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Dismal Swamp
The swamp we call State Park, has an interesting history having nothing to do with recreation. Native Americans hunted and fished in the wetlands in the late 1600s when it covered about 1.28 million acres from the James River in Virginia to the Albemarle Sound. It was explored by George Washington, though I doubt “George Washington slept here.” Later it became a hiding place for runaway slaves, maroon colonies, the Underground Railroad, and in the 20th century, it hid moonshine stills from prohibitionists. If only those cypress knees could talk, what stories they could tell.
Early explorers tried to drain the swamp with ditches to create farmland. The water table did drop, but it was too wet to farm, so the pioneers looked to timber. Cypress and cedar were good for ship building. In 1800s most cedar shingles in the colonies came from this wetland. Within 80 years most of the hardwoods were gone, but commercial logging continued until 1960s.
The idea to build a canal was alive in the early 1700s, but construction didn’t begin until 1793. The swamp canal was dug totally by hand by slaves wading waist-deep in muck and peat in extreme heat. In spite of biting insects and venomous snakes, they completed 10 feet of canal a day. The canal ran from Deep Creek in Chesapeake, VA, to South Mills, NC, now the site of the park.
12 years later, 1805, the canal was opened to boats, but it was so narrow and so shallow only flat-bottomed boats called lighter boats were used to haul the timber products out of the swamp. During the Civil War, the Union and the Confederate Troops fought for control of the canal to move supplies. In 1929, the Government purchased the canal for $500,000 and the Army Corps of Engineers widened and dredged to its current size of 50 feet wide and 9-12 feet deep. In 1972 the Nature Conservancy purchased large tracts from timber companies and sold 14,000 acres to the State of North Carolina to manage as a Natural Area.
The park in South Mills, NC, on the border of VA, is about 45 minutes from our home. There are strange smells in the Dismal Swamp, mysterious noises, unusual and surprising things to see. It’s totally fascinating. Not dismal anymore.