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220 A Southern lawyer who also happened to be a man of high principle. A friend of the black man and defender of black civil rights when doing so was the exception rather than the rule. This could be a description of Atticus Finch, the fictional hero of Harper Lee’s bestselling 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, brought to life on the screen by Gregory Peck in 1962. It is also a description of the flesh-and-blood James W. Swayne of Fort Worth. Swayne was a public figure for thirty-five years and set a standard during his years on the bench of the Seventeenth District Court that few have approached, much less equaled since. James Swayne was born in Lexington, Tennessee, on October 6, 1855, or at least that is the best guess here. His death certificate and an early biographical sketch give two different years, as do the census records .1 He had a brother, John F. Swayne, five years older, and a sister, Mary W. Swayne, three years older. Although James was the secondborn son, he was the one named for his father. The parents, James W. and Amanda Henry Swayne both died prematurely, when James, Jr., was less than two years old. The children, now orphans, lived with their grandfather, Felix W. Henry, for the next nine years, until 1866 when W. C. McHaney of Henderson County became their legal guardian . Mr. and Mrs. Swayne had been prosperous if not wealthy. Papa was an eminent lawyer, who at his death inherited sufficient funds to ChapTeR 12 James W. Swayne: Straight-arrow Judge James W. Swayne: Straight-arrow Judge / 221 loan a brother-in-law $2,000 for a business venture, which had to be paid back only “if he succeeded.” The estate was kept in trust after Amanda Swayne died, and as the kids came of age, they each received a share. Mary Swayne received $1,499.36 in 1869, and John received $1,771.13 in 1871. James’ share, which he received on January 24, 1877, amounted to only $830.56. Still, it would not have been an insignificant bankroll to start the rest of his life with had he not spent it all to pay off debts incurred in getting his education. By the time he arrived in Fort Worth a year later, he was “without a dollar to his name.” Years later, Swayne also told his biographer that his parents had left “a fine fortune,” but his guardian, i.e., Grandpa Henry, had squandered most of the estate in a series of bad loans that went down the drain along with the Confederate cause in the Civil War. He never attempted to hold the old man legally responsible, but he never forgot his lost inheritance either.2 James Swayne set his sights high when it came to his education. Perhaps it was because he came from a family of lawyers, but he could not be content just learning the 3Rs or, when it came to his career choice, merely “reading the law” before hanging out his shingle. His paternal grandfather had been a country lawyer, his uncle Noah Swayne had sat on the U.S. Supreme Court, and a cousin, Wagner Swayne, had been one of the chief solicitors of financier Jay “I don’t build railroads, I buy them” Gould. The law was part of his genes. He attended the Kentucky Military Institute before getting a law degree from the Lebanon Law School in Tennessee, launching pad for many prominent Texas lawyers in the days before the University of Texas opened a law school so that the state’s sons did not have to go out of state to get a law degree. At the time he graduated, most men still came to the law by “reading” with an established member of the profession. In fact, one version of Swayne’s life says that he got his training by “reading law” with unnamed Fort Worth attorneys, but the fact is he went the law school route, graduating in 1877.3 Like so many Southerners during Reconstruction, Swayne decided to go west and start over. He followed his brother to Fort Worth, arriving in January 1878 with little more than his law books and the clothes on his back. John had preceded him by seven years and already established his own law practice in the city. They were eventually followed by their sister and her husband and by their cousin John...

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