William Graham Swan

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William Graham Swan ( 1821 - April 12, 1869 in Memphis , Tennessee ) was an American lawyer and politician .

Career

William Graham Swan was likely born in eastern Tennessee or Alabama . He graduated from East Tennessee College (now the University of Tennessee ) in 1838 and then studied law . His student days were overshadowed by the economic crisis of 1837 . In 1843 he had a law firm in the Gay Street in Knoxville ( Knox County ). He has served in the following counties: Knox County, Anderson County , Roane County , Campbell County, and Claiborne Counties . Between 1851 and 1853 he was Attorney General of Tennessee.

In the early 1850s Swan was involved in land speculation around Knoxville, especially in what is now East Knoxville, which he helped develop. In 1854 he and his brother-in-law Joseph Alexander Mabry junior (1826-1882) acquired several acres of land in what was then north of Knoxville. The city limits were then on Union Avenue. He donated part of this land to the city for the purpose of building a market house and thus laid the foundation stone for today's market square. In the same year he founded the Knoxville Gas Light Company with William Montgomery Churchwell (1826–1862) , which installed the first gas lights on Gay Street.

Swan was elected Mayor of Knoxville in 1854, succeeding James C. Luttrell (1813-1878) in office. He entered his post in 1855 and held it until 1856. He made a series of progressive resolutions, including a tunnel for the extension of the railway and the creation of a channel between the First Creek and Second Creek, a navigable access to the Tennessee River to create. Both of the resolutions mentioned were rejected. However, one measure was adopted. In an attempt to curb the growing number of noisy saloons in the city, the City Recorder was given the authority to close saloons for an indefinite period of time.

In 1855 Swan met John Mitchel (1815–1875), an Irish nationalist who visited Knoxville during his exile. Both founded a radical newspaper, the Southern Citizen , in 1857 . The newspaper advocated the south and slavery and the renewal of the slave trade across the Atlantic .

In 1856 Swan was elected the first mayor of East Knoxville, which he helped establish a year earlier. He held the post until 1859. East Knoxville was incorporated into Knoxville in 1868 .

Swan was a staunch secessionist before the Civil War . The radical pro-unionist William Gannaway Brownlow (1805–1877) intensified his attacks on Swan and called him an unscrupulous politician after whom he joined the Democratic Party when he was rejected by the Whigs. Brownlow's Knoxville Whig had been in dispute with the Knoxville Register, which Swan co-founded, since the early 1850s. Brownlow was arrested by the Confederates in late 1861 . Swan subsequently wrote a letter to President Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) asking him to hang Brownlow.

In November 1861, Swan was elected to the first Confederate Congress. He defeated the Knoxville Attorney John Baxter (1819-1886). In 1863 he was re-elected to the Second Confederate Congress . As a congressman, he advocated high import tariffs for European nations that refused to recognize the confederation, rejected a federal tax and the arming of slaves. In 1864, Swan hit the headlines when he attacked Tennessee Congressman Henry S. Foote (1804–1880) after criticizing Swan's friend, John Mitchel.

After the war ended, Swan settled in Memphis, Shelby County , where he practiced as a lawyer. He died there on April 12, 1869 as a result of consumption and was then buried in Elmwood Cemetery on the same day .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Jack Neely: Market Square: A History of the Most Democratic Place on Earth, Knoxville, Tenn .: Market Square District Association, 2009, pp. 8–9 and 17–23
  2. ^ A b c d e East Tennessee Historical Society, Mary Rothrock: The French Broad-Holston Country: A History of Knox County, Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee: East Tennessee Historical Society, 1972, pp. 131 and 493-495
  3. ^ A b c John Wooldridge, George Mellen and William Rule: Standard History of Knoxville, Tennessee, Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1900, pp. 104, 138 and 328
  4. ↑ Robert McKenzie: Lincolnites and Rebels: A Divided Town in the American Civil War, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp 46, 88 and 107
  5. ^ Collision Between Rebel Congressmen , Sacramento Daily Union, December 27, 1864
personal data
SURNAME Swan, William Graham
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH 1821
PLACE OF BIRTH Eastern Tennessee or Alabama
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 1869
Place of death Memphis , Tennessee