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Three months of Harry Swope

Oddly, we’re still learning about a lot of Lock Haven’s mayors. Not too long ago, we discovered a new one, Winfield Clawater. We’d never known about him before.

We also have recently discovered that one of the portraits in City Hall may be mislabeled. There’s a portrait of a mayor, labeled as Robert R. Bridgens. But the exact same guy also appears in a picture owned by the Crist descendants, labeled as Mayor Samuel Crist. Is he Bridgens, or is he Crist? We have no idea, though we’re working on it.

You’d think a list of the local mayors would be easy to pin down, but no. Apparently not.

We do have details on many of the local mayors, who have been running the city since 1870. Some of them have been notable: Levi Mackey was the first, Charles Sperring was the only independent, Rick Vilello was the longest-lasting, Seymour D. Ball was the one who looked most like Robin Williams, and so on.

And Charles Herr was the only mayor to serve three non-consecutive terms, which led to Harry Swope.

Swope was the shortest mayor of Lock Haven. Time-wise, that is. Harry Swope seems to have been of average height, but his tenure as mayor only lasted three months.

This came about through an interesting set of circumstances.

Swope was the head of city council in 1955, serving under the immensely popular mayor Charles E. Herr. On September 30, 1955, Herr resigned due to failing health three months short of the end of his term. He’d been sick throughout the summer, and couldn’t handle the duties of his office anymore.

Herr had originally thought he could make it to the end of his term, but as his health worsened, he changed his mind and resigned. “Mayor Herr has the sympathy of his constituents,” a newspaper editorial stated at the time. “They would not want to see him sacrifice his health to the requirements of an office which can take a lot of time and impose a great deal of nervous tension.”

Both the Democrats and the Republicans had already selected their candidates locally, and they were prepared for the election in just over a month. But someone needed to fill in the last three months of the term, and the job fell to Harry Swope. Who was away on vacation when this all happened.

Herr tried to call Swope to give him some warning, but couldn’t locate him, as Swope was out of town. Herr sent a letter to him — It was the fifties, and e-mail hadn’t been invented yet — But Swope came back from vacation without checking his official mail. So, in early October of 1955, Harry Swope came home to find himself the mayor, which he discovered by reading it in the newspaper.

Swope served his three months, and didn’t accomplish as much as some of the longer-term mayors. He continued Mayor Herr’s policy of keeping taxes down. And in January, he graciously stepped aside to welcome the newly-elected Douglas Peddie as mayor.

Peddie was an interesting case himself, in his journey to become the mayor. He began as a Republican and sought the nomination. When the Republicans turned him down, choosing to run another candidate for mayor, Peddie switched parties, ran as a Democrat….And won the election.

A couple of years ago, when Jon Bravard became the mayor after Vilello resigned, I was chatting with him. Bravard mentioned that he was going to have the shortest term as mayor, and I felt a little bad correcting him.

“Only if you quit now,” I said. “Harry Swope lasted three months, and you’re going to have nine.” (For the record, Bravard served the second-shortest term as mayor.)

Swope died two years after his term as mayor, in December of 1957, just two weeks after Charles Herr. His portrait hangs in city council chambers among the other men who have served as mayor of Lock Haven since 1870. Which is pretty impressive, when you think about it, considering he put in a fraction of the time they did.

——

Lou Bernard is a Lock Haven resident with a keen interest in the history of this area. He is adult services coordinator at Ross Library and may be reached at loulhpa@gmail.com or 570-660-4463.

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