My Genealogy Hound

Mrs. Sallie (Cox) Swearingen was born in Kentucky in 1825, and is a daughter of Burwell and Rebecca (Moberly) Cox, natives of Kentucky and South Carolina, who were born in 1795 and 1802, and died in 1874 and 1876, respectively. The father was a farmer by occupation, and in 1830 moved to Arkansas with his family, where he passed the remainder of his life. The paternal grandfather, Capt. John Cox, was born in Virginia, and the maternal grandfather, Isaiah Moberly, was from South Carolina. The latter served throughout the Revolution and was twice wounded. The battle of Cow Pens was fought upon the farm of our subject’s great-grandfather. The grandmother, Frances (Coleman) Moberly, was born in South Carolina, and died in July, 1844. Mrs. Swearingen attended school but little during her girlhood, as there were no public schools in the neighborhood. In 1842 she married Samuel Swearingen, who was born in 1818, in Cooper County, Mo., and was a son of John and Matilda (Riddle) Swearingen, natives of Maryland, who moved to Missouri in 1817, and to Arkansas in 1839, settling in Crawford County. In 1847 they went to Texas, where Mr. Swearingen died in 1859 and his wife in 1861. Mr. Samuel Swearingen was a blacksmith by trade, and he became a well-to-do man through successful farming and blacksmithing. His widow now lives upon the home farm of 208 acres, of which seventy-five acres are under cultivation. In 1863 he enlisted in the Confederate service, under Col. Brooks but was captured soon after, at Huntsville, and kept a prisoner at Rock Island, Ill., until exchanged in January, 1865. He then remained in service until the close of the war. His death occurred in 1871, at which time he had been a resident of this county for over nineteen years. To Mr. and Mrs. Swearingen eleven children were born, eight of whom live in Crawford County: Robert Swearingen; Thomas, farmer and teacher; Oscar; Philip, physician; Sarah Frances; Mrs. Elizabeth Dial, of Idaho; Claudius, Clarence and John. William and Edward died in 1878 and 1886, respectively. In politics Mr. Swearingen was a Democrat, and cast his first presidential vote for Martin Van Buren, in 1840.