the mercantile business at College Station, and the store under his name has been conducted without interruption for more than a quarter of a century. Soon after he began to purvey merchandise to the community he was also appointed postmaster, and has combined merchandising with official duties for many years.

Reared in a Democratic atmosphere and acting with that party all his life, Mr. Boyett began going to state conventions when a young man. His first service as a delegate was in the convention that nominated Sul Ross for governor; subsequently was in the Hogg convention of 1890, and in the famous Houston car-shed convention where the Hogg and Clark faction split, and his support was given to the candidacy of Governor Hogg; was in the convention naming Hon. Charles Culberson for governor, later when Governor Sayres was named for the party ticket, was on the roster of delegates at the convention which made S. W. T. Lanham governor of Texas, and the Campbell convention which named the Palestine statesman found him again on the roll of delegates from Brazos county. Mr. Boyett supported Colquitt in both his campaigns for governor.

Aside from his local service as postmaster, Mr. Boyett was himself chosen to public office for the first time in July 1904, when nominated against another candidate for county clerk, and elected in the following November. He was re-elected in 1906, and served four years altogether. He took office succeeding Mrs. McMichael, who filled out the term of her deceased husband. When his service as county clerk was over Hr. Boyett returned to his former business enterprise. At the present time he is one of the directors of the Bryan Cotton Oil Mill, There are no relations with fraternal orders to be noted, and he was brought up in the Methodist church.

Mr. Boyett was married in Brazos County in December, 1879, to Miss Lillie Medora Royall. She was one of seven children, and her father, William B. Royall, came to Texas before the war, was a Confederate soldier, and spent his active life as a farmer. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Boyett are briefly named as follows: Bertha, who is the wife of Wade Cox of Bryan, has one daughter, Lorain; Claud by his marriage to Jessie Wicker has a son, Raymond; Wert, who is state feed inspector of Texas at the Agricultural and Mechanical College, married Ethel Deaton; William A., who is a farmer, married Annie McGregor and their three children are Linwood, Annie Bess and Jack; Ima, whose husband Will Edmonds is manager of the College Station store for Mr. Boyett, has one son, Will; Gladys is the wife of Coleman Hardy of Brenham, Texas; Guy is a member of the class of 1916 in the A. & M. College, and the younger children are Norman, Oran and Alton, the latter two being high school students in Bryan.