James H. Boyd (mayor)

James Hervey Boyd (14 November 1809 – 4 July 1877) was mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, for four terms.

Born in Mason County, Kentucky, Boyd came down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to join his oldest brother, Gordon D. Boyd (1802–1850), in Wilkinson County in the southwest corner of Mississippi, near the Louisiana border.

James assisted his brother, editor and publisher of The Woodville Republican, a newspaper founded in 1823.

In 1853, the Boyds built a Greek Revival style cottage, now known as the Oaks House Museum at 823 North Jefferson Street, on a 4-acre (16,000 m2) urban farmstead at the city's edge.

Three generations of the Boyd family lived in the Oaks, the last in 1960, when the property was sold to the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Mississippi (NSCDA-MS).