He attended local schools and private academies in the area, trading bookkeeping for tuition and board.

[1] Swan lived in Marietta for a year and worked in a law office before being admitted to the bar in 1811.

[1] On October 1, 1823, Ohio Governor Jeremiah Morrow appointed Swan as president judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the sixth circuit, to fill a vacancy caused by the death of the sitting judge.

[1] Swan resigned from the sixth circuit on July 9, 1829, when Governor Allen Trimble appointed him to fill the vacancy on the Ohio Supreme Court caused by the death of Charles Robert Sherman.

[1] May 21, 1840, Governor Wilson Shannon appointed Swan a Canal Fund Commissioner.