Joseph Rockwell Swan

Joseph Rockwell Swan (December 28, 1802 – December 18, 1884) was a Republican politician in the U.S. State of Ohio who was a judge on the Ohio Supreme Court 1855–1860. Biography Joseph Rockwell Swan was born at Westernville, Oneida County, New York. He studied at an academy in Aurora, New York, where he began the study of law. He moved to Columbus, Ohio in 1824, and studied law at the office of his uncle, Judge Gustavus Swan, where he was soon admitted to the bar. Swan's first office was prosecuting attorney of Franklin County, to which he was appointed in 1830 by the judges of the Common Pleas. In 1833, a statute was passed which made the office elective, and in October of that year, the voters of Franklin County chose Swan. Within a year, the legislature chose him for judge of the Common Pleas Court, with a grueling circuit of Franklin, Madison, Clark, Champaign, Logan, Union, and Delaware counties, with the legislature electing him in 1834 and again in 1841. Swan resigned from the court in 1845, and formed the partnership of Swan and Andrews in Columbus, with John W. Andrews as junior partner, until 1854. In 1850, the General Assembly passed an act calling a convention to revise or amend the constitution of the state of Ohio, and Judge Swan was elected as a delegate from Franklin County. In 1854 he won election to the Ohio Supreme Court.