Swift was Judge of Allegany County in 1882, and removed with his family to Buffalo in 1883.
Nanette was the sister of Nathaniel Paschall who was the first husband of Bertha Cranston Potter whose second husband was William Boeing Swift was elected on February 3, 1920, to the New York State Senate (48th D.) to fill the vacancy in the 143rd New York State Legislature caused by the resignation of Ross Graves.
He was a justice of the New York Supreme Court from 1934 to 1946 when he reached the constitutional age limit.
He was an Official Referee (i.e. a senior judge, up to the age of 75, on an additional seat) of the Supreme Court from 1947 to 1950.
He died on April 17, 1952, in Veterans Hospital in Buffalo, New York, of a heart ailment; and was buried at the Forest Lawn Cemetery there.