[1] James S. Boynton was raised on his parent's farm in Henry County, GA which was worked with the labor of enslaved African American people.

James was educated in the local country schools which convened a few months of the year after the harvest.

At the age of 16 he entered preparatory school with the ambition of seeking an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Instead, he moved to Cave Spring, GA to enter Hearn Manual Labor School which he attended until his funds were exhausted.

[1] Having exhausted his resources, Boynton returned to McDonough, GA where he accepted an offer to study law under Col. Leonard Thompson Doyal, then one of the most distinguished attorneys in Henry County, GA. After just seven weeks of study his mastery of law was sufficient that he was admitted to the bar at the October 1852 term of the Superior Court of Henry County, Judge James H. Stark presiding.

He was opposed to secession, and as an elected official, could have claimed exemption from military service during the Civil War.

At the time of Stephens death, Boynton was serving as the president of the Georgia Senate so he assumed the governorship.