The Martin County Swayzes

A couple of years ago several of us (all great great grandchildren) researching Rev. Richard Wright and his descendants found that our GG grandfather had been married twice, the first time to Malinda Ann Swayze, a member of the Obediah Swayze family of Vermillion County, Indiana.

About a year ago Frank Helton, one of the Wright researchers, spotted a photo said to show the Martin Co. Indiana home of a John Swayze with some members of his family, including a daughter Dovie, dated “About 1889.” Of course we wondered if the Martin Co. Swayzes and the Vermillion Co. Swayzes were related. Another fellow Wright researcher, Pat Shade, who is always good with details has now written us:

“The date on the pic is wrong as Dovie wasn't born until 1894. So, this pic is probably c: 1900 but hard to tell how young the girls might be. Father, John Swayze, appears to have died in Martin Co, IN in 1897. If existing ancestry trees are accurate, it looks like John Swayze goes back thru a John Drake, Richard, Andrew, etc to Sussex Co., NJ. So, I suspect there is a distant match between this line and the Obediah Swayze line that went to Vermillion Co, IN.”

Now if only we could uncover Rev. Richard’s parentage. But we have found a male Wright descendant of Rev. Richard Wright from his first marriage whose DNA tests may finally provide the evidence we need.

Lydia

And now we come to Obediah Swayze’s wife Lydia. In his book Genealogy of the Swasey Family, Benjamin Franklin Swasey gives Obediah’s wife the name “Forecloe.” He did not, however, provide her given name and “Forecloe” is a totally unknown surname. But in the Chester, New Jersey, Congregational Cemetery, Samuel Swayze’s resting place, one finds a number of people with the name “Fairclo.” Lydia’s name, it turns out, was actually “Fairclo,” a rare but known name, with derivatives “Faircloe” and “Fairclough.” Two books, Genealogy of the Lum Family by Edward H. Lum (1927) and Early Germans of New Jersey by Theodore Frelinghuysen (1895), presents information connecting the Swayze and Fairclo families. And cemetery markers provide additional history. Coupling these books, markers, and just a little research allows us to uncover Lydia’s story. Here it is with a large number of people and details omitted. We are, after all, researching Wrights, not Fairclos or Swayzes.

Elizabeth Fairclo marker.

Buried in Chester Congregational Cemetery, Chester, New Jersey, where Samuel and Penelope Swayze rest, is Thomas Fairclo and his wife Elizabeth, whose birthname may have been “Houshall” or something similar. Their stones nicely provide death dates, ages, and relationships:

Thomas Fairclo marker.

Among their children was Isaiah Fairclo, who appears to have had three wives and twenty-one children. Isaiah’s first wife was Mehitable Swayze, a daughter of Caleb Swayze and a granddaughter of Samuel Swayze. And Mehitable and Isaiah had a daughter, Lydia Fairclo, who became the wife of Obediah Swayze. Lydia and Obediah were second cousins!

Isaiah Fairclo marker, Sycamore, Illinois.

Where Obediah and Lydia met and married is uncertain. It could have been in Canada since Caleb, Mehitable’s father was a loyalist and like his nephew, Israel Swayze II, headed there during or just after the Revolutionary War. It is possible that Lydia and Obediah were there at the same time with family members.

Next time, we will finally get to the identification of the Swayze family members buried in Helt’s Prairie Cemetery (21 Oct 2017 posting).

The Swayze Family

A post (I hate the term “blog”) on this site dated 21 Oct 2017 describes a group of five cemetery markers in the Helt’s Prairie Cemetery for Swayze family members. Pat Shade, a fellow Wright family historian and my 3^rd cousin, and I have made conclusions (or at least educated guesses) about the identities of those who lay under those stones. But before looking at our analysis, we need to cover some history of the Swayze family.

Pat brought to my attention a book, Genealogy of the Swasey Family by Benjamin Franklin Swasey, privately printed, Cleveland, Ohio, 1910. Much of what Benjamin has written appears to be correct and is based largely on contemporary records and documents, rather than that scourge we face today, undocumented internet trees. But as noted by Jim M. Swayze (“Natchez Talk, 2014,” Descendants of the Jersey Settlers of Adams County, Mississippi, 75th Jubilee Reunion), the book is not without error. Below is what I have found by combining the works mentioned above with a little research on my own.

We will start with Obediah's great grandfather Samuel, whose life and that of his wife Penelope is briefly documented on their grave stones in Chester Congregational Cemetery, Chester, New Jersey. Today, the stones are unreadable, but were decipherable when Benjamin was living:

Cemetery Markers for Samuel and Penelope Swayze (Find a Grave).

.

Here lies the body of Samuel Swayze, Esqr., who was born in Southold, Long Island, March 20, 1689; and removed from thence to Roxbury, May 17, 1737, where he continued to reside until he departed this life May 11, 1759, aged 70 years 1 month and 11 days

Here lies the body of Penelope, the wife of Samuel Swayze, who was born in Southold, Long Island, Feb. 14, 1690, and removed from thence to Roxbury, May 17, 1737, where she continued to reside until she departed this life Dec. 1, 1746, aged 55 years 9 months and 17 days.

When Samuel moved from Long Island, New York, to New Jersey, settling first in Roxbury Twp (today, Chester) and then in Oxford Twp (today, Hope), he took his family with him. One of those was his son Israel, whose story is also briefly told on his marker, in the Swayze Cemetery, Warren County, New Jersey:

Cemetery Marker for Israel Swayze I, 1941 (HABS).

In Memory of

Israel Swayze who

was born on Long island

and removed with his

father to Roxbury in

Morris County & from

thence removed to

Oxford in Sussex County

& died Aug. 27, 1774

aged 53 Years & 10 Months

My flesh shall slumber in the Ground

till the last Trumpets joyful Sound

then Burst the Chains with sweet surprize

And in my Saviours Image rise

Israel Swayze I's House, Hope, New Jersey, 1941 (HABS).

Obediah's grandfather, Israel the elder, who married Elizabeth Seward (remember that name), lived out his life in New Jersey, but that was not true of his son, also named Israel. Following the American Revolutionary War, Israel II, a Loyalist, fled with his family to the province of Ontario in Canada. He and his wife, Abagail Coleman, are buried in Lundy's Lane Cemetery, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.

Israel Swayze II marker (Find a Grave).

One of the younger Israel’s children was Obediah (the spelling given on his will and other documents), who was born 2 Aug 1786, after his father is believed to have moved to Canada. But censuses give Obediah’s birthplace as New Jersey. It may be that Obediah did not know where he had been born, or was carried to Canada as an infant. Eventually, however, Obediah returned to the United States, ending up in Indiana.

The next post will deal with Lydia, Obediah’s wife, Richard Wright’s mother-in-law.

Richard Wesley's Inheritance

Obediah's Will

Our previous posting told of Obediah Swayze of Helt Twp, Vermillion County, Indiana, and his heir Richard Wesley Wright. Richard was the only known child of Rev. Richard Wright and Obediah’s daughter Malinda. (We are using the designation “Rev” to help distinguish between the two Richard Wrights, even though the older Richard may not have been a “Reverend” at the time.) Born between 1821 and 1825, Malinda died around age twenty, between 1841 and 1844, soon after the birth of her son in 1841 (in Illinois). Following Malinda’s early death, a very young Richard Wesley Wright was left by his father, Rev. Richard, with his grandparents, Obediah and Lydia Swayze, and when Obediah died, Richard Wesley was the sole heir to a very large estate.

In 1872, Obediah’s will was probated. Part of the estate was eighty acres (E½ NW¼ S21 T15N R9W) acquired by Obediah in 1825. It was there that Richard Wesley already had his farm, which was less than a half mile north west of Helts Prairie Cemetery, where Richard’s mother, grandfather, grandmother, and other Swayzes are said to rest.

Another portion of Richard’s inheritance were three hundred twenty acres of Section 27 land near the Wabash River. Valued at $15,000 in 1882, the property was eventually used, in part, for the Helt Twp community of Summit Grove. But the land had a “bad title.” All of Richard’s inherited real estate was entailed. Properties had to pass to his descendants. Richard could only sell his “life dower.” His children would have claim to the lands upon his death. By 1882 purchasers were worried about what would ensue when Richard Wesley died. Would his children come after the property? We know nothing of the outcome, but the unincorporated community of Summit Grove still exists today. Perhaps Richard’s descendants were unaware of their “opportunity.”

With the probate of Obediah’s will, 1872 was an important year in Richard Wesley Wright’s life. But it was important for another reason. In that year Richard was immersed in a nasty divorce, the subject of a future posting.

Obediah Swayze

Vermillion County, 2010 (Omnedon, Wikimedia Commons).

The last post, 10 May 2017, told of the “discovery” that Rev. Richard Wright was married twice. His first wife (married 2 Jun 1840 in Vermillion County, Indiana) was Malinda Ann Swayze, born to Obediah and Lydia Swayze between 1821 and 1825.

Obediah (the spelling in most records) and Lydia, natives of New Jersey, were among the mass of settlers who poured into Indiana in the early 1800s. In 1820 Obediah appeared in the Vigo County, Indiana, census. Then in 1830, he was found in the census for Helt Twp in  Vermillion County, Indiana. It is likely he and Lydia never moved, for a portion of Vigo County, formed in 1818, became Parke County in 1821, and part of Parke County became Vermillion County in 1824.

Helt Twp, red (Omnedon,
Wikimedia Commons).

Immediately north of today’s Vigo County, Vermillion County occupies a narrow strip (at most, 10 miles wide) bounded on the west by the Indiana/Illinois state line and on the east by the Wabash River. Named after Daniel Helt, an early pioneer who settled there in 1818, Helt Twp is one of five Vermillion County townships laid out in a line from north to south. A 1913 history claims that “In the winter of 1817-18 came Obadiah Swayze, who occupied, as a ‘squatter,’ one of the three cabins just built by the Helts.” The “squatter” Obediah soon became a well-off landowner, acquiring large amounts of Helt Twp farmland – 320 acres in 1819 (SW¼ S27 T15N R9W and NE¼ S27 T15N R9W), 80 acres in 1825 (E½ NW¼ S21 T15N R9W), 126 acres in 1839 (N½ S26 T15N R9W), and 68 acres in 1840 (N½ S½ W S28 T15N R9W).

Portion of map of Vermillion County, Indiana, James Tarrance, 1872 (Library of Congress). Red boundaries show land once owned by Obediah Swayze, 80 acres of which was owned by Richard Wesley in 1872. Also shown is the location of Helts Prairie Cemetery, resting place of the Swayzes. We'll hear about Summit Grove in a future post.

But to whom would Obediah’s wealth go when he passed on, as he did in 1871? His wife, Lydia, died around 1859 or 1860 and was buried in Helts Prairie Cemetery along with his daughter, Malinda, who died by 1844, and his two sons, both apparently dying unmarried and prior to Obediah’s death. Only one descendant remained – Obediah’s grandson, Richard Wesley Wright, the subject of a future post.