Editing Holderman, Mercy Caroline

On [[May 1]], 1775, twelve days after the battles of Lexington and Concord, a seventeen year old boy named James Swinnerton enlisted in the Continental Army in the town of Oakham, Massachusetts. During the war, James Swinnerton reenlisted several times, and on [[October 18]], 1776, was wounded in the neck and shoulder by a British musket ball fired at him in the battle of Pell's Neck on Long Island, New York. Following his injury, he was transported to Bedford, Massachusetts, where he recovered in a hospital. After his release from the hospital, he again enlisted in the army.

When the war was finally winding down, James Swinnerton married Eleanor Guilford in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on [[March 2]], 1780. By 1800 James and Eleanor Swinnerton had moved to Leicaster, Vermont, and had seven children living (six other children all died shortly after birth). Their fourth oldest living daughter, Mercy Swinnerton, was born March 30, 1792, probably in Leicaster. During the years following 1800, the family evidently spent some time living near Paradox Lake in New York, but by [[July 31]], 1806, were clearly living in what was then Franklin County, Ohio, near the town of Delaware. On this date, James Swinnerton's oldest living son, James Guilford Swinnerton, Jr., was married to Lucy Carpenter in Franklin County.

On [[March 12]], 1810, the Swinnerton family witnessed the marriages of two of its daughters in (I believe) Hartford, Ohio. Lucinda Guilford Swinnerton married Ira Carpenter, brother of the Lucy Carpenter who James, Jr., had married four years earlier, and Mercy Swinnerton married a young man who had also grown up in Vermont, Merriness Willet Loveland.

Merriness and Mercy Loveland established a residence near Delaware, Ohio, where Mercy became pregnant with their first child in January of 1811. This child was born on [[October 8]], 1811, in Delaware, Ohio, and was named Mercy Caroline Loveland after her mother. Tragically, the nineteen year old mother lived only thirteen days after the birth of her daughter after evidently experiencing complications during childbirth. She is buried in the Oak Grove Cemetery in Delaware, Ohio. Merriness Loveland must have been overwhelmed by the situation in which he found himself. His own family was still in Vermont, and he suddenly had a thirteen day old daughter to care for. He ended up turning to his deceased wife's parents, James and Eleanor Swinnerton for help raising his daughter. On [[June 2]], 1812, before his daughter's second birthday, Merriness Loveland enlisted in the army and fought in the War of 1812. After a three month stint in the army, Merriness returned to civilian life and married for a second time - this time to Ruby Sturdevant, possibly the daughter of Roswell Sturdevant. Merriness and Ruby Loveland, and Roswell Sturdevant and his wife subsequently moved to Madison County, Illinois, where their names appear in the 1818 Illinois State Census.

It is likely, therefore, that Mercy Caroline Loveland, the subject of this essay, knew neither of her parents. The first public documentation of her existence I have discovered is in the Revolutionary War pension application of James Swinnerton, dated [[October 4]], 1820, in which he describes the members of his family: "My family consists of my wife aged fifty-nine years, one son aged eighteen years rather sickly (William B. Swinnerton), two daughters Elmira age twenty-two, Adeline age twenty-one, both unhealthy, and an orphan grandchild, Caroline Loveland, aged nine years." On [[October 13]], 1821, Eleanor Guilford Swinnerton, grandmother of Mercy Caroline Loveland, was the first white person to die in the Grand Prairie Township of Marion County, Ohio. She is buried in the Grand Prairie Cemetery. The job of raising Mercy Caroline Loveland was probably assumed by James Swinnerton's two daughters still at home, Adeline and Almira. James Swinnerton continued receiving his Revolutionary War pension until his death on December 6, 1824. He is buried next to his wife.