![]() ![]() The two lived in Baltimore for a time and had four children. Swain and her husband then began moving west, first to Ohio and then Indiana. After one of her son’s moved to Wyoming, Swain and her husband followed and settled in Laramie to be close to him. Shortly after she left the orphanage, sometime around 1821, she met and married Steven Swain, the owner of a chair factory. She was immediately sent to another woman who was in the needle trade. ![]() Swain stayed with this woman until 1818 when, for an unknown reason, she was sent back to the orphanage. Swain was first sent to a woman who promised to teach her needlework, spinning, and weaving, provide a little schooling, and decent living conditions. Shortly after the move, Swain’s mother died when Swain was around 10 years old and she moved into The Charleston Orphan House. At the time, there was a fine line between apprenticing with a family in exchange for shelter and food and adoption, and Swain seems to have had to navigate both worlds as a child. When he did not come home from a voyage, 7-year-old Swain and her mother moved to Charleston, South Carolina to be closer to her mother's family. In doing so, she became the first woman to legally cast a ballot since 1807, the year New Jersey took away a woman’s right to vote.īorn in Norfolk, Virginia in 1800 or 1801 into a Quaker family, Swain’s father was a sea captain. On September 6, 1870, 70-year-old Louisa Ann Swain, a grandmother with white hair peeking out from beneath her bonnet, stepped up to the ballot box in Laramie, Wyoming and cast her vote in the general election.
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