Peter D Swick

SWICK

Posted By: County Coordinator (email)
Date: 5/13/2010 at 16:36:01

Peter D Swick, editor and proprietor for the Independent, weekly paper published at Boone, was born on December 14, 1847, in the town of Bennetsville, Schuyler county, New York. The Swick family was founded in America by tow brothers who came here from Germany in the seventeenth century ad settled in Jew Jersey, where one was killed in a mill. The other became the father of sixteen sons. Our subject’s paternal grandfather , John Swick was born in New York and later became a resident of Palatine, Illinois, where he died in 1864, at about the age of seventy years. He married Sarah Van Valkenberg, who was of Dutch descent. Their son, Charles W was the father of our subject. He as born in New York and died in Dundee, Illinois, in 1904 at the age of seventy-seven years. His wife, the other of our subject, bore the maiden name of Hermina R Garrison. She was also a native of New York, and her death occurred in Dundee, Illinois, in 1907, when she had reached the ripe old age of eighty-two years. In the family were nine children.
His father being a farmer, Peter D Swick was reared to agricultural pursuits. He was only six years of age when the family removed to Palatine, Cook county, Illinois, and there he acquired his education in the public schools, being graduated as he says by running away at that age of sixteen to enter the army during the Civil war. At the age of fourteen he tried to enlist, having at that time several cousins and uncles at the front, but was rejected. The following years, he was again refused, but in march 1864, he succeeded in entering the service as a private of Battery H , First Illinois Light Artillery. He journey his command at Kenesaw Mountain and only sixteen hours after arriving at the front participated in battle. He took active part in the siege of Atlanta and on July 22, 1864, when with a loss of fourteen, the battery was captured nine men were sent to Andersonville, prison, where they were incarcerated for ten months. At Jonesboro his command assisted in capturing the railroad over which the Confederates got their supplies. They were with Sherman on the march form Atlanta to the sea and went from Savannah to Raleigh, North Carolina , where Johnston surrendered to Sherman, and when hostilities ceased Mr Swick returned to Springfield, Illinois, where he was discharged, June 14, 1865.
For a time thereafter he worked with his father at the carpenter’s trade and then began learning printing at Dundee, Illinois, in the office of the Dundee Star, where he was employed for a year or two. He was next connected with the Northwood Pioneer, which was the fist newspaper started in Worth county, Iowa. Leaving Northwood in 1875 he went to Oskaloosa, Iowa, where he worked at his trade, and form there to Lovilia, this state, where he established the Lovilia Gazette, conducting that paper for two years. Subsequently he purchase the Iowa National at Newton and was in charge of that paper for several years. After which he removed to Colfax, Iowa, where in connection with H W Robinson, he was publisher of the clipper for some time. For seven years he was with the G A R Advocate at Des Moines, and after leaving that office remained in that city for six years longer. It was in 1896 that he came to Boone, where he was employed first as job printer, then as reporter on the Daily News and later as city editor for two years. In connection with C W Alexander he then founded the Independent the first issue appearing July 8, 1899. It is a six column quarto and form the beginning has been devoted to the labor interests. Of the many editors who were publishing papers in Iowa when Mr Swick took charge of the Northwood Pioneer, on ly two are now in active service there being Tommy Rodgers of the Newton Record, and Mr Swick of the Independent.
On October 17, 1869, in Dundee, Illinois, was celebrated the marriage of Mr Swick ad Miss Amanda Mitchell, of that place, a daughter of Joseph and Jeanette (Walker) Mitchell. The children of this union were: Ella who died in childhood. Maude the wife of D W Kelley of Newton, Iowa and Bert D who was born in Colfax, Iowa, January 3, 1884 and is now in partnership with his father as proprietor of the Independent. He was educated in the public schools of Des Moines and Boone
and at the age of eighteen years entered the office of his father as a printer’s devil. Socially he is a member of the Improved Order of Red Men and the Mystic Workers, while the father belongs to the Improved Order of Red Men, W C Crooks Post No 329, G A R of Boone, and Mount Olive Lodge NO 79, A R & A M, of this city, he joined the latter fraternity in 1873, becoming a member of the Northern Light Lodge, No 266, A F & A M at Northwood. As a newspaper man he is widely known throughout the state, and as a soldier and citizen justly deserves the high esteem in which he is held by all. For more than fifteen years he has taken an active part it e labor affairs an is a stanch supporter of the socialist party. On that ticket he has run for coroner, a member of the city council, mayor and congressman form the tenth district.

1914 Boone County History Book