earliest written source I can find that names Anne Clendenin as a McSwain was Greenbriar Pioneers and Their Homes by Ruth Wood Dayton, West Virginia Publishing Company, Charleston, West Virginia, 1942.
Starting on page 225, her chapter titled The Clendenin Massacre (Hartland) reviews the history of the residence called Hartland and the story of the Native American raid on the Archibald Clendenin homestead in Greenbriar County in 1763. On page 227, Mrs. Dayton writes, "Before coming to Greenbrier, Archibald, about 1756, had married Anne McSwain (born 1732), and they had three children— the eldest, Jane, who was about four years old, a son, and an infant born either just before or just after their arrival. Anne McSwain's father had died when she was a baby, and her mother had then married a Mr. Ewing, to which union was born a son, John Ewing, who evidently accompanied the Clendenins, making his home with them, and who has been frequently thought to have been one of their own children."
This paragraph references an 1828 book by Anne Royall titled Sketches of History, Life and Manners in the United States, which publication indeed gives a detailed account of the Clendenin raid, but nowhere mentions the name McSwain. Nor does Mrs. Dayton give any source, primary or verbal, for her assertion that Anne was a McSwain.
The Greenbriar Historical Society is in possession of Mrs. Dayton's working notes, which similarly do not contain any mention of a source for her assertion.
Before 1942, all accounts of the Clendenin raid named Anne Clendenin as Anne Ewing and John as her younger brother or nephew. Descriptions of the raid published since 1942 may name Anne as a McSwain, but none cites a primary source.
The assertion that Anne Clendenin was a McSwain, originally made by Ruth Wood Dayton, must currently be considered unauthenticated.
