Capt. Lewis Alexander Boyd
Link here to the Skagit River Journal for the full story
"While sailing from Tarapico Mexico bound for Calcutta India they were shipwrecked off the coast of Brazil. There were nine of them in an open boat fo 14 days with neither food nor drinking water. Two of them died and the rest of them were nearly dead when a French ship sighted them and took them on board, sailed to France with them..." from Norman Boyds account on "The Boyd Story"
I don't honestly know if it was this incident that caused Alex to give up the sea, head to the mid-west to homestead & settle down. But I don't believe he expected to meet and fall in love with a girl [he called Doll] almost 15 years his junior at the home of the James Daniel Torrey family.
Olive Clara & Alex were married at least the summer of 1869 as their first child Archie Boyd was born July 1870. By June of 1871 the town of Neligh, Nebraska was incorporated and L.A. Boyd was elected county road commissioner, a position he held at least 10 years or until they decided to leave for Skagit Co., Wa.
Dolls sister Georgetta Savage had been writing letters for years trying to convince her sister and family to come out to Skagit Co. It was prairie fires, grasshoppers, drought, and agressive Indians that finally convinced Alex he'd had enough to sell the homestead by the fall of 1882.