Faulk County, SD Biographies.....Swift, Otis A. 1857 - 
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Author: C. H. Ellis


   OTIS A. SWIFT was born in Chautauqua county, state of New York, on September

15, 1857. His father, Jewel C. Swift, was a farmer and lived on the same farm

from the time he was two years of age until he was sixty years of age. He was of

English descent and his grandfather, Jacob Swift, purchased the old farm and

settled upon it when Chautauqua county was a wilderness. Mr. Swift's mother was

of Irish descent, though the family came to this country several generations

before she was born. Her father was a Baptist preacher.



    Mr. Swift was the second child in a family of four boys, and was reared on

the old farm. He enjoyed good educational advantages so far as they were

supplied by the common free public schools of that day, and at the age of

sixteen entered the Forestville Academy, and after a three year's course there,

at the age of nineteen he taught his first term of school, and from 1876 to 1888

he taught every winter, and during three years of that time he taught the entire

year through. Until 1883 he was attending school, teaching school and farming.



    In March, 1883, he came to Dakota Territory, and from Mellette traveled

overland to Faulk county, where he preempted the south-west quarter of section

30, township 120, north of range 67. He erected a board shanty and with his

partner, John Day, broke fifty acres of land and put into crop. Between them

they owned a team, wagon, breaking plow and harrow. Mr. Swift worked during the

summers on his claim and returned to New York during the winters, where he

taught school. In 1885 he and his partner bought the south-west quarter of

section 25, township 120, range 68, and moved the shanty onto this land. At the

time he took up his first quarter section and built the shanty, there were but

three others in sight, and now within two miles eighty fine farm residences can

be seen.



    Mr. Swift now owns five hundred and sixty acres of land, two hundred and

thirty of which are under cultivation with a fine set of farm buildings, located

only one mile from the new and growing village of Cresbard, an important station

on the Minneapolis & St. Louis railroad. Three hundred and thirty acres of

unbroken prairie is devoted to pasture, and though until 1892 he gave his

attention chiefly to grain growing, since that time he has turned his attention

largely to stock. He has been keeping a good herd of neat stock, horses and

sheep. With other pioneer farmers, Mr. Swift has had a full share of hardships

and privations, failure of crops, fire and storms. In 1889 he decided to remove

to Mellette and accept a position as principal of the public schools of that

city for two years.



    Since his return to his farm, by the introduction of nearly four hundred

artesian well, with their abundant flow of water into the county, preventing the

possibility of another siege of drought and a better knowledge of the climatic

conditions, success and prosperity have steadily followed.



    On March 27th, 1888, Mr. Swift was united in marriage with Miss Julia H.

Bryant. Mrs. Swift was born on a farm in Buchanan county, Iowa. Her father, N.

B. Bryant, is a native of Ohio, of German descent and an early settler of the

state of Iowa. Mrs. Swift is one of a family of four children and came to Dakota

in 1885. To Mr. and Mrs. Swift have been born two children, viz: Clare, born

July 22, 1880, and Martin, born October, 1892.



    In political views Mr. Swift is a republican, and takes an active interest

in local affairs. He is widely known and respected throughout Faulk county.





Additional Comments:
From:



HISTORY OF

FAULK COUNTY

SOUTH DAKOTA

CAPTAIN C. H. ELLIS



TOGETHER WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PIONEERS AND PROMINENT CITIZENS



ILLUSTRATED

19O9

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