The Lusitania : Part 7 : Passengers of Distinction

There was a Lusitania crew member with an interesting link to Germany aboard the fatal voyage.

Fullerton Riemer Boyd, 37, listed on the crew manifest as a barkeeper, had led his family in Joliet, Illinois, to believe that he was the Lusitania’s assistant purser. His family had not seen him in nine years, although his sister- in -law had visited with him aboard the Laconiain 1913. They received a letter from Boyd, mailed on May 1st, in which he wrote that he was not in the least apprehensive about the coming voyage, and that the passengers were being warned.

Fullerton Boyd

Fullerton’s name did not appear in the initial list of those saved, which was reprinted in midwestern newspapers. His brother-in-law Edward Kobbe, an official of the New York office of the Hamburg-American Line, was able to determine that Boyd had survived, and sent his family a telegram reading “Thank God Fullerton Is Among The Rescued.”  Kobbe told his in-laws that he had received the news through his London offices.

Boyd died in Southampton, England, on October 17, 1929, at age 51.