Person:George Swain (1)

Excerpt from a letter by William N.F. Swain recording, with his mother, the genealogy of the Swain family according to family papers. Noblesville, Indiana. Year 1900. "Now we are coming to the more direct acquaintance with the line of my ancestors. This same George Swain was my great grandfather. When I was a little boy I was with him a great deal until I was nearly eight years of age. The most of that time I lived close to him, and had a limited chance of learning something of his nature, even as young as I was at the time. The unwritten history of this man would open the eyes and ears of many who could hear it related, as it actually took place. He often times entertained his friends and visitors with his experience on sea and land. I was not old enough to recollect his thrilling narrations of events, but my mother has often told me of his experience with some of the trials of life. Left without a mothers care when only seventeen days old must certainly have placed him in the hands, although kind no doubt, yet not that of a loving mother. He was a cook on a whale boat for some time and could relate many circumstances that we read of in books of thrilling tales. He was mechanical and quite a genius in many things, a good memory, etc. My mother is in possession of a comb that he made when a boy, and several generations have combed their heads with it. It is well finished. He studied medicine when nearly forty years years old and practiced for nearly forty years, a thing that few men have ever done. During the memorable and troublesome times of slavery, he was very active giving aid to the many poor black slaves, who came to him for advice and much needed assistance. He got into trouble a number of times by his determination to help the colored race, but always came out without losing his neck, yet suffered persecution in the way of fines and defenses in law suits brought about by the owners and hunters of slaves. By and through the determined persistence of the so called underground railroad system then in operation and carried on with such vim, the funeral gong pealed forth the death knell of slavery in the United States of America. The industrial qualities of this good old man were imparted to many of his descendents and as they grew up, partook of the nature and character born in them, inherited from one who lived through the storms of political evolution until the year, March 26, 1852, when he was called away before seeing the results of the work in which he had so earnestly worked."