Reprint
The original Swanneys of
the Swannie House
By Steve Cichon
The Buffalo News,
December 11, 2023
The First Ward's
Swannie House
is one of Buffalo's oldest gin mills, and recently, the family
of the man who
started the place began looking for some proper recognition.
It
was likely
just the innocent manifestation of some old Irish storytelling,
but the
frequently retold told tale explaining the background of the
Swannie name
doesn't measure up to the records.
The widely recounted
version of
events purports that a Polish immigrant named John Swanerski
shortened his name
upon opening the tavern so that it might better appeal to the
Irish folks who
filled the neighborhood around the corner of Michigan and Ohio
Streets.
There's
no
record of anyone named Swanerski – or anyone with a name even
close – living in
or emigrating to Buffalo, ever. But since at least 1866, the
Swanney family had
been running a boarding house (with a tavern on the ground
floor) in the First Ward.
After William’s death,
his son
James took over the business, and it’s been the Swannie House
for about 150
years.
So
where does
the Swanerski story come from?
The
spelling
of Swanney did change to Swannie at some point during the
earliest days of the
bar being open, which might have evolved and morphed into a
story involving
Robert Nowak, the Polish-American who owned the bar in the 1940s
and '50s.
While
the
Swanerski of Poland story looks to be a bit of barstool blarney,
the record
actually shows that the Swanneys of Scotland were the first to
operate the
tavern that still bears their name.
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