Researching Howard Swisher

Swisher was born in 1870 near Levels, West Virginia. He became a schoolteacher there at the age of 18, then graduated from Fairmont State Normal School (present-day Fairmont State University) and West Virginia University. He then remained in Morgantown, where he established a bookstore and stationery shop. Following the success of his bookstore, Swisher organized the Main Street Building Company, the Howard L. Swisher Company, and the Morgantown Building Association, each of which constructed a large number of residences in the city. He was also the inaugural secretary-treasurer of the West Virginia Real Estate Dealers' Association.

Swisher was secretary of the Royalty Oil Company, which owned mining rights for approximately of prospective oil lands throughout the United States. He also held prominent leadership and management roles in the Valley Wood Working Company, the Monongahela Valley Posting and Distributing Plant, the Federal Savings and Trust Company, and the West Virginia Tri-Products Company. In Hampshire County, Swisher maintained fruit growing interests and served as the president of the South Branch Merchandising Company. He was an active member of the West Virginia Democratic Party and was selected as a delegate from West Virginia to the 1936 Democratic National Convention.

In 1897, Swisher co-authored History of Hampshire County, West Virginia: From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present with West Virginia historian Hu Maxwell. The book was the first comprehensive history of Hampshire County ever compiled. He composed a collection of poetry and short stories, Briar Blossoms, in 1899, and was the editor of The Ghourki, a literary journal of poetry, short stories, and aphorisms. In 1908, Swisher published Book of Harangues, a selection of passages from The Ghourki.