El
Dorado County
Biographies
RANDOLPH W. H. SWENDT
The subject of this sketch belongs to
a class of men whose ranks are each year growing thinner, namely, the Mexican
War veterans. Also he is a California
pioneer, having landed in the state in 1854.
As such his history is of interest and briefly is as follows:
R. W. H. Swendt was born in Albany
County, New York, September 29, 1829, the son and only child of German parents,
John Randolph and Maria (Strew) Swendt.
His mother died at the age of forty-six years and his father lived to be
eighty-six. From New York state they emigrated at an early day to Georgia, where the
son was reared and educated. When he was
nineteen the war with Mexico was in progress, and so patriotic and ambitious
was he to be of service to his country, he enlisted for the war, claiming that
he was twenty years of age. He went to
the front under Captain John S. Lowry, in the Second Tennessee Regiment, with
which command he served twelve months, at the end of that time being honorably
discharged on account of the end of his term of enlistment. Re-enlisting immediately thereafter, he
became a member of Company C, Fifth Tennessee Regiment, his
company being commanded by J. C. Vaughn.
During his service Mr. Swendt participated in all the battles from Vera
Cruz to the City of Mexico, under Generals Taylor and Scott; was promoted to
the rank of sergeant, and went all through the war without receiving a
wound. For service in that war he is now
the recipient of a pension, amounting to twelve dollars per month.
After the trouble between the United
States and Mexico had been settled and Mr. Swendt had been honorably
discharged, he returned to Tennessee and from there, in 1849, started for
California. At that time, however, he
did not continue the journey further than Fort Smith, Arkansas, where he
remained until the winter of 1854. He
then came on to California. The party
with which he traveled had many skirmishes with the Indians, but all escaped
death and landed safely in California.
They also escaped the cholera, which was then prevailing in many parts
of the country and which caused the death of many an overland traveler.
Arriving in California, Mr. Swendt
located first at Placerville, where he was engaged in placer mining until
1862. While mining on the south fork of
the American River he was one of a party of four that took out about fifty
dollars a day, and on one occasion they found a single nugget valued at fifty
dollars. A great portion of his time
since 1862 Mr. Swendt has worked at his trade, that of carpenter, and has assisted
in the erection of most of the houses in El Dorado.
Politically Mr. Swendt has been a
life-long Democrat. He was at one time
elected a supervisor of El Dorado County, an office which he filled faithfully
and well for a period of four years.
The subject of this sketch has never
married. He is a well preserved
representative of the Mexican War veterans as well as of the California
pioneers and early mining men.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 617-618. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden
Nugget Library's El Dorado County Biographies