Tomys Swartwout was born in 1607 in Groningen, Netherlands to Rolef Swartwout and Catryna Swartwout. Swartwout was one of the earliest New Netherlanders to buy and sell American tobacco in the Netherlands. He started a wholesale tobacco business in Amsterdam, joining his older brothers, Wybrant and Herman, in 1629.
Swartwout and family left Amsterdam for New Netherland in March 1652. Swartwout, Jan Snedeker and Jan Stryker solicited from Director-General Peter Stuyvesant the right to settle together on the level reach of wild land or flat bush, adjacent to the outlying farms at Breukelen and Amersfoort. Through Swartwout's suggestion, the settlement was given the name of the village of Midwout. In April 1655, Stuyvesant and the Council of New Netherland appointed Swartwout a schepen, to serve with Snedeker and Adriaen Hegeman as the Court of Midwout. Being one of the original settlers, Tomys Swartwout was granted letters-patent by the Council of New Netherland, Director-General Stuyvesant, and the Dutch West India Company of 116 acres on April 13, 1655. Swartwout was one of the nineteen signers of the "Humble Remonstrance and Petition of the Colonies and Villages of this New Netherland Province" sent to Stuyvesant on December 11, 1653, an important early document in the campaign for democracy in America. Following Adriaen Van Der Donck's Remonstrance of 1650 about governance of the colony, the document signed by Swartout set out discontents about Stuyvesant's authoritarian method of personally selecting, rather than electing, the council. The statement later inspired Jacob Leisler's campaign late in the 1680s for fuller representative democracy in New Amsterdam.
Personal life
In March 1630, he married Adrijejtjen Sijmons in Amsterdam. She died in child birthnine months later on December 17, 1630 after giving birth to their only child, Jan Swartwout. On June 3, 1631, he married Hendrickjen Otsen, with whom he would have several children, Roeloff, the founder of Kingston and Hurley, Barent, Tryntje, and Jacomijntje. Swartwout died in 1660 in Beverwijck, New Netherland.
