William Henry Swift

U.S. military engineer, army officer, born in Massachusetts. William Henry Swift attended the U.S. Military Academy of which his brother, Gen. Joseph Gardner Swift, was superintendent. Swift, like his brother, was a trained engineer; he performed surveys for the Chesapeake and Ohio canal and for a canal across Florida and worked on plans for coastal defenses. In 1833 he was assigned to the Coast and Geodetic Survey, where he worked on harbor and river improvements. He was also an engineer for the Massachusetts Western Railway. In 1838 he was assigned to work with the army's topographical engineers, which he did for five years. He became president of the board of trustees of the Illinois and Michigan Canal in 1845, a position he held for 26 years. After resigning from the army in 1849 to pursue private business interests, becoming in succession president of several railroad lines.