April 4, 1845 — May 18, 1936
Funeral services will be held at 3 o’clock Wednesday afternoon at the home for Jacob Markwood Swartz, 91, of 315 South Second Street, Civil War veteran and one of the last surviving members of the Custer post, Grand Army of the Republic, who died at 9:30 a.m. yesterday at his home. He had been critically ill eight weeks.
The Rev. Homer E. Wark, pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal church, will conduct the services, assisted by the Rev. J.H. Funk, retired Methodist Episcopal minister. Burial will be made in the Odd Fellows cemetery, which Mr. Swartz formerly superintended. There will be an American Legion escort at the funeral and taps will be sounded. Members of the Odd Fellows lodge will conduct services at the grave, and will act as pallbearers. The lodge members will meet at 2:30 Wednesday at their hall. Active pallbearers will be as follows: Clay Goff, E.M. Nuzum, Revy Golden, Ira Leeson, Thomas J. Day, and John Hornor. Honorary pallbearers will be: Charles Hickman, Dr. A. O. Flowers, Dr. W. A. Marsh, F. I. Day, Fred A. McFarlin and John Wickenhofer.
Shortly after the Civil war Union veterans formed a society here that later became the Custer Post of the Grand Army of the Republic. Mr Swartz served in every office of the post and was one of its last members. Solomon Day, 93, of Grass Run, Tenmile district is a living member. Mr Swartz also belonged to the Odd Fellows, the American Order of United Workmen, and the First Methodist Episcopal church.
Mr. Swartz, a descendant of immigrants from Germany, was born April 4, 1845 in Franklin, Pendleton county, then in Virginia. His grandfather was born on the ocean while the family was making the trip to America. Originally the Swartz settled in Pennsylvania, but later moved into Virginia where Jacob G. Swartz, father of the Civil War veteran, married and worked as a blacksmith. When Jacob M. Swartz was five years old, the family moved to near Philippi where they lived until the Civil War and then moved to Romine’s Mills.
Swartz was only 15 when the Civil War began, but less than a year later, he enlisted and served in the Union army until the end of the war. As a member of Company K, Sixth West Virginia regiment of volunteer infantry, he guarded the Baltimore and Ohio railroad in this area. Frequently his outfit came in contact with Confederate raiders including the Jones-Imboden-Jackson calvary units. Swartz was in the battle at Rowlesburg April 23, 1863, when Jones attempted unsuccessfully to strike at the railroad bridges in that section. Although he served in many skirmishes during the three years Mr. Swartz escaped without wounds and was never ill during the war.
At the end of the war, he established himself in the blacksmith trade in Clarksburg, as an employee of Oscar H. Tate, who had a shop on Water street. he worked three years and in 1870 married Miss Anne Fletcher, a daughter of a Virginia wagon maker. Mrs. Swartz died October 8, 1920. Shortly after his marriage, Mr. Swartz moved to Kansas where he lived for almost three years before he returned here to open a blacksmith shop at the corner of South Fourth street and Traders avenue. He remained in that location for twenty-six years, giving way finally when the business section began to expand. he opened another shop in 1901 on Second street, between main and Pike streets but retired in 1911.
Swartz and his wife were the parents of four children, but only one child, Mrs. Sarah Rector of 315 South Second street is living. One son, Markwood Samuel Swartz, died in the Philippines during the Spanish-American war just a few months before his enlistment period expired.
Swartz had gathered and preserved at his home many mementos of the Civil war including a six-pound cannon ball fired at the battle of Philippi, said to be the first land engagement in the war. Surviving, in addition to his daughter, is a grandson, Russell Rector and a granddaughter Miss Anna Virginia Rector a teacher in Hundred high school.
Images and Obituary originally found at : http://myplace.frontier.com/~markwoodguru
(Clarksburg Exponent Telegram May 19, 1936)
