James Boyd was born and raised in Pennsylvania, son of a wealthy coal and oil family with North Carolina roots. Following World War I, recurrent illness forced his retirement to Weymouth, a house his grandfather had built near Southern Pines. Boyd's first book, Drums, set in Edenton, North Carolina, has been called the best novel written about the American Revolution. His five historical novels influenced major developments in the genre, elevating it through greater historical accuracy, psychological and sociological awareness, and formal craftsmanship. In 1940, Boyd organized the Free Company of Players, a group of American writers that, despite the powerful opposition of right-wing conservative interests, produced a series of original radio plays in response to what they saw as antidemocratic attitudes prevalent in America due to the growing war in Europe. In 1941, Boyd bought The Pilot, transforming it into a progressive regional paper which has been honored for excellence. James and Katharine Boyd brought to Weymouth many of the finest writers of their time, making it, in Jonathan Daniels' words, a "springboard for the southern literary renaissance." Visitors included Paul Green, Thomas Wolfe, Sherwood Anderson, William Faulkner, Struthers Burt, and John Galsworthy.

Excerpt from Drums
Scribner's Sons, 1927

Outside the rustle of the pines crept by in long, low waves which came from the Atlantic to the eastward and crossed the forests of the Province on tossing tops to die away against the mountains in the west. A fire blazed in the deep, clay-plastered fireplace; the logs of pine dripped turpentine in the wave of flame and sent up scrolls of clotted smoke to join the night. The steady, golden light flooded the brick hearth, newly scrubbed with white clay, flooded broad, hand-dressed floor boards beyond, then softening, touched a wall of shaggy logs and gilded the barrel of a flintlock above the closed oak door. Against the ceiling it threw the shadow of a man who sat before it, a man rough-hewn, brown and rugged, so still, so like the room, that he might have been built there when it was built. His short coat and his kilt were brown, his square beard was brown, only the twinkle of silver buttons and a touch of white stock at the throat showed him to be above the common rank. Through the deep murmur of the pines the sound of a whistled tune drew nearer, stopped at the door. The hinges creaked; a straight, thin boy, tugging a bucket of water, came in. With his skirted linen hunting shirt blown forward by the wind, his long brown hair blown around his bright-colored face, he looked almost like a girl, or would have looked so, except for the impish set of his mouth. He closed the door behind him with a thrust of his moccasin and swung the wooden bucket under a table in the corner. He gave a manly and professional puff and wiped his hands on the sides of his leather breeches. "There's the water, Dadder." "Aye, son, I heard ye. How's the wind?" "East. But I reckon it might fair. I saw a star." "If it storms the morrow I'm feared your mother willna come home." "She said she would." A half smile just touched the man's broad beard. "Aye, she did. But she was wearing the new camlet gown." The boy revolved this saying. He stared in the fire, knitted his brows. "Now then, lad." His father was looking at him. The boy started from his thoughts and turned to the table. He must get to work. Work! If it only were real work instead of lessons fit only for girls. He rubbed his small, hard, calloused hands together and threw out his chest. Study was no work for a man of the Pine Forests. But his father's eye remained on him. His chest subsided. Taking a horn speller book and a Latin grammar from a shelf, he stretched himself on his stomach before the fire and peered at the dim letters through the yellow glazed sheet. As he murmured them over to himself he heard his father fumble in his pocket for his pipe, strike his tinder-box, settle back in his chair with slow, measured puffs.

Links to further information:

James Boyd's Papers at UNC