This representative farmer and highly esteemed citizen of Central Lake township, Antrim county, is a native of county Kent, Michigan, where he was born, in the village of Jamestown, on the 25th of May, 1859, being a son of Judson A. and Mary A. (Odell) Boice, the former of whom was born in Massachusetts and the latter in Ohio. The father of the subject was a harness-maker by trade and followed this vocation in various parts of the county, while finally he took up his residence in Michigan and turned his attention to farming, with which he continued to be identified until his death, which occurred in 1878, at his home in Barry county. His devoted wife survived him by nearly a quarter of a century, her death occurring in 1900.
The subject passed his boyhood days in Kent and Barry counties, this state, early beginning to assist in the work of the home farm and duly availing himself of the advantages of the public schools. The greater part of his business career thus far has been one of successful identification with the great basic industry of agriculture, and he followed farming in the southern part of the state until 1892, in which year he disposed of his interests in Barry county and came to Antrim county, where he effected the purchase of his present homestead, which is one of the valuable farms of Central Lake township, comprising one hundred and twenty acres, of which about eighty acres are available for profitable cultivation. Mr. Boice has made many improvements on his place and has carried forward the various departments of his farming enterprise with marked energy and good judgment, being alert and progressive in his methods and having thus gained the maximum returns from his farm, which is devoted to diversified agriculture, horticulture and fruit and stock raising. So far as national and state issues are involved Clinton S. Boice is an uncompromising Republican in his political adherence, but in local affairs he maintains an independent attitude, giving his support to men and measures approved by his judgment, without regard to strict partisan lines. He is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and also with the fraternity known as the Gleaners. Mrs. Boice is a Methodist in religion.
The marriage of Mr. Boice was solemnized in the year 1877, when he wedded Miss Evelyn Chamberlain, who was born in Carlton, Michigan, being a daughter of Lyman and Nancy (McDonald) Chamberlain, who came thence to Michigan when she was a child, locating in Barry county, where she was reared and educated, and where her parents passed the remainder of their lives, the father having been a farmer by vocation and a man of influence in his community. Mr. and Mrs. Boice have six children, namely: Floyd E., Lyman L., Ila S., Carl C., Henry R. and Gertrude M. The older daughter, Ila, is now the wife of Henry Vanderyacht, a prosperous farmer of this county.
In conclusion it may be said that the subject traces his lineage on the paternal side to pure French origin, the original spelling of the name having been DuBois. David DuBois, to whom the ancestry is directly traced, removed from France to Ireland, where the orthography of the name was changed to Boice, and in 1728 members of the family emigrated from the Emerald Isle to America, settling in Massachusetts, and representatives of the name are now to be found in the most diverse sections of the Union, ancestors of the subject having been numbered among the early settlers in Ohio.
Source: Biographical history of northern Michigan containing biographies of prominent citizens; Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Company, 1905.