30 Facts About Thomas Swann

Thomas Swann was an American lawyer and politician who was President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as it completed track to Wheeling and gained access to the Ohio River Valley.

Thomas Swann was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the fourth son born by the former Jane Byrd Page, a member of one of the First Families of Virginia.

Thomas Swann's mother died three years later after a difficult childbirth.

The Thomas Swann brothers attended Columbian College in Washington, DC, then the University of Virginia at Charlottesville.

In 1834, Thomas Swann married an heiress and moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where his father's lawyer friend William Wirt had settled, and where Thomas Swann later became a railroad lawyer.

Thomas Swann's bride's British born father, John Sherlock, left a sizeable estate which included interests in French and Neopolitan spoliation claims, as well as 6000 acres of Pennsylvania land, 150 ounces of silver plate, 300 bottles of madeira, plus stock in the Bank of the United States, three Baltimore banks, two turnpikes, a canal in York, Pennsylvania and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

In 1840 the elder Thomas Swann died and this man inherited Morven Park, sixty slaves and his father's law library, and over the next years gradually purchased the rest of what had been his father's land.

Thomas Swann returned to Alexandria after his father's death in 1840, but continued as a railroad lawyer.

In 1844 Thomas Swann became Alexandria' tobacco inspector, an important responsibility in that port city which had railroad ties both to Richmond, and to Baltimore.

Thomas Swann was chosen as president of the Northwestern Virginia Railroad.

Thomas Swann was first elected Mayor of Baltimore in 1856 as a member of the "Know Nothing" movement in one of the bloodiest and corrupt elections in state history.

Thomas Swann supposedly defeated Democratic challenger Robert Clinton Wright by over a thousand votes.

Thomas Swann was re-elected in 1858, again with widespread violence prevalent, and won by over 19,000 votes due to a large amount of voter intimidation.

Thomas Swann's office oversaw the creation of the horse-drawn streetcar system in Baltimore replacing the older omnibuses, the purchase from the Col.

Thomas Swann was angered, and insisted this was not necessary, but, recalling the events one year earlier, Ligon refused to lift the martial law status.

In 1861, Thomas Swann left the American Party, which dissolved, and joined the wartime Union Party.

Thomas Swann won election with lieutenant-governor running mate Christopher C Cox by over 9,000 votes.

The only governor elected under the Maryland Constitution of 1864, Swann took the oath of office on January 11,1865, but did not enter into the duties of the office until one year later ; he served until January 1869.

Radical Republicans of Maryland criticized Thomas Swann for supporting the Reconstruction policies of Democratic and 17th President Andrew Johnson, and refusing to adopt their proposals.

Thomas Swann eventually parted with the Republicans and joined the Democratic Party during his term as governor.

Thomas Swann had strongly opposed requiring the "ironclad" loyalty oath and registration laws promoted by the Radical Republicans for former Confederates in the state.

The Democrats in Maryland began to fear that, if Thomas Swann left, the Maryland lieutenant governor, a Radical Republican, might place Maryland under a military, Reconstruction government and temporarily disfranchise whites who had served in the Confederacy.

Rather than fight the Radicals in Congress to gain a seat, Thomas Swann was convinced by Democrats to remain as governor and turn down the Senate seat.

Thomas Swann supported internal improvements to state infrastructure, especially after the war, and he is credited with greatly improving the facilities at the Baltimore Port and Harbor.

Thomas Swann encouraged immigration, and the immediate emancipation of slaves following the War.

In 1868, Thomas Swann was elected to Congress from Maryland's 3rd congressional district, gaining re-election and serving until 1873.

In 1843, his first wife, the former Elizabeth Gilmer Sherlock, bore a daughter, Elizabeth Gilmer Thomas Swann, who was their only child to reach adulthood.

Thomas Swann died on his estate, "Morven Park", near Leesburg, Virginia.

Thomas Swann is interred in the landmark Green Mount Cemetery of Baltimore.

However, in 2022, the Dupont Circle Advisory Neighborhood Commission approved a resolution declaring that Thomas Swann Street is named after William Dorsey Thomas Swann, one of the first known LGBT activists.