The Dismal Swamp Today--the Canal
(Image from Coastal Guide to North Carolina

Colonel William Byrd of Virginia's Proposal to Drain the Dismal Swamp
(Byrd suggests draining the Dismal Swamp and cultivating it using slave labor.
In his section entitled, "A DESCRIPTION OF THE DISMAL," Byrd describes trees that are found in swamp above--pine, white cedar, black berry bush which produces a black dye.)
Read more about Byrd's Original survey of the swamp, and the man himself.

Question for Thought:
Research cultivation methods below, at Land Use, Indians and the Land, and African Views of the Land;
What would happen to these trees if the swamp were cultivated?

• Swampy Lore
• Work and Land Use in the Dismal
• Hiding Out in the Dismal
• Plants and Animals of the Dismal
• Maps of the Ecosystem
• More from Colonel William Byrd

Swampy Lore

• Tales from the Coast: Legends and Tales of the Great Dismal Swamp
  These tales are based on natural features in the swamp.
• Moore's Poem on the Lady of Lake: A Ballad--The Lake of Dismal Swamp and Longfellow's The Slave in the Great Dismal
• Robert Arnold's Stories from the Swamp
  In the Early 19th Century, Robert Arnold described the Dismal Swamp, and retold several stories.
• Legends from Early North Carolina
  These tales of early settlers, their Indian loves, and local pirates take place near the Great Dismal Swamp.
• Traylor, Waverly. Tales of the Great Dismal Swamp. Waverly Traylor Photography Publisher.

Work and Land Use in the Dismal

• N.E. North Carolina.com on The Dismal Swamp
  This includes a description of the Great Dismal Swamp, George Washington's Company, the Canal, Railroad, and Laborers
• Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume 22 November 1, 1784 - November 6, 1785 Hugh Williamson to Thomas Ruston
  (In American Memory's Letters of Delegates to Congress):
  "The boundary line passes through that great Desart. Genl Washington and nine other Gentlemen have taken up the Part that is in Virginia, about 100 Thousd Acres. Another Company, of which I am one, hold all that part of the Dismal which is within N Carolina, about 50 Thousd As. I consider our Part as by far the most valuable acre for acre on Accot of the vast Cyprus forests it includes. This is the Timber generally call'd Cedar of which Shingles are made. We now have a Party of men employ'd in that manufacture.
  In Mitchels Map or the American Atlas I forget which you will find a tolerable Draught of that sunken Tract calld the Dismal. In all parts that we have try'd there are 21/2 feet to 3 feet deep of black soil, under which there is a stiff blue Clay. After the Timber is removed, such land cannot be exhausted by Agriculture."
• Arnold describes products of the Dismal Swamp
• Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy; Late a Slave in the United States of America:
  Grandy writes: "In the service of Mr. Sawyer, I got into a fair way of buying myself again; for I undertook the lightering of the shingles or boards out of the Dismal Swamp [Click to see the region mapped at Audubon.org], and hired hands to assist me. But my master had become security for his two sons-in-law at Norfolk, who failed; in consequence of which, he sold eighteen coloured people, his share of the Swamp, and two plantations. I was one of the slaves he kept, and after that had to work in the corn-field the same as the rest." Continued. This document is archived at Documenting the American South.
• The History of the Dismal Swamp Canal
  Without the canal, pictured above, it was difficult to navigate the swamp. Here, Albermarle.com describes the history of the digging of the canal, which was done mostly by slaves.
• Uses of Land:  :American Indian, African, European
• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service talks about Burning and the Ecosystem

Hiding Out in the Dismal

• [In "1777, during the Revolutionary War"]
  [The Dismal Swamp was] infested by concealed royalists, and runaway negroes, who could not be approached with safety. They often attacked travellers, and had recently murdered a Mr. Williams.
  --1777 Traveller (In Crow, Jeffrey J.; Escott, Paul D.; and Hatley, Flora J., 1992, A History of African Americans in North Carolina. Raleigh, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources/Division of Archives and History.)
• [Runaway slaves are] perfectly safe, and with the greatest facility elude the most diligent search of their pursuers. [Blacks have lived in the Dismal Swamp] for upwards of twelve, twenty, or thirty years and upwards, subsisting themselves . . . upon corn, hogs, and fowls . . . . [The runaways cultivate "small plots of land that" are "not subject to flooding" and] perfectly impenetrable to any of the inhabitants of the country around.
  --1780's Traveller (In Crow, Jeffrey J.; Escott, Paul D.; and Hatley, Flora J., 1992, A History of African Americans in North Carolina. Raleigh, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources/Division of Archives and History.)
• Robert Arnold's Description of Runaway Slaves in the Dismal
• Moses Grandy's Description of His Mother's Hiding Her Children in the Woods
• Moses Grandy's Description of His Sister's Hiding in the Woods

Plants and Animals of the Dismal

• Photos of animal and plantlife at Elizabeth City State U's Great Dismal Swamp Boardwalk Project
• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Information About Threatened Species Management
  According to the Wildlife Service, "The character of the remaining swamp has been altered by ditching, beginning in the late 1700's, which has lowered the water table. Furthermore, naturally occurring burns and certain human-related activities which once maintained the swamp as a heterogeneous mosaic of large tracts of bald cypress, Atlantic white cedar, and cane, were curtailed with the 1973 establishment of the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. As a result, the swamp is now progressing toward a homogeneous mature hardwood forest that does not provide the mid-successional forested areas with grassy and shrubby understories needed by this shrew. "
  The above species is now unendangered.
• Bird List for the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, from Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center's Bird Checklists of the United States

Maps of the Ecosystem

Use these maps to create your journal or artifacts and visual images collection.

• Mosley's Map of North Carolina, 1738
  Mosley was North Carolina's Surveyor General and Accompanied Colonel Byrd of Virginia when the dividing line between the two states was surveyed.
• NC Audubon.org's Map of the Dismal Swamp Today
  
• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's "Clickable Map" of Conservation Areas in North Carolina and Virginia, including the Dismal Swamp

Dismal Water Research

• Great Dismal Swamp Water Quality Analysis: The Great Dismal Swamp Boardwalk Hydrology Project (1996-98)

More from Colonel William Byrd, Surveyor of the Dividing Line, Whose Team Measured the Swamp

• Excerpt from William Byrd's Survey, A History of the Dividing Line at 4literature.net
• William Byrd, THE HISTORY OF THE DIVIDING LINE BETWIXT VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA; A JOURNEY TO THE LAND OF EDEN, A. D. 1733; AND A PROGRESS TO THE MINES
• William Byrd on Slavery: The Secret Diary of William Byrd (at W. W. Norton & Company.com)