Elisha received a private education, including at Liberty Hall Academy, a predecessor of Washington and Lee University in Staunton, Virginia, graduating in 1785.

Elisha Boyd helped to establish Martinsburg Academy, which closed near the end of his life (after the Panic of 1837).

[3] In 1796, Berkeley County voters first elected Boyd to the Virginia House of Delegates, a part-time position.

[5] By the 1820 U.S. Federal census, Boyd was one of the county's wealthiest individuals, for he owned 24 slaves in addition to land.

[6] Boyd won election to the Senate of Virginia in 1824, representing Berkeley, Hampshire, Morgan and Hardy Counties.

He replaced Francis White, who gave up that part-time job upon becoming Commonwealth's attorney for Hampshire County.

[11] General Boyd died October 21, 1841, less than two years after his third wife, and was buried in the family plot at Norborne Cemetery in Martinsburg, West Virginia.