Thomas Swan (1749-1805) was a tailor, originally from Boston. In 1774, as part of a town-wide effort in Bristol, he sent a sum of six shillings to support the people of Boston (that city’s port having been recently closed by the British). That same year, he married Elizabeth Bosworth. Thomas and Elizabeth had several children including: Peggy, Samuel, Thomas, Jonathan Bosworth, Jeremiah Osborn, Nathaniel P., William, George Washington, and John Jay (the first seven being baptized together in 1793 at the Congregational Church). Thomas was counted as a head of household in the 1774 Rhode Island Census. In 1776, he was commissioned as an ensign and shortly after a second lieutenant in Benjamin Tallman’s Rhode Island State Regiment. He held this same rank in Christopher Smith’s Regiment in 1777. After the war, he became a justice of the peace. Thomas was the vice president of the 1804 Independence Day celebrations in Bristol.
Bristol, Rhode Island in the Revolutionary War 1775-1783
Rev War Bristol 