The Swango family comes from Bavaria in Germany. The name “Swango” is a translation of the German word “Schwangau,” meaning Swan Country. The Swangos are thought to originally be
members of a small barbaric tribe called the Skyrii (Scheyren, Schyren, or Scheiern). As foes mounted against them, they joined for protection with other Germanic tribes such as the Heruli, Rugii, or Torcilingi and settled in fortified areas as a community of people called the Swabians (Suevians).
The religious foment brought about by the great Reformation in Europe climaxed in Germany with the Thirty Years War. The Swangos of the period were sympathetic to the “New Religion” even though they had lived most of their lives under the Pope and had served in many functions for the Catholic Church. A Swango, serving as Bishop of Augsburg is said to have given refuge to Martin Luther, the Reformer, in his flight from the Reichstag. He was supposedly given shelter in Hohenschwangau Castle while seeking permanent quarters in Wartburg Castle where he later worked on a translation of the Holy Bible. The Catholics were eventually victorious in that part of Germany. The Swangos, true to the new doctrine, lost their influence and were considered vanquished. They gave up their lands and the titles that went with them. A proud and noble family with a heritage and romantic history among the finest in Europe, they now had to face the prospects of being outcasts. They suffered the misfortunes of the losers in the struggle until the year 1747. That was the year when in May an important decision was made by William Swango which ultimately brought his family to the new world, America.
Jacob, in exceptional hand, signed an “Oath of Allegiance to the Government” for the family in order to qualify for passage on a ship called “Two Brothers.” The journey began on the Rhine River. This river flows into Rotterdam, Holland, their first destination. From Holland they boarded a tiny seagoing vessel that would eventually take them to America. After a brief stop at the English Customs House in Leith, Scotland, across the sea they came.
The trip from Scotland to America involved sailing through three thousand miles of the stormy wild North Atlantic Ocean. Mrs. Swango, whom history does not name, died and was given a burial at sea. She was survived by William and three sons: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
October 20, 1747, they arrived in the new world at the Port of Philadelphia. They were short of cash and had no visible means of raising funds except to hire out as indentured servants until the debt was paid. The boys signed in to bondage for seven years as apprentices to a wagon maker to pay off their debt. William, their father, died shortly after arriving in the new land.
After serving their apprenticeship these young men separated, Isaac going on into Pennsylvania where other German speaking people migrated, while Abraham and Jacob hired out as general maintenance men and wagon makers until they could lease themselves a plot of ground.
Five years passed. During this time Abraham gained the reputation of being a hard worker. He had learned to communicate well in English and had built up a good trade among the elite who always had carriages or wagons in the shop for repairs. Finally, Abraham fell in love with and married an Irish lady by the name of Ailsie Pyles. The wedding took place in the Old Swedes Church in Wilmington, Delaware, on March 24, 1760. At that time Old Swedes was a Lutheran Church intended to serve the Swedish settlers who had come to America under the leadership of Peter Minuit. It continued as a Lutheran edifice for almost a century, but when the Swedish Church stopped sending pastors to the new world, the building passed, in 1791, into the friendly hands of the newly formed Protestant Episcopal Church with the name of Holy Trinity Church.
The newlyweds were offered a tract of land in a lease agreement from George Washington, an aristocratic landowner, surveyor, farmer, and soldier of Mt. Vernon, Virginia. The lease is preserved in Frederick County Virginia. It calls for the erecting of buildings, clearing land, setting fruit trees, all according to a plan laid down by Washington. Their first son, James, our ancestor, was born about 1762, Samuel in 1765, Abraham, Jr. one year later. Then came Elizabeth, Nancy, and Mariah, followed by William, a fourth son in 1776, and John 1779.
By the year 1782, tax records reveal that Abraham and his brother, Jacob owned farmland in Berkeley County, Virginia (now West Virginia). Abraham, however, along with other neighbors had to abandon his farm for a while to enlist in the service along the frontier during the Revolutionary War. Historical records indicate that he was a member of the 1st and 2nd Battalions under Washington while his first son, James, at age 20, was fighting in the Revolution in the Delaware area.
In the fall of 1783 the Abraham Swango family, including their five sons and three daughters, joined neighbors in migrating southward from Berkeley through the Greenbrier region (now West Virginia) to the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with one goal in mind, the rich black loam of the great Kentucky prairie. Meanwhile, Jacob left Berkeley and headed into Pennsylvania, probably to be near Isaac. (Very little is known about Jacob’s later life. A confused inquiry in the DAR Magazine, Vol. 67, 1933, p. 116 relates that a Jacob and his wife died in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, leaving four children; Catherine, John, who was born December 25, 1800, Jacob and Polly. These children moved to Wayne County, Ohio with their father’s sister, Peggy Swanger Long. Her children were William David, and Susan Long.)
Abraham and his family traveled to Bryan’s Station near what is now Lexington, Kentucky and settled on a tract of land to the northeast of Fort Logan. Abraham and Ailsie with their daughters, Mariah, Elizabeth, and Nancy, and two younger sons, William and Abraham, Jr., spent two rough years there grubbing out an existence. It is logical to assume that James, their oldest son, was still engaged in fighting the British in the Delaware Region and that their son, Samuel, had returned to the Tidewater Region for a time expecting to rejoin his family later.
Abraham and Ailsie to pulled up stakes about two years later and headed north to what is now called Sparta in Gallatin County, a few miles west of Covington; and there they resided for the remainder of their lives. Abraham died soon after settling in Gallatin County. His wife lived a long full life, as revealed by Gallatin County Census records for the year 1830. Both were buried in the Oakland area.
James was born to Abraham and Ailsie in Delaware, 1762 and was 21 years of age when his parents moved into Gallatin County. He had already experienced an unusual adventure. Being well trained in the use of fire arms and an expert in the saddle, he enjoyed serving as advance guard and lookout for the caravans which moved through the wilderness. James had become adept at tracking the enemy through the woodland and thickets during the Revolutionary War, a fact supported by records preserved in the National Archives of History. He is listed in the War Department records of Washington, D.C. as having served the state of Delaware in the Legion commanded by Col. Henry Lee of Revolutionary War fame. From the records at hand, it appears that he also was granted a tract of land in Kentucky for his service in the war. It is evident that after the conflict he married a girl from the coast, who journeyed with him to Kentucky.
Abraham’s son William and his wife, Nancy, whom he married in Virginia, settled in Gallatin County, Kentucky where he remained there until his death. His children are listed in his will as Moses, Jacob, William, Abraham, Elizabeth, Alice, Jane, and Jabes.
Samuel, the second son of Abraham and Ailsie left his parents at the age of 22. On December 24, 1789, he married Elizabeth Johnston O’Banion and settled in the Greenbriar region of what is now West Virginia. Their first child, Abraham, was born to them in 1790 and a daughter, Milly, in 1792. About two years later they joined other families from the Greenbrier region to follow the same route into Kentucky as Samuel’s parents and others before them.
Samuel and Elizabeth Swango settled first near Mt. Sterling. In about the year 1797, Samuel moved his family to better hunting territory on the Red River in Powell County, Kentucky where that family remained and descendants live today.
Kentucky was good to the early Swangos. In Kentucky they had been prominent and successful people in many areas of community life. In the larger sense these early people were pioneers. The first Swango to leave the territory of “Old Kentucky” was John who had married Betsy Wise in Gallatin County, Kentucky, about 1814. He is believed to be the son of James Swango and the grandson of Abraham and Ailsie. John crossed the great Ohio River on homemade rafts of oak wood to seek a new, unclaimed region where he could build for his family a new home in Indiana. In 1820 we find him settled in Gibson County. From there his descendants were to spread out into Illinois and on into the Missouri country. As early as 1820 census records show that the family was represented in two additional territories which later became separate states.
Indiana had another attraction as well for the young ambitious farmer, the fertile soil of Shelby County. Abraham, the son of James and also the grandson to the elder Abraham and Ailsie, sold his Kentucky possessions and land to his cousin, William, and with his wife, Nancy Rose Bruce Swango, moved into the black loam country of Shelby County, Indiana. This branch of the family now reports members as far away as California. Abraham is buried at Sand Hill Cemetery in Shelby County, where his gravestone stands today as a monument to the hearty man who blazed new trails into the midwest. Nancy Rose, his wife, is buried in the Second Mount Pleasant Cemetery on the dividing line between Johnson County and Shelby County.
A third group of Swangos left Kentucky on a much more somber note. Abraham, the son of William and grandson of the elder Abraham and Ailsie, went looking also for a wife. He crossed the Ohio in 1815 and traveled into Dearborn County, Indiana, where he met and married Rachael Bruce in October of that year. They settled in Gallatin County and had six children, but Abraham died before the birth of his youngest son in 1844.
The widow Rachael took her children back across the frozen Ohio River by covered wagon to her family in Dearborn County, Indiana. Early in 1845 she married a local resident by the name of George Cheek. A few months later she was a widow for the second time. Then, along came Jacob Weaver, a German immigrant from Bavaria. How long this marriage lasted is not known. Later we find her in Greene County, Indiana, in the south-central portion of the state.
Today there are many Swangos living in Greene, Lawerence, Monroe, and Marion Counties of Indiana who are descended from this family. Their descendants have found their way into such places as Houston, Texas, and other western states.