Your favor of the 12th inst. is received, and I am sorry to inform you that I am not the individual you referred to in your letter, as having made inquiries of parties in the South of Ireland in relation to the genealogy of the Sweney family; but, I must say, your communication gave me as much satisfaction as though I really were the party having instituted the inquiry. Will give my understanding of my family history, traditional, and probably, mythical. I can obtain it correctly, with correspondence and in time. The spelling was in my time changed from Sweeny to its present form, and father has frequently rendered it to me as you have done.
I think the party wishing the information as per your note is Robert Ormsby Sweeny, of St. Paul, who is usually called Dr., and may be a graduate in medicine. He is a druggist and a very worthy man, doubtless, also of our flesh and kindred. He has been hunting up his family record, and our notes make it almost certain. Besides this, his sister, wife of ex-Congressman Dr. Jacob Stewart, is the perfect picture of my Aunt Ann at her age.
I send this letter with its first page written on paper of the State Fish Commission correspondence by which you will see that, R.O. Sweeny and myself are both members of the Commission, but that we spell our names differently. Our positions as State officials, is due, probably, to ancestral proclivities, all of whom, in my knowledge, being lovers of the gentle art. The last reunion of our particular family was in 1833, and on the occasion-of-the return of my father's elder brother from a visit to Ireland. He brought with him a large salmon; kept as fresh as possible to the voyages of those days, and this fish formed the place de resistance of the family dinner. Salmon, however, are not incident to Minnesota waters, and I make another variety of the family pay duty to the hereditary instincts of my race; the brook trout, therefore have to suffer.
But to the history, as I can remember it. My father's family came from or near Letterkenny, County Donnegal, Ireland, about the year 1783, he, my father being then about four years of age. The family then consisted of parents and four children, aged in the order of this record to wit: George, Alexander Montgomery, (father), Jane and John. Grandfather Sweney visted this country before the Revolutionary War, say about 1774-75, invested in property near Richmond, VA and also in Pennsylvania and Northern New York. When war between the colonies and mother country became imminent, he returned home, his family being in Ireland. The tradition is that he was a major in the British Army, and not wishing to fight against the colonies, he resigned his commission on his return home. After the independence of the colonies was acknowledged, he came to this country with his family, as previously stated. His property here, had been confiscated, however, and was never restored to him. On his first visit to America, he was accompanied by a brother or step-brother, both returning as stated.
Grandfather Sweney married Fanny Belle Barclay or Berkley,--our tradition making her a daughter of Sir Edward Barclay. Grandmother had three sisters married to English clergymen, Harvey or Harry, Kyle and Flemming. He had a full brother named William, he was the younger; there were younger brothers by a second marriage. William Sweney married a Patterson and never removed from Ireland as far as my knowledge extends. Grandfather engaged largely in business in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Northern New York, having trading posts in different localities. The routes to and from these posts followed the rivers of these sections. In Pennsylvania and New York the Susquehanna River was the channel of communication and the means were boats constructed for the navigation of the stream and its tributaries. On one of these visits, and on the return to headquarters with a full cargo of furs, peltries and other products of the country, grandfather was drowned or murdered; his body was afterward recovered, but his property was in some manner made away with by his chief clerk named Hodges, the children being minors, and grandmother knowing absolutely nothing of business or even domestic household duties.
When my uncles and father became of age they investigated their father's affairs, and though satisfied of the criminality of Hodges as to the estate, they were unable to retrieve any part of it in America, Hodges having squandered everything. They then decided that the eldest (George) should go to Ireland and attend to their interest in that quarter. He did so, found large claims due the heirs in this country, but all in possession of the family residing in Ireland. Legal proceedings were instituted, and for two years the elder brother wrote very flatteringly of the prospects of success in the suit. After this nothing was heard until his arrival home, wedded to the eldest daughter of the principal contestant in the matter, to-wit: the widow of William Sweney; Uncle George's wife was Ann, her daughter. Uncle George occasionally got a little "mellow", and would then inveigh somewhat against his mother-in-law, say that she could out wit the devil, and that she had more influence with the lord-lieutenant than any person in the three kingdoms. Whether these utterances had any foundation in fact I cannot say; they may have been the mere inspirations of 'mountain dew" that never paid revenue to the government, but the other heirs thought differently.
