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David Lowry Swain

David Lowry Swain (4 January 1801-27 August 1868) was the Whig Governor of North Carolina from 6 December 1832 to 10 December 1835, succeeding Montfort Stokes and preceding Richard Dobbs Spaight Jr..

Biography[]

David Lowry Swain was born in Buncombe County, North Carolina in 1801, and he became a lawyer in 1823. He served in the General Assembly from 1824 to 1830, as a superior court judge from 1830 to 1832, and Governor from 1832 to 1835. Swain supported internal improvements including railroads and education. During the American Civil War, he declined to serve in the Confederate Congress and presided over Raleigh's surrender to William T. Sherman; after the war, he served as an advisor to President Andrew Johnson on Reconstruction. In 1868, he was fatally injured when he was thrown from his buggy, which had been gifted to him by Sherman.

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