Settled in the eighteenth century as Boyd's Ferry on the south side of the Dan River, the small community was soon washed away by a flood. The name Boyd's Ferry lives on, along with that of Irwin's Ferry four miles upstream, as the locales of General Nathanael Greene's dramatic and successful 1781 “Race to the Dan,” one of the turning points of the Revolution. The town, subsequently relocated on the north side of the river and renamed for Boston, Massachusetts, was incorporated in 1884. Rapid growth came at the turn of the twentieth century when tobacco companies and textile mills began expanding into the county. With the influx of business came a building boom that resulted in a variety of architectural expressions.
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