La Jolla had a gentleman farmer once who raised chickens, bees and assorted fruit and vegetable crops on an acre of land in the “country” off Westbourne Street east of La Jolla Boulevard. His name was Jethro Mitchell Swain, and he was a tall, eccentric individual who arrived in 1910 and faithfully planted and plowed his plot until his death here seven years later, at age 72. Swain lived mainly by selling the produce he raised and peddling honey and eggs to local citizens. On a typical day he made about $5. His trials and tribulations as a farmer were recorded in daily diaries, compiled many years later by his great-great-great grandson. Together, they constitute one of the more esoteric “reads” in the collection of the La Jolla Historical Society. For instance, on June 6, 1915, he records: “Having fun with the chickens and the kittens and every hen laid except old granny who had 14 chicks to hover.” A maverick true to form, Swain came to La Jolla to try his hand at farming after a failed mining venture in Johnnie, Nev. He was born in 1843 in Cincinnati and drifted westward as a young man, marrying at age 22 to Mary Elizabeth Troughton in Wyandotte, Calif., and fathering seven children. His second wife, Alice Hayner, who he affectionately refers to as “Pard” in the diaries, accompanied him to La Jolla and became successful here as a seamstress while he tended his crops. (One of her first sewing jobs was a corduroy suit for Virginia Scripps.) Swain purchased his land from Ben Genter for $1,200 to be paid off through time in notes. He built his first house on the property at 736 Westbourne, naming it La Carmolita. A second house was later constructed for a home at 7354 Fay Ave., along with a small inn that the Swains operated as Honeysuckle Lodge for a short period. Swain’s property in the early 20th century was considered far from town and he often makes notes in the diaries about “peddling uptown” (i.e., the village) or hitching up his beloved mare, Cocopah, for a trip to get supplies, usually for seed, tools or lumber, although April 25, 1916, there was something unique: “I went into town for teeth and got them. $7.50 cost me.” Swain raised potatoes, corn, melons, peas, beans, onions, Logan berries, rhubarb and strawberries. The berries — often delivered personally to the homes of Ellen Browning and Virginia Scripps — were his largest crop. He sometimes notes picking up to 50 boxes a day. Unlike the Anson Mills diaries — one of the most treasured collections in the historical society archives, which often include commentary on national and international politics — Swain’s journals are mainly concerned with day-to-day “life on the farm” and encounters with nitty gritty threats such as gophers and jays. He also comments extensively on the weather, as in “a nice morning, but awful wet under foot” or “spring day, warming up.” In 1916, the year of the great flood in San Diego, he writes on Jan. 28: “Everything washed out, no train & no mail & no autos, no butter in town.” The Swains were friends of many old La Jolla families: the Hollidays, the Wetzells, the Genters, the Liebers and others. Yet, perhaps because their time here was only seven years, they remain unmentioned in La Jolla history books. In 1917, Swain’s health began to flag. He died Aug. 19 of that year from heart failure, and his ashes were buried in Greenwood Cemetery. His widow left La Jolla to live elsewhere, and the little farm has long since become a populous residential neighborhood — although, perhaps, somewhere there is still a berry bush growing as proof of his hard-working and long past endeavors. — “Reflections” is a monthly column written for the La Jolla Village News by the La Jolla Historical Society’s historian Carol Olten. The Society, dedicated to the preservation of La Jolla heritage, is located at 7846 Eads Ave. and is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.