In Search of William Swain

In the spring of 1849, William Swain rode away from his family’s farm in Youngstown, New York and joined in one of the seminal adventures of American history. He caught a lake steamer to Chicago, another boat to St Louis, and a third to Independence, Missouri, where he bought into a “joint-stock company” of Michigan men who then set off on foot, horseback and wagon to the California goldfields. Narrowly avoiding disaster, they barely made it before winter snows froze the California mountains.

He waited out the winter of ’49-‘50, then labored for little gain along some California rivers through the summer and fall before his family convinced him to give up his golden dream and return home to New York. He left California, traveled by packet ship to Central America, and there trekked through the isthmus jungles from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast. He boarded a steamer to New York City via Havana, arrived ill, but his ever-steadfast brother George found him there and brought him home to Youngstown. He lived out a long life and died an old man as he worked in his garden.

William was “everyman,” participating in a national adventure that changed America and that shapes our lives and thoughts about ourselves even today. It is difficult to overstate the impact the California gold rush had on the history and development of the United States and its people. What made Swain even more significant to history is that he wrote a literate, complete and coherent account, a diary, of his journey to California. He also communicated by letter from along the California Trail. He continued writing letters while he waited through the winter and then worked in the California gold “diggings” the following summer. These documents were treasured by his children and grandchildren and finally were offered to historian and professor J. S. Holliday who used them to complete a book; that book is one of the most engrossing and interesting accounts of the Gold Rush migration available today. (J.S. Holliday; The World Rushed In)

What I found most fascinating about William Swain was that he didn’t disappear as many of his gold rush contemporaries did. Even the ones who wrote about their experiences tended to be a part of that one national moment and then nothing else; there were a few exceptions of course. In general though, where did they go? How did the Gold Rush experience shape their subsequent lives? Like few others, you can easily find the answers to those questions for William Swain. History is a composite of all the little stories that made up our ancestor’s lives – and here is one of them, laid out in detail for us to enjoy. Forget how the study of history “helps us not to repeat the mistakes of the past,” and “if you want to see where we’re going, you have to look where we’ve been.” With Swain’s diary and letters, presented in Holliday’s book in concert with the larger history of the 1849 gold rush as a background, we can see how one extraordinary citizen, along with his friends and family, participated in one of the greatest mass migrations in any nation’s history. This is exciting stuff!

I have stood on the ground where Washington accepted the British surrender at Yorktown and touched the seam of his tent (on display there). I have walked in Travis' footsteps at the Alamo. I've seen the track of the Wright Brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk. I know at ground level the place where Crazy Horse was murdered at Fort Robinson, NE; where Custer surveyed the Little Bighorn Valley in Montana from a mountaintop just before his last fight, and the exact spot where Geronimo stood to have his photograph taken at Fort Bowie, AZ one September day in 1886. I can pick out and match the foundation stones in now-ruined frontier Army post homes as I compare them against historical photographs. I have read the inscribed signatures of 49ers and others on the Register Cliffs, along the dry-desert route of the California-Oregon Trail. And I have stood where William Swain stood, both on the trail, and at home in Youngstown. Being in these places, on the ground where our ancestors stood and knowing the history that took place there is moving – and exhilarating.

After re-reading Swain’s diary in The World Rushed In for about the third time, I thought that if I was ever able to visit Youngstown, NY, I would see if I could find William and his family. He lived in a “cobblestone farmhouse” on the “River Road.” On his return to Youngstown in 1851, he became a prosperous farmer, a peach-grower, one of the largest in western New York in his day. His brother and best friend George, also in Youngstown, was a public servant for most of his lifetime. Would there not still be some traces of them around their life-long home?

Looking at maps of the Youngstown area, I found Swain Road. Given the description of the farm in the book, I could almost guess where the Swain farmhouse was built (in 1836). I made plans to go there, look for the house and see if I could find the graves of William, George and their families.

I drove to the corner of Swain Road and Main Street in Youngstown in October 2008, and from there to the place where I thought the cobblestone house would be. There was nothing there but a very small pump-house. Disappointed that my satellite photo and map-sleuthing were errant (how can one mistake a six-foot tall pump house for a farmhouse!), I headed back out toward the highway – but stopped when I saw a resident and asked him if he knew anything about the Swains. He did. He directed me to the nearby home of Betty Van Zandt – and said I should speak with her about her home – which I found had been built by William for his daughter Lila (or Eliza). I was in the right neighborhood after all. Betty Van Zandt referred me to Margery Stratton, who, she said, could help me with further information about the local area, she having sold most of the houses in the area, some more than once.

Swain's home

It turned out the “cobblestone farmhouse” so often mentioned by William in his writings was immediately next door. I took photos, walked around, and looked for any peach trees that might have descended from those that William and his brother had planted. I didn’t find any -- but peach trees aren’t known for being long-lived.

I read the monument near the house about the battle that took place in pre-Revolutionary War times on that very spot. I took photos of the foundation stones in the bridge across the drainage in front of the house – figuring they were most likely original to the time the farm was built. I wondered which upper-story window Sabrina Swain might have sat behind as she wrote letters to her absent and sorely-missed husband, and where in the yard William’s garden and grape vines might have been. Then I went to meet Margery Stratton.

I spent an hour or so with Ms Stratton at the local historical society’s library, reading some of the letters and information written about the Swains, who were prominent local citizens. Armed with information provided by the helpful members of the society, I set off to the Oakland Rural Cemetery to find the Swains.

It took some time, but I found all the last resting places of the family – except for father Isaac, and his 2nd wife, Patience. Perhaps they are in a different part of the cemetery – or in an older cemetery somewhere close by. William and Sabrina’s youngest son is also not with the rest of the family

After reading so much about them, I feel almost as if they are friends. Seeing their home in Youngstown and the places that were familiar to them, when I read the passages they wrote I can imagine more vividly what their lives were like; what they saw, almost what they felt at certain times.

As William returned home from the California gold fields in 1851, he and George topped the hill south of Youngstown in their wagon, probably about where Ridge Road above Lewiston is today. They stopped, and William stood up to survey the valley he had not seen for almost two years. He pronounced it the most beautiful of all the scenes he had witnessed. Don’t we all feel that way about our homes? You can see that same view today – just as he did when he returned from his long gold-rush quest. When I last saw it, it was cloaked in the beautiful autumn colors of northern New York State. And based on the description in J.S. Holliday’s book, I knew exactly what I was looking at; William had seen and vividly described the same view in 1851.

Now that I've seen William and Sabrina's New York home, perhaps I can see his diggings on the other side of the country. I think I just might be able to find the spot where William and his partners built their cabin and dug for gold on the beautiful Feather River above Sacramento, California. Today, the exact site is under lake water, but I might be able to get close.