Swain, David Lowry, 1801-1868

David Lowry Swain, lawyer, governor, and educator, was born near Asheville, N.C., in Buncombe County. His father, George Swain, was a Massachusetts native who settled in Georgia and served in the Georgia legislature and constitutional convention of 1795 before moving to the North Carolina mountains. Caroline Swain, his mother, was the daughter of Jesse Lane. Caroline Swain had four children with her first husband, David Lowry. She and George Swain had seven children, of whom David was the youngest.

David Swain was educated in the Newton Academy and remained there for a time as an instructor in Latin. In 1822, Swain left to pursue his aspiration of becoming a lawyer and entered the junior class of the University of North Carolina. Older than most of the students and somewhat disappointed with the University, Swain left after only one week in order to study law in Raleigh at the school of Chief Justice John Louis Taylor.

In 1823, Swain returned to Asheville to practice law and soon became active in the political campaigns of his half brother, James Lowry, who was elected to the House of Commons. Along with most of his friends and associates, Swain supported the People's ticket, which first supported John C. Calhoun and later Andrew Jackson. Swain successfully ran for a seat in the House of Commons in 1824 by emphasizing local issues. Buncombe County voters sent him to the House of Commons five times, 1824-1826 and 1828-1829, where he became a champion of western interests.

In February 1826, Swain married Eleanor White, the daughter of former secretary of state William White. The couple had five children, only two of whom survived to adulthood--a son, Richard Caswell Swain, who became a physician, and a daughter, Eleanor Swain Atkins.

In December 1832, the General Assembly selected Swain to serve a one-year term as governor of North Carolina, a selection which surprised the public. By the end of his year in office, he was highly popular and some informed leaders thought him the most influential man in North Carolina. The General Assembly then elected Swain for another one-year term. In December 1831, Swain was also elected a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina.

The University's respected longtime president, Joseph Caldwell, died in 1835, and the position remained vacant for most of the year. Swain, needing employment after the end of his term as governor, sought the post. Despite Swain's lack of scholarly credentials, influential trustees concluded that Swain would be an effective manager, what they believed the University needed most.

In January 1836, Swain moved to Chapel Hill to assume his new duties as president and professor of national and constitutional law. He would remain at the University for the rest of his life, filling the longest term of any University president. His administration and the renewed prosperity of the University and the state produced the popularity and growth of the institution that the board had wanted. By the end of the antebellum period, enrollment had increased to nearly five hundred, the largest of any southern institution, with students drawn from throughout the South. New buildings were erected, the campus was improved curriculum and faculty were enlarged, and alumni began filling the most important state offices.

David Swain was an avid historian, concentrating on the study of North Carolina and the collection of source materials for the history of the state. At the University, he established the North Carolina Historical Society, which collected important newspapers and manuscripts about the state.

During the Civil War, Swain devoted most of his efforts to keeping the University alive by seeking exemption from conscription for University students and refusing to cease operations despite hardships. Most of the students left for the war, as did younger faculty members, and Swain and the older faculty members were left to teach a dwindling student body. Through Swain's determination, the University remained open and held commencement exercises every year of the war.

As William T. Sherman's army reached the center of North Carolina, it was Swain along with William A. Graham who acted as representatives of Governor Zebulon B. Vance and met with the general to request protection for Raleigh and the University. Sherman was conciliatory to the two old Unionists, and Raleigh was not destroyed, and the University was not vandalized.

During Reconstruction, despite of the University's largely Unionist board and faculty, Republicans considered the University a hotbed of secessionists because the students had been overwhelmingly southern in sympathy. In contrast, many North Carolinians felt that the University had given little support to the Confederacy. They thought Swain's readiness for peace, his acceptance of a horse as a gift from Sherman, his approval of his daughter's marriage to Union general Smith D. Atkins, who commanded the troops occupying Chapel Hill, and his invitation to President Johnson to the commencement of 1867 to be betrayals of the southern cause.

With no effective political or public support, the bankrupt University, which had only a few students and faculty, was in great danger. Some of its trustees and alumni concluded that a change in the plan of education would revive the institution. An elective system of education was recommended, and Swain along with the other faculty members tendered their resignations to facilitate the new plan. The new plan was adopted in the fall of 1868, but these efforts proved to be ineffective and political control proved to be more important. Under Reconstruction, a new state constitution was adopted, providing that the old board of trustees be replaced by a new one chosen by the Board of Education. The old board, at its last meeting in June 1868, reelected the old faculty. The new board convened in July and courteously heard the reports of the old faculty, but met without them the next day and accepted their resignations.

Swain, shocked and hurt by his removal, wrote a long legalistic protest that was ignored. An accident cut short any further effort on his part to regain the presidency. On 11 August 1868, he was thrown from a buggy pulled by the horse that Sherman had given him. Though confined to bed due to shock and weakness, Swain appeared to be recovering, but he succumbed to his injuries on 29 August. He was buried in the garden of his home in Chapel Hill, but was later reinterred in Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh.

From the guide to the David L. Swain Papers,  , 1807-1877, (bulk 1833-1868), (University of North Carlina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.)