Daniel Sweany was the son of William Sweany and Christina Harbaugh. He married Ellen Dunbar in 1801 and after 1830, he moved his wife and his family to Rose County, Ohio, where both Daniel and Ellen stayed
until they died there two years apart from each other, respectively in 1848 and 1850.
The Ohio Sweaneys & the Civil War
The Sweaneys that settled in Rose and Tuscawaras Counties in Ohio, saw their lives changed by the Civil War. Ohio was part of the Union and many of the Sweaney men fought in it. Many of Daniel and Ellen's son's were too old to fight in the War by the time many of their own children were born. Two sons of theirs, Thomas and Jacob Sweany married Roof sisters, Anna and Mahala, respectively, daughters of Frederick Roof and Rebecca Chambers. Two of Thomas's sons had fought in the War in the Ohio infantry: they were Frederick Reginald Sweaney and Daniel Sweany.
These photos are of Frederick Sweaney's family. Frederick was the son of Thomas Sweany and Anna Maria Roof. Frederick died in 1881, shortly after their move to Chanute, Neosho County, Kansas, and after the death of his daughter, Nelly Mae Sweaney, at the age of 1 year. Frederick's wife, Sarah Thompson, of whom he married in Tuscawaras County, Ohio, before he was a soldier in the Civil War, was full blooded American Indian. She may have been from the Senecan tribe of the Iroquois's of Pennsylvania. As you can see in the photos, the Sweaneys inherently carried these Indian traits. Their eldest son, born in 1860, was Edgar. He was followed by Susan, Dolly, William, Maggie, Harry, James (Clinton), and Adam
(Shirdon); all born in Tuscawaras County, Ohio. Nelly May was born in 1881 in Neosho County, Kansas. Frederick died in Chanute in 1887 and Sarah died there in 1923.
Many of Frederick's children stayed in Ohio after they were married, except for Dolly who died in 1908 (not in the photo above), and Harry, who died in infancy in 1870, before the family moved to Kansas. Edgar married 3 times, first to Florence Rhoades, 2nd to Clara Carter, and 3rd to Rachel Thacker (a divorcee) in Washington State. (Edgar is not in the photo to left, because he was living in Washington at the time).
Sweaneys in the photo to the left are: James Clinton Sweaney, Adam Shirdon Sweaney, Margaret Sweaney Phillips, William Anderson Sweaney, and Susan Sweaney Myers. Sarah, their mother, is in front. Edgar is in right photo.
