William Graham Swan (c. 1821 – April 12, 1869) was an American attorney and politician active primarily in East Tennessee during the mid-19th century.
[3] In 1854, Swan and his brother-in-law, Joseph Mabry, donated the initial land for the formation of Market Square in downtown Knoxville.
By 1843, he had a law office on Gay Street in Knoxville, and he attended courts in Knox, Anderson, Roane, Campbell, and Claiborne counties.
In 1854, he and his brother-in-law Joseph A. Mabry purchased several acres of land then located north of Knoxville (the boundary at the time being Union Avenue).
Radical pro-Unionist William "Parson" Brownlow, whose Knoxville Whig had been quarreling with the Knoxville Register (which was co-owned by Swan) since the early 1850s, stepped up his attacks on Swan, calling him an unprincipled politician who had defected to the Democratic Party only after being snubbed by the Whigs.
[4] Swan was elected to the First Confederate Congress in November 1861, having easily defeated Knoxville attorney John Baxter,[2] and was reelected in 1863.