In this humble but instructive home, secluded from anything that could be termed fashionable society, but trained to industry, and instructed in the ways of integrity, young David Swain's early youth was passed. I cannot subscribe to the phrase so usually employed in describing such biographical beginnings as this, when it is said that the subject of the memoir was "without the advantages of birth." The fact that a child is born amid such surroundings, and with such blood in his veins as coursed through those of young Swain, constitutes the very highest advantages which could surround the birth and bringing up of a young man who is to fight his way in a country like ours. The surest elements of success are commonly found in the absence of indulgences in youth, and the most successful warriors against fate are those who are taught by stern necessity to fight early. Governor Swain was fond of recurring to the scenes and influences of his early life, and always felt that he had been fortunate in possessing a father to whom he could look with respect and confidence. He maintained a close and confidential correspondence with him from the time he left his roof to make his own way, and often referred to it as having had a most beneficial influence upon him. In the summer vacation of 1852 he visited Buncombe, and I accompanied him out to Beaver Dam to see once more the place of his birth, then and now in the possession of the Rev. Thomas Stradly. On a spot not very far from the house he stopped and told me that near this place was the first time he ever saw a wagon. This wondrous vehicle, he said, belonged to Zebulon and Bedent Baird, Scotchmen by birth, who came to North Carolina some time previous to 1790, by way of New Jersey. There being no road for such vehicles, this wagon had approached the house of Mr. George Swain, he said, in the washed-out channel of the creek, and the future Governor of North Carolina stood in the orchard waiting its approach with wonder and awe, and finally, as its thunder reverberated in his ears, as it rolled over the rocky channel of the creek, he incontinently took to his heels, and only rallied when safely entrenched behind his father's house. He enjoyed the relation of this to me exquisitely. As a palliation of his childish ignorance, however, he added that this was the first wagon which had crossed the Blue Ridge.