Born on October 28, 1774, at "Castle Woods" in Botetourt County in the Virginia Colony,[1] to the former Jane Black and her husband the patriot Major John Boyle.

[3] Fellow Congressmen twice selected Boyle as one of the House managers to prosecute the cases in impeachment trials, first in January 1804 against Judge John Pickering, and, in December of the same year, against Associate Justice Samuel Chase.

At midnight on December 23, 1824, the new legislature (also pro-debtor and which had elected former Congressman Joseph Desha as governor), appointed a new Court of Appeals with former Senator William T. Barry (who had argued one of the debt relief cases in 1823) as Chief Justice and John Trimble, James Haggin, Benjamin W. Patton and Rezin Davidge as associate judges (the "New Court").

[5] Desha had campaigned for debt relief, since Kentucky was still suffering the effects of the Panic of 1819, and his party won majorities in both houses of the legislature, but could not find grounds to impeach Boyle and his two fellow judges.

[1] Boyle died on February 28, 1834, near Danville, Kentucky, depressed following his wife's death in a cholera epidemic the preceding June, notwithstanding the presence of many of his children and grandchildren.

[8][3] The double log cabin which he built in Lancaster, Kentucky remains today (as improved by his successors) and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, not only because of its age, but also because of its distinguished residents.

Furthermore, Judge Boyle taught law to his nephew John Boyle Gordon (the son of his young sister Jane who eloped), who moved to Missouri, where he served in the legislature for several terms, as well as taught law to relatives Oden Guitar and Stanley Matthews, who both became Union Army officers during the American Civil War, then became judges, Guitar in Missouri and Matthews on the United States Supreme Court.