Jack Swilling

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Jack Swilling bigraphy, stories - American pioneer

Jack Swilling : biography

April 1, 1830 – August 12, 1878

John W. "Jack" Swilling (April 1, 1830 – August 12, 1878) founded the city of Phoenix, Arizona, in 1867. Other pioneers and travelers had seen and commented on the ancient Hohokam canals in that area, but it was J. W. Swilling who organized the first successful modern irrigation project in Arizona’s Salt River Valley. The "Swilling Irrigating and Canal Company" started the small farming community of Phoenix that since has grown into a major metropolitan area.

Swilling earlier had an important role in the opening to settlement of the previously unexplored central Arizona highlands in the vicinity of modern-day Prescott, Arizona. His discoveries resulted in a major gold rush to the new area, and this in turn led to the establishment of Arizona’s first Territorial Capital at the brand-new town of Prescott.

Jack Swilling was a teamster, prospector, mine and mill owner, and a saloon and dance hall owner. He also was a visionary, a canal builder, farmer, rancher, politician, and public servant. Swilling was also a Confederate States Army minuteman and a civilian aid to the United States Army during the American Civil War. All of this was accomplished while he suffered from periods of excruciating pain resulting from major injuries he suffered in 1854. He took morphine to assuage the pain, which led to dependency problems for the rest of his life.

References and further reading

  • Albert R. Bates, Jack Swilling: Arizona’s Most Lied About Pioneer, Wheatmark Publishing Co., Tucson, AZ, 2008. ISBN 978-1-58736-965-0

Biography

Early life

Jack Swilling was born on April 1, 1830, at Red House Plantation, Anderson, South Carolina, to George Washington Swilling and Margaret Farrar Swilling, the eighth of their 10 children. George Swilling was the son of the plantation manager, while Miss Farrar was the owner’s daughter. Farrar’s parents did not approve of the marriage, so the young couple eloped. It took three years for her parents to accept the match. In time, George Swilling became owner of the plantation. When Jack Swilling was 14 the family moved from South Carolina to Georgia. Three years later he and an older brother enlisted in a mounted battalion of Georgia volunteers for service during the Mexican–American War. After the war, the two young men returned to Georgia. Jack Swilling drops out of sight for a time then, although he was reported in Georgia for the Christmas of 1849.

The next recorded events in his life are his marriage at Wetumpka, Alabama, in 1852 to Mary Jane Gray and the birth of their daughter Elizabeth a year later. Swilling wrote that in 1854 he suffered serious injuries—a broken skull and a bullet lodged in his back—in unstated circumstances. Those injuries plagued him for the rest of his life and led to a dependency on drugs and alcohol. In 1856, on his 26th birthday, something happened to cause him to leave permanently for the West.

There is over a year’s break in the record, but he apparently joined the Leach Wagon Road Company, at Fort Smith, Arkansas, in the summer of 1857 as a teamster, probably staying with the slow-moving oxen-drawn wagon train until its arrival a year later at Mesilla, in Traditional Arizona which was then part of New Mexico Territory.

The years between Swilling’s arrival in Arizona in 1858 and the founding of the Phoenix settlement almost a decade later were active and varied ones. Following are some highlights:

After his arrival in Arizona, Swilling moved to southern California, where he joined in a gold rush near Los Angeles. A few months later he was drawn back to Arizona by the gold rush at Gila City where he also worked for the Butterfield Overland Mail Company.

Apache Wars and the American Civil War

He was elected captain of the Gila Rangers militia company that was formed for protection from Apache stock raids on the miners and the stage company. The Gila Rangers with the support of warriors from the friendly Maricopa tribe—made a January 1860 expedition to the unexplored Bradshaw Mountains of central Arizona to “chastise” Apache raiders. That expedition resulted in some noteworthy discoveries: the existence of the Hassayampa River and traces of mineral riches, including gold, in an area that looked well suited for ranching and farming. However the area was too remote and dangerous for settlers at that time.