Moses Swan

Moses Swan was born in Hoosick, Rensselaer County, New York, on March 4, 1812, according to the opening of his own book, Ten Years and Ten Months in Lunatic Asylums in Different States. That work, printed in Hoosick Falls in 1874, is the main source that clearly identifies him as an author.

In that memoir, Swan recounts his confinement in multiple asylums and describes the conditions he experienced there. The book is both personal history and social criticism, giving modern readers a rare first-person view of 19th-century mental health institutions in the United States.

Little biographical information beyond the book itself was easy to confirm from reliable sources during this search. Because of that, the safest picture of Swan is as a New York-born 19th-century writer whose reputation rests on one unusual and important autobiographical account.