The Great Dismal Swamp, located in southeastern Virginia and
northeastern North Carolina has long been recognized as a
mysterious place and a place in which people have easily lost
their way. During slavery, many African Americans used the
Great Dismal Swamp as a means to find their freedom. Some
bondsmen, who were permitted to hire themselves out, earned
enough money, through boat work on the Great Dismal Swamp Canal
or through cedar and cypress shingle production to purchase
their freedom. Others found refuge deep within the swamp, living
off the land, and what they could steal. These “outlyers”
established maroon communities on the higher points of the swamp.
Still, for others, the swamp was a “stopping point” to get to
Norfolk or Portsmouth, VA, or to the Albemarle Sound and
Elizabeth City, NC where they could secure passage on a ship
traveling north. During the Civil War US Colored Troops passed
through the swamp in order to liberate enslaved people.
Despite the method or living conditions, the swamp provided
the means of freedom which so many sought. The name “Dismal
Swamp” originated in the 18th century for the swampy area of
land that lies between the James River in southeastern Virginia
(Norfolk) and the Albemarle Sound (Edenton) in northeastern
North Carolina.
Estimates of the size of the original swamp have exceeded one
million acres. Located approximately 30 miles west of the Atlantic
Ocean, the refuge is within the city limits of Suffolk and
Chesapeake in southeastern Virginia and the counties of Gates,
Camden, and Pasquotank in northeastern North Carolina. Development
in 1728, a controversy between Virginia and North Carolina forced
their governors to assign a commission to draw a dividing line
between the two colonies. Headed by William Byrd II, the survey
crew had relatively easy going until it encountered the Great
Dismal Swamp. Although the men eagerly tackled the task in their
desire to be the first group to cross the morass, the swamp proved
to be nearly impossible to traverse. In Byrd’s journal, written
in 1728, he described the swamp, and his work to survey the line
through it, with the following passage:This dreadful swamp was ever
judgd impassable, ‘til the line divideing Virginia from North
Carolina was carryd through it in the year 1728, by the order of
his late majesty. Nor would it have been practicable then, but by
the benefit of an exceeding dry season, as well as the invincible
vigor and industry of those that undertook it. Some of the neighbors
have lost themselves here for some days, but never had either the
courage or curiosity to advance very far. Nor can the difficultys
of passing this inhospitable place be better conceivd, than by the
long time that was spent doing it, even by men who were not
altogether without apprehentions of being starved- they being no
less than ten whole days in pushing on the line 15 miles, tho’ they
proceeded with all possible diligence and resolution, and besides,
had no disaster to retard them.During the same tour on March 11,
1728, William Byrd and Carolinian John Lovick camped out near an
area called Mossy Point. During a walk in the swamp, the two men
came upon a family of mulattos that William Byrd was sure were
runaway bondsmen:It is certain many Slaves shelter themselves in
this Obscure Partof the World, nor will any of their righteous
Neighbors discoverthem. On the Contrary, they find their Account
in Settling such Fugitives on some out-of-the-way-corner of their
Land, to raise stocks for a mean and inconsiderable Share, well
knowing their condition makes it necessary for them to submit to
any Terms. While Byrd came away with the distinct impression that
the place was bleak, he believed that the land could be reclaimed
and suggested forming a company of British and American investors
and using enslaved labor to drain portions of the swamp and
produce, among other commodities, hemp. His suggestion was acted
on nineteen years later, when several prominent Virginia land
speculators, including George Washington, Anthony Bacon and John
Robinson, organized the Dismal Swamp Land Company, otherwise
known as the ”Adventurers for Draining the Dismal Swamp.”
Establishing the Dismal Plantation, the founders used enslaved
people to dig ditches to drain the swamp, farm, and cut timber.
In spite of grandiose farming ideas, the swamp’s primary
attraction was its timber- cypress and Atlantic white-cedar.
Long before the Land Company was organized, local settlers had
been supplying Norfolk markets with shingles, staves, planking,
and naval stores made from trees harvested in Dismal Swamp.
Bondsmen were often sent by their owners to cut shingles in
the swamp. They were expected to provide the owner with a
specified amount. Anything beyond that amount, the bondsman
could keep.Although George Washington concluded that farming was
possible on certain kinds of reclaimed soil, nearly another
decade passed before the company began to build canals to Lake
Drummond, such as the Washington and Jericho Ditches, and farm
the land, using enslaved labor. Soon after the experiment
began, a general economic downturn, internal problems, and the
Revolution brought it to an end. The 22-mile Canal was
predominantly built by enslaved labor and was a major highway
between the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and the Albemarle Sound
in North Carolina. The Dismal Swamp Canal, connecting the
Elizabeth River, a branch of the Chesapeake Bay, to the Pasquotank
River, a tributary of the Albermarle Sound, is located along
the eastern edge of the current Great Dismal Swamp National
Wildlife Refuge. The canal was first proposed in 1728 by
William Byrd II-- the same person who surveyed the staline
between Virginia and North Carolina. Merchants, farmers,
and timber interests in both states had an obvious need for
such a connection. The Dismal Swamp Canal Company began
digging the canal in 1793 and open the “causeway road” (now
Rt. 17) in 1804.
The Dismal Swamp Canal opened in 1805, located about three miles
east of Lake Drummond. The canal permitted the development of new
shingle timbering grounds in a relatively unscathed portion of
the swamp. By 1812, the large volume of business required a major
reconstruction of the canal, including the addition of several
locks and a feeder ditch to Lake Drummond to provide a steady and
adequate supply of water. The canal was only navigable for shingle
flats and small lighters, until the late 1820’s when enslaved
workers widened and deepened its channel for safe passage of vessels
with a 5 1/2 feet draft. In 1829, the Dismal Swamp Canal Company’s
enslaved Africans also opened a navigable route to Currituck Sound
by digging a six-mile canal to the Northwest River, and several
smaller canals to float shingles and staves out of the old-growth in
the swamp forests.Willis Hodges, a free African American, worked
on the Dismal Swamp Canal between 1835-36 to earn money to repay
his father for land purchased in Princess Anne County. He noted that
there were over 500 laborers, of whom only 12 were free men. He
described the harsh treatment the laborers received. After an
unnecessary beating of one of the laborers, he considered working
with the laborers to revolt against the offending overseer and
assist the slaves with escape to the North. He determined that
this was an impossible task since the laborers had no guns. He
resigned himself to leave South Mills, NC and return to Princess
Anne County, Virginia, and move his family to New York. Moses
Grandy was an enslaved waterman who was offered the opportunity
to hire himself out and keep the money. The Narrative of the
Life of Moses Grandy; Late a Slave in the United States of America
(1843) describes the life of an enslaved African American who
worked in the Albemarle region and in the Dismal Swamp Canal as
a ferry man and canal boatman. Grandy described the hardships,
while digging and lumberingthe canal in the Great Dismal Swamp.
He remembered, “Negroes are up to the middle or much in the mud
and water, cutting away roots and baling out mud. If they can
keep their heads above the water, they work on.” The enslaved
black laborers encountered torturous insects, copperheads, and
cottonmouths. After earning enough money to pay for his freedom
twice, Grandy was finally allowed to purchase his freedom. Swamp
as Refuge Besides being a potential business venture, the Great
Dismal Swamp proved to be a refuge for escaped slaves as well,
many hiding in the dense underbrush of the swamp to live in a
state of freedom. How many people found refuge in the Dismal
Swamp? We may never know. In Runaway Slaves- Rebels on the
Plantation, by historians John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger,
the Great Dismal Swamp is identified not only as a place where
runaways would congregate, but also, referring to respected
historian Herbert Aptheker, one of the largest maroon colonies
in the United States, with an estimated population of several
thousand. Dr. Tommy Bogger, researcher from Norfolk State
University, however, theorizes that this estimate may be
overstated. In 1784, John Ferdinand Smyth, in his book A Tour of
the United States of America, wrote the following:But there is a
swamp in this province which is indeed dismal far beyond
description, and can only be exceeded by another, on the borders
next to Virginia, actually distinguished by the name of the Great
Dismal Swamp, in dreadful and horrid preheminance.This one first
mentioned is also called the Great Alligator dismal Swamp, and
lies between those two vast expanses of water or rather seas,
named Pamphlico and Albemarle Sounds….As the account I had of
this Dismal Swamp is only from the report of those who have been in
and around it, and who resided in its vicinity, I shall defer any
farther description of it until I come to mention the Great Dismal
itself, which I examined personally and passed through; as I
understand they bear so strong a similitude, that a representation
of the one will give a good idea of the other.At present I shall
only just observe that these places are in a great degree inaccessible,
and harbour prodigious multitudes of every kind of wild beasts
peculiar to America, as well as run-away Negroes, who in these
horrible swamps are perfectly safe, and with the greatest facility
elude the most diligent search of their pursuers.
Run-away Negroes have resided in these places for twelve, twenty,
or thirty years and upwards, subsisting themselves in the swamp
upon corn, hogs, and fowls, that they raised on some of the
spots not perpetually under water, nor subject to be flooded, as
forty-nine parts out of fifty of it are; and on such spots they
have erected habitations, and cleared small fields around them;
yet these have always been perfectly impenetrable to any of the
inhabitants of the country around, even to those nearest to and
best acquainted with the swamps. One bondsman “Tom” left the Dismal
Plantation in April 1767 and spent years “lying out”, always
within a few miles of the company’s work. Cecelski identifies an
1811 item in the Edenton Gazetteabout a planter named Joseph
Banks who discovered his runaway Frank working in “The Shingle
Swamp” and manning a flatboat on the Dismal Swamp Canal. In October
1817, a young Yale Graduate name Samuel Huntington Perkins was
bound for Hyde County, North Carolina to tutor plantation girls.
After staying in Norfolk, Virginia for a short visit, he hired a
horse and buggy and traveled down the canal bank road towards
Elizabeth City, North Carolina. He was forewarned not to travel
through the swamp without a pistol.“Traveling here without
pistols is considered very dangerous,” Perkins wrote, “owing to the
great number of runaway Negroes. They conceal themselves in the woods
& swamps by day and frequently plunder by night.” By the time
Perkins reached Hyde County in mid-November, he learned that “not
long since a woman was discovered in the center of the Great Dismal
Swamp.
There She and her six children had lived for years preferring the
horrors Of such a place and the enjoyment of freedom, to the comforts
of civilized life when attended with the loss of liberty. In the 19th
century, timbering, specifically making shingles, and draining of the
swamp was continuing to take place; however, parts of the swamp
still seemed as impassable as when Byrd described it in 1728. Referring
to a later source by Frederick Law Olmsted, Journey to the Seaboard
Slave States, Cecelski states that in the swamp, poor white men and
enslaved woodsmen would hire fugitives to work for them in exchange
for food, clothes and some money. In 1861, Frederick Law Olmsted
described the swamp in his book, The Cotton Kingdom:Except by those
log-roads, the swamp is scarcely passable in many parts, owing
not only to the softness of the sponge, but to the obstruction
caused by innumerable shrubs, vines, creepers, and briars, which
often take entire possession of the surface, forming a dense brake
or jungle. During a Southern tour in 1853, Frederick Law Olmsted
gave a buggy ride to a black man he called Joseph Church, who was
the property of a religious congregation. This black man told
Olmsted that he knew about the slave’s runaway life. Reporting on a
conversation he had with a bondsman named Joseph Church Osmstead
wrote: The Dismal Swamps are noted places of refuge for runaway
negroes. They were formerly peopled in this way much more than at
present; a systematic hunting of them with dogs and guns having been
made by individuals who took it up as a business about ten years ago.
Children were born, bred, lived, and died here. Joseph Church told
me he had seen skeletons, and had helped to bury bodies recently
dead. There were people in the swamps still, he thought, that were
the children of runaways, and who had been runaways themselves
“all their lives.”They preyed on the farms and plantations at the
Swamp’s edges. Olmsted thought that the population of runaways must
be way down after years of dog-drivers-slave hunters with hounds-on
the runaways’ trails.Blood hounds, foxhounds, bulldogs, and curs
were used…. I have seen a pack of Negro-dogs, chained in couples,
and probably going to the field. Oh, yes, Joseph Church answered
Olmsted when he asked if the hunters ever shot runaways. But some
on ‘em would rather be shot than be took, sir. .Olmsted continued,
describing their accommodations:Joseph said that they had huts in
“back places” hidden by bushes, and difficult of access; he had,
apparently, been quite intimate with them. Ads widely separated
in time tell the story:Virginia Gazette, Williamsburg, April 13,
1769. CUMBERLAND, March 22, 1769. RAN away from the subscriber.
in April 1768, a likely young Negro man named TOM, he is near 6
feet high, and has lost part of one of his ears. It is thought he
is about the Dismal Swamp. Or low down in North-Carolina.
Whoever brings the said Negro to me shall have TEN POUNDS reward.
JOHN MAYO. Southern Argus, April 16, 1852. James I. Blunt of Isle
of Wight County. “I will give one hundred dollars reward for my man
Bonaparte if delivered to me… in Isle of Wight…or secured in jail
so that I can get him. Bonaparte ran away last Christmas without
cause or provocation. He is not of very dark complexion, full eyes,
large mouth, fine set of teeth, speak fluently. I have received
information that he is lurking about the Dismal Swamp. In 1856
during a stop at Horse Camp in the Great Dismal Swamp, the author
and illustrator Porte Crayon [David Hunter Strother of Winchester,
Virginia] risked his life for a glimpse of a runaway slave in the
swamp. Porte Crayon came upon a runaway slave with a gun. Crayon
hid, and ran as soon as the runaway slave left. Crayon made a quick
sketch as soon as he could and showed the drawing to others back
at Horse Camp. One of the men referred to the drawing as ‘Osman’,
yet apparently someone they did not want to talk about. Gangs of
maroons in the swamps often had to steal from whites living on
the outskirts of the swamp in order to live. The actions of
various runaways between 1785 and 1831 indicate that they still
had to take food, clothing, and other articles in order to run.
Gangs of maroons lived along the North Carolina-Virginia border.
Although their force never equaled that of West Indian maroons,
they were active and resourceful. They were also determined,
aggressive, and sometimes desperate, consequently becoming
involved in trials for murder as well as theft.”
Newspapers of the time seem to concur that the Dismal Swamp was
considered a safe haven for the fugitive slaves. After Nat
Turner’s Revolt in August 21, 1831, in Southampton County,
Virginia, there was this excerpt in The Constitutional Whig,
Richmond, VA 23 August 1831: We understand that the insurrection
in Southampton is little more than the irruption of 150 or 200
runaway slaves from the Dismal Swamp, incited by a spirit of
plunder and rapine. It will be quickly suppressed. The Petersburg
Intelligencer, Petersburg, VA 26 August 1831, recounted:
Belfield, (Greenville County) August 24, 1831- Excerpt, In the
greatest haste I write you a few lines, I can merely say that we
are all in arms and in great excitement on account of the
insurrection, which broke out on Sunday night last- between
eighty and a hundred of the whites have already been butchered-
their heads severed from their bodies. The intention of the
negroes was to reach the Dismal Swamp. I think, however, that
we have them so hemmed in as to render it impossible for them
to do so. Problems with runaways in the Great Dismal Swamp
apparently reached such proportions that, in 1847, the North
Carolina State Assembly passed the Act to provide for the
apprehension of runaway slaves in the Great Dismal Swamp and
for other purposes. The Preamble of the Act is below. Whereas,
many slaves belonging to persons residing or having plantations
in the neighborhood of the great dismal swamp, have left the
service of their masters and taken refuge in the said swamp,
and by the aid of free persons of color and of white men,
have been and are enabled to elude all attempts to secure
their persons and induce them again under the just authority
of their masters, and their consorting with such white men
and free persons of color, they remain setting at defiance
the power of their masters, corrupting and seducing other slaves,
and by their evil example and evil practices, lessening the
due subordination, and greatly impairing the value of slaves
in the district of country bordering on the said great dismal
swamp…Passing Through The ports of Virginia, particularly
Portsmouth and Norfolk, were major access points for runaway
slaves to find passage onboard ship. Runaway ads (such as those
listed above) illustrate that the Dismal Swamp was a refuge for
those aiming toward Norfolk. Historian Cecelski states in
The Waterman’s Song, that “Men and women who escaped from the
Albemarle Sound vicinity usually headed north through the Great
Dismal Swamp to rendezvous with seagoing vessels in Norfolk and
Portsmouth, Virginia. ”During a recent interview, Dr. Bogger
theorized that those slaves who could pass as free may have
used the swamp as a temporary stopping point before continuing
to Norfolk or Portsmouth. William Still documents the
availability of transport from Elizabeth City in the 1850s; a
ship’s captain allowed freedom seeker Miles White to hide in a
Philadelphia-bound vessel carrying shingles Daniel Carr
escaped from Norfolk with Captain Fountain; Cecelski thinks
that the “swamp” Daniel Carr hid in “for three months surrounded
with wild animals and reptiles” was Dismal Swamp .
Civil War Liberation
At the time of the Civil War, maroons joined Union troops. The Great
Dismal Swamp and the Dismal Swamp Canal also played an important
role in the liberation of enslaved African Americans by the Union
Army. In late 1863, a Federal detachment from Virginia marched to
Elizabeth City by way of the Dismal Swamp Canal Road through the
Great Dismal Swamp. A description of the journey through the
swamp was written:We were in the dreariest and wildest part of the
Dismal Swamp, the darkness was dense, the air damp, and the ghastly
silence was broken only by the hooting of owls and crying of wild
cats. For two hours we rode through the Stygian darkness of the
forest, when we arrived at South Mills-a collection of about twenty
houses-where we stopped to rest our horses. Here we left the canal
and descended into another swamp of Hades. The narrow crooked road
was flooded with water and crossed with innumerable little rickety
bridges, over which our horses picked their way with great caution
and reluctance. In Elizabeth City contact was made with General
Wild’s headquarters, and then aforay was made against the Guerillas
in both Pasquotank and Perquimans Counties. Brigadier General
Edward Augustus Wild’s official account of the situation, written
at Elizabeth City, December 12, 1863, to General Barnes read, “I
have the honor to report that we occupy this place, and thus far
without accident. Below South Mills we built a solid bridge on the
piles previously standing, but partly burned, and marched hither.”
Later, the report reads, “The Army of Liberation under General Wild
proceeded to Camden County by way of Indiantown, collecting on the
way a large number of slaves, horses and mules. Edward Augustus
Wild, a native of Brookline, Massachusetts, was an ardent
abolitionist. On April 24, 1863, Wild was appointed brigadier
general of volunteers, and given orders assigning him to North
Carolina to recruit and train soldiers from among the refugees
gathered there, most of them recently liberated from slavery. In
November of 1863, the War Department posted Wild’s African Brigade
(as it was then designated) to Norfolk and Portsmouth. Both cities
were a part of the department commanded by Major General Benjamin
F. Butler whose headquarters were at Fort Monroe. Butler was a
zealous opponent of slavery. On December 5, Butler had issued
his General Order No. 46, “implementing the administration’s
policy to aggressively recruit former slaves and providing detailed
instructions on how it was to be done.” On December 6, 1863, he sent
a short written response to a Norfolk resident who expressed
concern and fear over the use of black soldiers, writing, “if you
do not die until the negroes hurt you, if you behave yourself,
you will live forever.” With Butler’s permission, Gen. Wild
began planning an expedition into northeastern North Carolina to
free enslaved people with his United States Colored Troops (USCT).
General Wild’s men consisted of the 1st, and 5th regiments of USCT,
commanded by Colonels John H. Holman and James W. Conine, and the
2d North Carolina colored Volunteers, commanded by Colonel Alonzo
G. Draper. On December 5, 1863 Holman’s and Draper’s regiments
left their camps near Portsmouth, Virginia, and Conine’s 5th USCT
left their camp with elements of the 1st North Carolina Colored
Volunteers and 55th Massachusetts. The expedition marched in two
columns southward, camping the first night at Deep Creek, Virginia
[the beginning of the Dismal Swamp Canal Locks], and the second
night at Ferebee’s Farm. On the third day they camped at South
Mills [Camden County] on the Dismal Swamp Canal. On December 8th,
Gen. Wild and several hundred men marched from South Mills to
Camden County Court House. The soldiers told the enslaved blacks
they found along the way that they were now free and welcome to
join the Federal procession.
According to Tewksbury: The teams of their masters were impressed,
and they were taken along with their household property. In this
way the train was hourly extended, until by night it was a half
mile in length. The inhabitants being almost exclusively “secesh,”
[secessionist] the colored boys were allowed to forage at will
along the road. On December 11th, when General Wild’s regiment
arrived in Elizabeth City, he met the steamers, ‘Three Brothers’
and ‘I. D. Coleman’. One steamer ferried freed African Americans
to Roanoke Island, along with their baggage, horses and carts,
and other confiscated property. General Wild sent Major Elias
Wright and 300 of the 1st USCT on the steamer Frazier to Wade’s
Point [located at the tip of Pasquotank County where the county
meets the Albemarle Sound]. These troops were instructed to march
up the peninsula to Elizabeth City, bringing in as many freed
slaves as possible. Tewksbury reported: When Major Wright returned,
he was accompanied by a train of thirty-eight ox, mule, and horse
carts, containing the personal property of two hundred and fifty
slaves that followed him into town. The deserted streets of
Elizabeth City were thronged with liberated slaves that came pouring
in from the country in every direction with furniture. Colonel
Holman’s 1st USCT, augmented by other troops, tried to reach Hertford
some fifteen miles southwest of Elizabeth City. The Confederate
guerrillas frustrated their attempt by burning the bridges crossing
the Little and Perquimans rivers.
Col. Holman found Captain Elliott’s Company A of the 68th North
Carolina Volunteers. After seven days in Elizabeth City, Gen. Wild
made preparations to return to Norfolk and began to send his men
back. Col. Draper and 400 men from the 1st and 5th USCT, crossed the
Pasquotank River to Camden Court House ‘to scour’ the countryside
and meet up with Gen. Wild in two days at Indiantown. [Currituck
County]. Following the hanging of a Rebel guerrilla, Daniel Bright of
Pasquotank County, General Wild dismissed the cavalry and artillery,
sending them, along with Colonel Holman and his 1st USCT, back toward
Norfolk. With his force now reduced to 500 men, Wild began a march
toward Indiantown [Currituck County] where he was to rejoin Colonel
Draper.
Tewksbury provides a detailed description of the march: At first,
the country was poor and the houses were mean and far apart. But
about noon we struck another road…and the march of the colored troops
was that of an army of liberation. The first plantation to which we
came belonged to a man named Ferebee. Fourteen slaves were found in
the negro quarters…the furniture belonging to the slaves was piled
into a wagon hitched to a horse, both found on the property. The
women and children were placed on the top…meanwhile, detachments
were sent ahead to every visible farm house to repeat this operation
…wherever a team could be found, it was borrowed or taken for the
benefit of such slaves as should not be fortunate enough to have
masters owning any. By Christmas Eve, General Wild was at Norfolk
and his regiments had returned to their bases. The raid was over and
a flurry of complaints and protests began over hundreds of wagon loads
of confiscated goods, some taken without justification from loyal
Union families in addition to those from Southern sympathizers and
guerrillas On January 16th, (1864?) General Butler published a
general order specifying circumstances when private property might
be taken:Cases of difficulty have arisen where the negroes, formerly
slaves, joining the troops of the United States, on marches
and expeditions, with intent to come within our lines for protection,
bring with them property of their former masters. While the theory
adopted by some officers that all the property in the rebel States
belongs to the negroes, because it is the product of their labor, is
theoretically true, yet it is not such a truth as can be made the
foundation of Government action. Therefore, negroes… are not to be
allowed to bring with them any other than those personal effects
which have belonged to them, or such property as the officer
commanding may order. After the war, the maroons left the swamp
and assimilated into the free African American community.
Archeological researchers continue to try to locate remnants of
the maroon communities. The swamp, even today, can be impenetrable
in places. During a recent attempt, in March of 2003, to follow
in the footsteps of William Byrd’s survey crew, the group lost
its way several times and abandoned the effort. The swamp
continues to be that mysterious place where people are easily
lost. Research by refuge staff into the use of the swamp as a
temporary haven on the trek to Norfolk is on-going.
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