[DAVID L. SWAIN.]
BY Z. B. VANCE.
That great range of mountains, extending from the St. Lawrence to the plains of Alabama, called by De Soto Appalachian, and by the Indian tribes, Alleghanies, which, in their tongue, signifies the endless, attains its greatest elevation in the Black Mountain group in the western part of this State.
This group lies partly within the counties of Yancey, McDowell and Buncombe; and the tallest peak of the cluster, and of all the peaks east of the Rocky Mountains, is Mt. Mitchell. From its dominating summit there is thrown off a ridge which runs west, south and southwest, in a zigzag shape, alternated with deep gaps, tall summits and frightful precipices, until it melts away in the peninsula of the plain which is enclosed by the waters of the Swannanoa and the French Broad, in the county of Buncombe.
In this range, about seven miles from where these waters meet, there is a little gorge-like valley scooped out of its western slope, which spreads its narrow bosom precisely in the face of the setting sun. The tall dome of Mt. Mitchell literally casts its shadow over this mountain-cradled vale as the sun first comes up from the eastern sea. Great ridges hem it in on either side, gradually melting on the south into the sloping hills on which stands the town of Asheville. A bold fresh brook from springs high up in the heart of the mountain ripples through the bottom of this vale, reenforced by a hundred smaller streams pouring from the ravines on the right and left, and empties its bright, fresh floods into the French Broad five miles below the county-seat. Near the very head of this valley is a charming little homestead, consisting of fertile bits of meadow on the brook-side, above which are open fields swelling upwards to the skirts of the mountain forests. In the midst of these fields, where the ground slopes gently towards the brook, there stood, about the beginning of this century, an old-fashioned log-house of the kind familiarly known to our mountain people as a "double-cabin." An orchard of a growth and fruitful luxuriance peculiar to that region surrounded the house and curtilage, imparting that air of rustic beauty and abundance which constitutes a special charm in simple country homes.
This spot, at the period indicated, was the home of an honest, upright, and intelligent man, whose name was George Swain; and here, on the 4th day of January, 1801, was born the child who became the man to whose memory we desire to do honor this day.
David Lowrie Swain was the second son and child of George and Caroline Swain. His father was of English descent, and was born in Roxboro, Massachusetts, in 1763. He came South and settled in Wilkes, now Oglethorpe county, in Georgia, served in the Legislature of that State five years, and was a member of the convention that revised the Constitution of Georgia. His health failing, he removed to Buncombe county, North Carolina, in 1795, and was one of its earliest settlers. He was for many years Postmaster at Asheville, and until within two years of his death; becoming insane a year or two previous to that event. Soon after his settlement in Buncombe he was married to Caroline Lowrie, a widow, whose maiden name was Lane, a sister of Joel Lane, the founder of the city of Raleigh, and of Jesse Lane, the father of General Joe Lane, late United States Senator from Oregon, and Democratic candidate for Vice-President on the ticket with General Breckinridge in 1860. This lady had three children by her first husband, one of whom, the late Colonel James Lowrie, of Buncombe county, lived and died a citizen of most excellent repute. By her last husband she had seven children. All of these are now dead.
George Swain was by trade a hatter, but like all the thrifty men of his day, he combined farming with his shop, and was a successful man in both, as success was then measured. Whilst his hats were famous all the county over, his little farm on Beaver Dam, the name of the stream on which it was located, was considered a pattern in that period of rude agriculture. His apple-trees, under the shade of which young David was born and reared, were the product of cuttings brought all the way from Massachusetts—a great and tedious journey then—and some of the varieties which he thus imported still remain in that region by the names which he gave them.
He was a man of some learning and much intelligence, mixed with a considerable degree of eccentricity. Like all New Englanders, he believed much in education, and struggled constantly to impart it to his children. He was possessed of a most wonderful memory, and I have heard it said by a lady who, as a girl, was intimate in his house, that he often entertained her and other visitors for hours together with the recitation of poems without book or manuscript.
In this humble but instructive home, secluded from anything that could be termed fashionable society, but trained to industry, and instructed in the ways of integrity, young David Swain's early youth was passed. I cannot subscribe to the phrase so usually employed in describing such biographical beginnings as this, when it is said that the subject of the memoir was "without the advantages of birth." The fact that a child is born amid such surroundings, and with such blood in his veins as coursed through those of young Swain, constitutes the very highest advantages which could surround the birth and bringing up of a young man who is to fight his way in a country like ours.