Submitted by: Cathy Millburn
JULIAN J. SWANN
Julian J. Swann, b May 7, 1851 in White Plains,
Greene County, Georgia, and d after 1892 ‑ was a son of John W. and Lucy P.
(Jernigan) Swann, both natives of Georgia. In 1862, John W. Swann enlisted in
the Georgia State Troops, and served on Governor Brown's staff during the Civil
War; served a term as Sheriff of Greene County, and was a Representative from
Greene County in the Georgia Legislature. John W. and Lucy P. Swann had ten
children ‑ Julian J. Swann being; the second of those children.
Julian J. Swann was educated in the Dawson Institute
at White Plains, Georgia, and graduated in the Class of 1871 from the State
University at Athens, Georgia. He afterward began reading law in Greene County,
and was admitted to practice in the Superior Courts of Georgia in September
1872. He moved to Texas in 1873, locating in Bee County, where he practiced law
until 1879. In the Fall of 1876, he represented the 58th District, composed of
eleven Texas Counties, in the State Legislature ‑ after which he removed to
Kosse, Limestone County, Texas in 1879. In 1877 until 1888, he served as Consul
to Puerto Rico ‑ after which, in 1889, he moved his family to Marlin, Falls
County, Texas and formed a law partnership with J. D. Oltorf under the firm
name, Oltorf & Swann.
In November 1876 in Kosse, Limestone County, Julian
J. Swann married Mary Warren, also a native of Georgia ‑ daughter of Marshall
and Almira (Emery) Warren. Almira died in Florida in 1870, and Marshall Warren
moved to Brazos County, Texas in 1871, where he died that same year.
Julian J. and Mary (Warren) Swann had two children,
John W. and Lucy Swann; and Mary (Warren) Swann died in 1881 in Kosse,
Limestone, Texas.
John Warren Swann ‑ a Major in the U.S. Army, was a
veteran of the Spanish‑American War and of World War I. He distinguished himself
in the Philippines when Aguinaldo was causing a lot of trouble to the Washington
government. He was commander of the Philippine Constabulary; and later during
World War I, he served in Europe in various parts of the war zone.
Lucy Swann, b 1881‑ the second child of Julian J. and
Mary (Warren) Swann, married G. G. McDonald, son of James McDonald, Jr. ‑ a son
of James M. McDonald, b 1828 in Alabama, and his first wife, Eugenia (Perry)
McDonald, b 1839 in Texas ‑ a daughter of Albert G. and Harriett Elizabeth
(Grimes) Perry. Harriett E. (Grimes ) Perry was a daughter of Judge Jesse Grimes
‑ a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence ‑ and a brother of Albert
Calvin Grimes, who died March 6, 1836 at The Alamo. G. G. and Lucy (Swarm)
McDonald had three children: A daughter, who married R. Y. Barham, and resided
in Chicago, Illinois; a son, Warren Swann McDonald, who became the youngest
county attorney of Smith County, Texas; and a second daughter, Mary Gordon
McDonald ‑who received her law degree from The University of Texas in 1939,
after obtaining her B.A. degree from The Rice Institute.
G. G. McDonald, who moved his family to Tyler, Texas,
served as a justice of peace in Smith County ‑ a position his wife filled after
his health failed.
Julian J. Swann served as a member of the Texas State
Senate from the district which included Falls County. He married secondly to
Beulah Gaither, and he became Superintendent of the State Orphans at
Corsicana, while she, a native of Chilton, Texas, served as the Matron. Julian
J. and Beulah (Gaither) Swann were both buried in Chilton Cemetery, Falls
County, Texas.
Copyright Permission granted to Theresa Carhart for printing the biographies of
these Falls County Families to this Web page.
"Families of Falls County", Compiled and Edited by the Falls County Historical
Commission, page 439 column 2 and page 440 column 1..
Member of Falls County Historical Commission.
