James Boyd and the Weymouth Estate

James Boyd lived nearby at a grand house called Weymouth, and from that estate he wrote two novels that helped define American historical fiction in the nineteen twenties.

His first, Drums, published in nineteen twenty-five, followed a young North Carolinian through the Revolutionary War. Marching On, two years later, traced a similar journey through the Civil War. Both were praised for their careful research and their refusal to romanticize what soldiers actually endured. Boyd kept his eye on the common soldier rather than the general.

Boyd died in nineteen forty-four, but Weymouth outlasted him. In nineteen seventy-nine the house became the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, a retreat for writers and artists, and the house that once sheltered a single novelist now shelters many.