HAND FAMILY HISTORY

Picture Credit / Original Portrait Holder: Georgia LaRue

Swain Hand was born in Ohio on or about Oct. 31, 1818 the oldest child of Lemuel C. Hand and Sarah Tracy who moved west from the Atlantic seaboard to raise a family. 

Swain married Sarah Killough around 1844 in Marion Co., Indiana. She was born about May 22, 1811 in Ohio. Her parents and siblings are not known at this time.

Swain and Sarah were living in Decatur, Marion county, Indiana by the time of the 1850 U.S. Census. 

Swain, a farmer, moved his family to Abingdon, Jefferson county, Iowa around 1854. See Maps for plat of Abingdon area.

On August 28, 1862, at the age of 43, Swain enlisted in the Union Army as a Private in Company D, 19th Infantry Regiment Iowa.  He was promoted to Full Wagoner on January 3, 1863.  He remained with the unit until being mustered out on July 10, 1865 in Mobile, Alabama.

Picture Credit / Original Portrait Holder: Georgia LaRue

During the Civil War, John William Roberts--a private in the same Company with Swain Hand--was killed at Prairie Grove, Arkansas shortly after their enlistments in August of 1862 [John enlisted on August 6th].

After the death of his first wife, Swain married the widow of his friend John William Roberts.

Wedding License No. 3364 was issued two days prior and on September 23, 1869 Swain, 51, married Ellen (nee Cline) Roberts, then 33. The wedding took place next door at the home of her father James Cline in Polk, Jefferson co., Iowa where she had probably resided after loosing her husband.

Into this marriage Ellen brought John's daughter, Susan P. Roberts then 9. Swain’s youngest son Elijah--then 17--still lived at home.

Swain Died

Swain died on February 24, 1883 at the age of 64 of Typhoid Fever with complications of inflammation of the kidney and bladder. He is buried in the Abingdon Cemetery in Abingdon, Iowa.

Death Certificate

The death cert. for Swain shows he died on the 24th yet his memorial marker shows the 25th.

Obituary

The Fairfield Ledger

Fairfield, Jefferson co., Iowa

March 7, 1883 Pg. 3 col. 8

Swain Hand - A GOOD MAN GONE

We are called upon to record the death of another old citizen of Jefferson County, Swain Hand, who died at his home near Abingdon February 25. Mr. Hand was born in Fayette County, Ohio in 1818. He removed to Indiana, and thence to Iowa in 1854, where he has since lived.

By his first marriage, which occurred in Marion Co., Indiana he had 4 children, 3 sons and one daughter; two of these sons died after coming to Iowa; one losing his life in the army. By his second marriage, in 1870 in this county he had a son and two daughters, but one of the latter now living.

Ellen was living in St. Louis during the 1900 Census but died May 10, 1908 in Ft. Worth, Texas. I appeasr that she lived with daughter Lillie May (nee Hand) Brown after Swain died.