Manufactured by E.N. Boynton of Worcester, Mass USA, this particular example is unusual in not being branded as the later Boynton & Plumber - a name that has been found on other, similar examples. With a leg footprint of 24 inches wide by 28 inches deep and an overall height of 48 inches, this was not, strictly, a hand-only powered machine - a 3-step cone pulley, with diameters of 6, 4.5 and 3 inches to take a 2-inch wide belt, being fitted for drive from a countershaft or line shafting.
Unlike other most other hand planers, that used a long lever to operate the ram, the Boynton used reduction gearing driven by a heavy, hand-turned 14-inch diameter flywheel. With enough revs up (and sharp tools), the rotating mass should have been capable of maintaining a good cut on at least light jobs - the smallness of the worktable - just 6-inches square with two T-slots and 4 inches of vertical travel - perhaps bearing witness to the designer's reluctance to fit anything that might have taken something more substantial.
In order to provide an automatic and adjustable-stroke indexing arrangement for the 8 inches of cross travel, the drive shaft was extended though to the end of the cross slide where, with a small gear on its end,  it engaged with a larger gear, provided with a T-slot across its diameter, that allowed a link-arm to be fitted that turned the usual sort of ratchet drive.
Well made, and exhibiting the usual high-quality American castings of the time, the Boynton was given additional appeal by the use of polished ram-drive links and a "balanced" handle on the tool slide feed screw..