Biography of Ephraim Drake Swain, Independence Co, AR

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SOURCE: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northeast Arkansas. 
Chicago: The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889.
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page 718 

Ephraim Drake Swain owns a fine farm of 840 acres, in Washington
Township, Independence County, situated about one and a quarter miles east of
Victor postoffice. He was born October 2, [p.718] 1828, in what is now Yadkin
County, N. C., and his parents were Michael and Elizabeth (McGuire) Swain.
Michael Swain was also a native of North Carolina, and was born in 1809; he
died in the house in which he was born, and which was always his home, January
8, 1886. He was a farmer, of English descent, and for about forty years
previous to his death was afflicted with blindness. The mother of our subject
was born in North Carolina in 1811, and died in her native State in May, 1882.
Ephraim D. was the third in a family of twelve children, five of whom are
living. He lived with his parents until about twenty-four years of age,
receiving his education in the subscription and free schools of the State in
which he was born. In 1854 he married Miss Lucinda Chappel, a native of North
Carolina, who was born in 1830. Of the nine children who have been born to them
five survive, viz.: Sarah, Pleasant M., James M., Rosa and Buck. Mr. Swain
emigrated from North Carolina in 1871, and settled in Independence County,
Ark., where he has since resided and been successfully engaged in the pursuit
of farming. He has 300 acres of his large farm under cultivation, and is one of
the well-to-do and most enterprising farmers of the township. His first
presidential vote he cast for Pierce, and he still votes the Democratic ticket,
though not an active politician. Mrs. Swain is a member of the Missionary
Baptist Church. The paternal grandfather of our subject was also Michael Swain,
whose life was spent in his native State of North Carolina.