Joseph Swanson, Obituary/Death NoticePorter County obituaries and death notices . . . .
Joseph Swanson
A Sudden Death.
The people of our township were shocked to learn of the sudden death of its most esteemed citizen, Mr. Joseph Swanson of Porter. Last Thursday he was in Chesterton and returned home in apparently the best of health. He retired at his usual hour, but before midnight awoke feeling bad. He had for some time been troubled with asthma and always kept a remedy in the house. He got up to get it and not finding it called to his wife for it. She got up to get it and while doing so he grew worse and in a few minutes, was dead. No one of the family realized his condition until even after his death so swift did the end approach, and even a physician could not be gotten to him, as but a space of fifteen minutes intervened between the time of his first getting up and death. The funeral took place on the 8th inst., and the remains interred in the Baillytown cemetery, followed to their last resting place by a large number of sorrowing friends.
Mr. Swanson was an old resident of this township, coming here in 1863. He kept a general store at Porter for many years and was postmaster at that place. At the time of his death he was 56 years old and leaves a wife and six children.
JOSEPH SWANSON, was born in 1826 in Sweden. He is one of twelve children born to Eric and Mary Swanson, both natives of Sweden. When 23 years of age Joseph left home where he had been clerking in his father's store and came to the United States and settled in Boston, where he remained a year and a half, engaged in coopering he then went to New Bedford, Mass., and after a year he joined a whaling vessel and was on the ocean for twelve years mostly in the Pacific, leaving the Arctic ocean in August and going south to the Sandwich Island, New Zealand, Australia, Africa coast, etc. He was in the Atlantic the first two years; he made two Arctic ocean trips, and then returned to New Bedford and went to Sweden, on a three weeks' visit there and in other countries bordering on the northern waters, he then came back to New Bedford and started for California, remaining in San Francisco for about fifteen months when he came to Porter P. O. and started his store with a stock of $400 or $500. In 1879 he built his present store and dwelling, a large, fine frame, in which he has a stock of dry goods, groceries, boots and shoes, hardware, etc., worth about $1,000, with a good trade. He has always been a republican, he is a man of extensive experience and travel and one of our leading business men. He was married in 1865 to Johannah Pilman, a native of Sweden. They have five children -- Gust, Charley, John, Ida and Emily.
Newspaper: The Tribune
Date of Publication: July 12, 1888
Volume Number: 5
Issue Number: 13
Page: 1
Column(s): 3
Key to Newspaper Publication Locations:
Newspapers Published in Chesterton, Porter County, Indiana
Chesterton Tribune
The Tribune
Westchester Tribune
Newspapers Published in Valparaiso, Porter County, Indiana
Porter County Vidette
Practical Observer
Valparaiso Practical Observer
Vidette and Republic
Western Ranger
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Obituary/death notice transcribed by Steven R. Shook