Thomas Swann

Swann was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the fourth son born by the former Jane Byrd Page, a member of one of the First Families of Virginia.[1][3][4] His mother died three years later after a difficult childbirth. His attorney father, Thomas Swann, had served in the Virginia House of Delegates and with political connections to William Wirt and other Virginia lawyers in the national government, would become United States Attorney for the District of Columbia during this man's childhood. Although two of his brothers died between 1825 and 1829, Swann's elder brother Wilson Cary Swann (1806-1876) was educated with him and later rose to prominence as a physician, philanthropist, and social reformer in Philadelphia.

The Swann brothers attended Columbian College (now George Washington University) in Washington, D.C., then the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. Thomas Jr. studied Ancient and modern languages and mathematics, but was also disciplined for disorderly conduct in 1825 and questioned in a gambling scandal the following year, which may have led him to enroll in a class in moral philosophy from prominent Virginia lawyer George Tucker.[5][6] He also studied law under his father's guidance.[7]

A Democrat, in 1833 and possibly through his father's connections, Swann secured an appointment from President Andrew Jackson as secretary of the United States Commission to Naples (Kingdom of the Two Sicilies - later Italy).[8] Also admitted to the Virginia bar, he began following his father's career path by winning election to the Alexandria City council in 1833.[9]

In 1834, Swann married an heiress and moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where his father's lawyer friend William Wirt had settled, and where Swann later became a railroad lawyer. His bride's British born father, John Sherlock, left a sizeable estate which included interests in French and Neopolitan spoliation claims, as well as 6000 acres of Pennsylvania land, 150 ounces of silver plate, 300 bottles of madeira, plus stock in the Bank of the United States, three Baltimore banks, two turnpikes, a canal in York, Pennsylvania and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (which had been incorporated in 1827 and in completed track to Harper's Ferry by 1834).[10] His wife's uncle, Robert Gilmor, secured them entry into Baltimore society, although his father experienced financial difficulties after the Panic of 1836 so young Thomas bought 600 to 700 acres of land and the Morven Park plantation home from his father, noting that his father's nemesis Nicholas Biddle likewise was forced to sell property to his sons after the panic.[11] In 1840 the elder Thomas Swann died and this man inherited Morven Park, sixty slaves and his father's law library, and over the next years gradually purchased the rest of what had been his father's land. Meanwhile, this Thomas Swann and his family lived on Franklin Street in Baltimore, and used his late father's Virginia property Morven Park as their summer retreat.[12]

1852 B&O Railroad stock certificate signed in original by Thomas Swann as President.

Swann returned to Alexandria after his father's death in 1840, but also continued as a railroad lawyer. Between 1837 and 1843 he was the assistant to Louis McLane, a veteran politician who served as the railroad's president.[13] In 1844 Swann became Alexandria' tobacco inspector,[14] an important responsibility in that port city which also had railroad ties both to Richmond, and (via a separate station) to Baltimore. In 1846-1847, Swann was the B7O's lobbyist in Richmond, for the franchise the railroad had secured in 1827 was expiring, and its extension through western Virginia was opposed by the powerful political interests of the James River and Kanawha Canal Company. Swann secured the extension on March 6, 1847, the railroad began building to Wheeling, and by October 1848, Swann's large stockholdings in and services to the B&O led to his election as a director, and when McLane retired, he succeeded him as the railroad's president.[15] bY 1850, Swann raised funds in Europe to enable the B&O's extension to the Ohio River, continuing in that position until resigning in 1853.[16] He was chosen as president of the Northwestern Virginia Railroad.[17]

In 1860, Swann left the American Party, which dissolved, and joined the merged war-time Union Party. In 1864, he was unanimously nominated as the 33rd Governor of Maryland during its nomination convention. He won election with lieutenant-governor running mate Christopher C. Cox by over 9,000 votes. The only governor elected under the Maryland Constitution of 1864, Swann took the oath of office on January 11, 1865, but did not enter into the duties of the office until one year later (under that constitution, the governor chosen in the November 1864 election could not assume the office until the completion of the term of his predecessor, Augustus W. Bradford, in January 1866); he served until January 1869. In his inaugural address, he encouraged reunion in the State following the American Civil War, and voiced his opposition to slavery, deeming it "a stumbling block in the way of [our] advancement".

Radical Republicans of Maryland criticized Swann for supporting the Reconstruction policies of Democratic and 17th President Andrew Johnson, and refusing to adopt their proposals. He eventually parted with the Republicans and joined the Democratic Party during his term as governor. He had strongly opposed requiring the "ironclad" loyalty oath and registration laws promoted by the Radical Republicans for former Confederates in the state.

A later portrait of Mayor/Governor Thomas Swann, circa 1865-1880

In 1867, the General Assembly of Maryland nominated Swann to succeed John A. J. Creswell to the United States Senate. But, Radical Republicans had gained control of the Congress in 1867, and refused to allow Swann admission to the Senate because he had switched parties. The Democrats in Maryland began to fear that, if Swann left, the Maryland lieutenant governor, a Radical Republican, might place Maryland under a military, Reconstruction government and temporarily disfranchise whites who had served in the Confederacy. Also, they did not want to lose reforms made by Swann with other voting rights. Rather than fight the Radicals in Congress to gain a seat, Swann was convinced by Democrats to remain as governor and turn down the Senate seat.

Swann supported internal improvements to state infrastructure, especially after the war, and he is credited with greatly improving the facilities at the Baltimore Port and Harbor. He also encouraged immigration, and the immediate emancipation of slaves following the War. By 1860, 49% of blacks in Maryland were already free, giving them a substantial position and economic strength in the years following the war.[27]

In 1868, Swann was elected to Congress from Maryland's 3rd congressional district, gaining re-election and serving until 1873. With redistricting changes, he was elected in 1873 from Maryland's 4th congressional district, serving three terms until 1879. In the United States Congress, Swann was chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Congresses).

Swann married twice. In 1843, his first wife, the former Elizabeth Gilmer Sherlock (1814-1876), bore a daughter, Elizabeth Gilmer Swann, who was their only child to reach adulthood. In 1878, the widower married Josephine Ward Thomson, daughter of Representative ("Congressman") Aaron Ward and widow of U.S. Senator John Renshaw Thomson, but they had no children.

Swann died on his estate, "Morven Park", near Leesburg, Virginia. He is interred in the landmark Green Mount Cemetery (southeast of Maryland Route 45 and East North Avenue) of Baltimore. In eulogy, the influential "The Sun" newspaper of Baltimore criticized his early political errors, but credited him as "a great mayor, conferring inestimable benefits on the city he governed; not only was he a wise and beneficent governor to the oppressed portion of the citizens of the State, but he was one of the most useful and influential Congressmen this State or city ever had." Some of his family's papers are held by the University of Maryland library.[28]

Swann Park, off of South Hanover Street (Maryland Route 2) in the South Baltimore/Spring Gardens area, adjacent to the eastern waterfront of Middle Branch (Smith and Ridgley's Coves) of the Patapsco River is named for him and also serves as an occasional athletic home for the former Southern High School (now Digital Harbor High School). Nearby are large monumental gas storage tanks for the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company.

In Virginia, both his childhood home, now called the "Swann-Daingerfield House"[29] and Morven Park still exist (although expanded by later owners) and have been listed on the National Register for Historic Places since the 1970s. In addition, Alexandria named "Swann Avenue" near the former Potomac Railroad Yards, after him or the family.

It is assumed that Swann Street in Northwest Washington DC was originally named after Thomas Swann. However, in 2022, the Dupont Circle Advisory Neighborhood Commission approved a resolution declaring that Swann Street is named after William Dorsey Swann, one of the first known LGBT activists.[30]

• Andrews, Matthew Page (1929). History of Maryland. New York City: Doubleday Doran & Co.
• White, Frank F. Jr. The Governors of Maryland 1777-1970. Annapolis: The Hall of Records Commission. pp. 165–170.
• Coyle, Wilbur F. (1919). The Mayors of Baltimore. The Baltimore Municipal Journal. pp. 93–98.
• United States Congress. "Thomas Swann (id: S001092)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Stover, John F. (1987). History of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Purdue University Press. ISBN 0-911198-81-4 – via Google Books.
• Tuska, Benjamin (July 1925). "Know-Nothingism in Baltimore 1854-1860". The Catholic Historical Review. Vol. 11, no. 2. pp. 217–251. JSTOR 25012185.

• Thomson Francis Mason and Thomas Swann Families papers at the University of Maryland Libraries

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Thomas Swann.

• Baker, Jean H. (1977). Ambivalent Americans: The Know-Nothing Party in Maryland. Describes Swann's career in the American Party in the 1850s.
• Melton, Tracy Matthew (2005). Hanging Henry Gambrill: The Violent Career of Baltimore's Plug Uglies from 1854 to 1860. Details the relationship between American Party politicians and the rowdy clubs affiliated with them in Baltimore during Swann's tenure as mayor. It includes a great deal of information on Swann and his accomplishments in office.