[1] Boykin was born December 27, 1854, in Clinton, North Carolina.
His father died when he was a youth and his mother moved to the Durham, North Carolina, area.
[2] Boykin was twice elected the mayor of Clinton, North Carolina.
From 1883 to 1886 Boykin served in the North Carolina Senate again representing the fourteenth Senatorial District.
[3] In 1885 Boykin was appointed a judge for the Sixth Judicial Circuit of the North Carolina Superior Court to finish the term of Judge Allmand A. McKoy, who had died.