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Below is a family biography included in Biographical Record of Oakland County, Michigan published by Biographical Publishing Company in 1903. These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary. Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more. There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.
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J. F. Swearingen, superintendent of the Detroit Sugar Company, at Rochester, Oakland County, was born in Clark County, Illinois, March 9, 1862, and is a son of Dos and Lizzie (Freeland) Swearingen, the former of whom died at the age of 45 years. The latter resides in St. Louis, Missouri.
Mr. Swearingen was educated in the schools of Clark county, Illinois, and has practically taken care of himself since he was 10 years old. He worked on a farm until the age of 20 and then followed various occupations which, led to his traveling over a wide extent of country, including Arkansas, Texas, Colorado and Cuba and other sugar producing countries. In 1884, having in the meantime sufficiently qualified himself, he began work at Topeka, Kansas, as a machinist and engineer. In 1887 in the same city he embarked in the sugar business, but after a year left the city and went to the southwestern part of the State where he engaged in the construction of sugar factories. He continued in this line of business and went to Louisiana, where he worked until 1894. He so thoroughly understood the various possibilities of the sugar business by this time that he went to the sugar plantations of Cuba, but did not stay long on account of the trouble and unsettled conditions there. The succeeding three years he spent as a traveling engineer for a Chicago house and in 1899 he came to Rochester, Oakland County, in the construction gang of the factory of which he is now the competent superintendent. He worked in the plant three years as a machinist and sugar maker, and so efficiently were all his duties performed, that in April, 1902, he was made superintendent of the plant. This is one of the great industries of the section and during the season gives employment to 300 men. Mr. Swearingen’s economical but thoroughly efficient management has given the greatest satisfaction and he has succeeded in increasing the output as well as in adding to the quality of the product.
In 1896 Mr. Swearingen was married to Maud A. Lockard, a native of Fort Scott, Kansas, and they have a little daughter, Lucile.
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This family biography is one of numerous biographies included in the Biographical Record of Oakland County, Michigan published in 1903.
View additional Oakland County, Michigan family biographies here: Oakland County, Michigan Biographies
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