Ziba Swan

by


Ziba Swan was born in New London, Connecticut in November 1767. He was the eldest son and second child in the large family of Jesse and Elizabeth Allen or Baldwin Swan. Perhaps his father was the Jesse Swan who relocated to Albany County following the christening of his last child in Connecticut in 1787. His father owned or leased a farm in the Heldeberghs and died in Berne in 1803.

In July 1790, Ziba married Elizabeth Palmer in New London. Their first child was born earlier that month. By the end of 1796, at least three more children were born in Connecticut.

By 1799, he had relocated to Albany and was living in a modest home on Pine Street. In 1800, his second ward household included five children, two young adults, and two adults.

He was a member of the Albany Mechanics Society. In 1800 and 1801, he purchased a grocer's license from the city government.

Later, he sometimes, he was referred to as "Doctor."

In 1807, he left Albany and is said to have relocated to what became Syracuse.

In 1821, he is said to have taken his extended family (wife, three sons, and one married daughter) to settle in Oakland County, Michigan in 1821. In 1821, "Dr. Ziba Swan of Albany, New York" purchased land for a cemetery in Birmingham, Michigan from the Federal government.

In 1830, his household was configured on the Michigan census.

Dr. Ziba Swan died at the end of February 1847 in his seventy-ninth year. His widow survived until 1853.

This transplanted Yankee probably lived in Albany for about ten years during the 1790s and early 1800s.


biography in-progress


notes

the people of colonial Albany Sources: The life of Ziba Swan has not been assigned a CAP biography number. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and Internet-based resources. Basic online material.





first posted: 1/10/09