WILLIAM HENRY SWIFT, son of Alexander Swain and Susan (Coleman) Swift, was
born at Nantucket, March 27, 1838. He joined our Class in the autumn of 1861. While in
college, Swift joined the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity; was also a member of the 'Technian
Literary Society, and on the editorial board of the Williams Quarterly. He was the leading
scholar of our Class during his two years' membership, and received the appointment of
valedictorian on the Commencement program. This gave him a title to membership in the
Phi Beta Kappa fraternity when the Williams chapter was organized in 1864.
The year following his graduation our classmate was principal of the high school at
Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Presumably, also, he was studying law, for, according to the Class
reports of our early graduation years, Swift, in 1865, was a student in Harvard Law School,
and in 1866 he was a member of the bar in the State of Massachusetts, and became a law
partner with Mr. Bowerman, a well-known Pittsfield lawyer.
Swift writes briefly concerning himself in a letter of earlier date than the one given
below: "I was married the first of May, 1867 [Miss Grace Campbell, of Pittsfield, being the
bride], and my wife and I came to Chicago early in June, 1870, where I have ever since
resided, and where I have been continuously engaged in the practice of law. There has not
been much change in my immediate surroundings. I have had an office upon the third floor
of the Portland Block, at the corner of Washington and Dearborn Streets, for thirty years,
and for the last twenty years have hardly changed the position of my desk. How much of
hard work in the profession these few lines indicate none but a brother lawyer can
appreciate." Our classmate is very reserved, even to the extreme of complete silence, in
speaking of his connections with the social, civic, and religious life of his city. Of his
position in the social and civic life of Chicago I have no knowledge, but we do know that
he counts effectively on the side of all that is best in the city's life. In the religious life of
the city Swift has been in evidence. For many years he has been a member of the First
Presbyterian Church of Chicago; has been on important committees; on the board of elders,
and still is there, for aught known to the contrary, and has represented Chicago Presbytery
in the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church.
In common with Hawes, another classmate residing in Chicago, Swift was a sufferer
in the great fire of October, 1871, his office and residence being a total loss.
In addition to what is given above as the result of gleanings in various fields, former
Class reports, letters of friends, and other records, I take pleasure in giving the following
letter, written May 28, 1903, which I am sure every member of the Class will greatly
appreciate. After referring to Nantucket as his birthplace, as given above, Swift adds:
"My father was born in the same place, but his father was born on Cape Cod, and
the same is true of all my other ancestors in the direct male line back to the first William,
who came from England in 1630. My father's mother and my own mother were born on
Nantucket, and trace their lineage to the earliest settlers of that island, and their ancestors
also came from England about 1630.
"My ancestors became Quakers at an early day, but in the Swift line the names of
William and Benjamin have alternated in the different generations as the militant or
religious spirit has prevailed. I trace my ancestry in the female line to two of the children
of Peter Folger, another of whose children was the mother of Benjamin Franklin. It is
conceded that Franklin inherited all his ability from his mother, and she was only a fair
average of the children of Peter Folger.
"I left school at an early age and learned a trade, but went back to my books and
fitted for college in the Nantucket High School. The principal of the school was a graduate
of Williams, and through his influence I decided to go there also. I entered the Class of
1861 near the close of the first term of its Freshman year. I was poorly prepared and poorly
equipped; had but little Latin, less Greek, and still less money. For some time two of my
classmates and myself boarded ourselves. I remember that one week we reduced the cost
of meals to sixty cents apiece for the entire week. I have never lived so cheaply nor so
poorly since that time. Even at that rate, however, my expenses exceeded my income, and
at the end of Freshman year I left college and went to teaching. I taught for two years on
a plantation in Louisiana; was in the telegraph office there when the news came of the
secession of various States and the fall of Fort Sumter. I came North and crossed the Ohio
River with a sense of relief the day after Colonel Ellsworth was shot at Alexandria, May 24,
1861. I stopped at Williamstown on my way home. I had been doing some studying by
myself, and some of the professors induced me to take a private examination for the Junior
class, which I then and there did, and was told I had passed. It was the second time that
the kindness of the professors bridged over for me deep, wide gulfs of ignorance. The class
for which I was examined was the Class of 1863, and I took my place in it at the beginning
of the fall term and kept it, having earned and saved enough by my teaching for all my
expenses.
"I never sought any prominence in the Class, scholastic or otherwise, and it has
always been a mystery to me how any Class honor fell to my lot. I recollect only one
recitation of mine which I felt at the time was exceptionally good; that was a recitation in
higher mathematics in which I succeeded after a number of the Class had failed. I think I
enjoyed the spontaneous cheers of my classmates over that recitation more than any other
success of my college life, and the enjoyment was heightened by the apparent (only
apparent, I am sure) chagrin of Professor Bascom that he could not floor a few more of the
Class with that problem.
"My life since we graduated you know. The years have passed as a tale that is told''
"Sincerely yours,
"W. H. SWIFT."
Source:
Class of Sixty-Three Williams College Fortieth Year Report, by
the Class Historian, Thomas Todd Printer, Boston, 1903
