Dismal Swamp State Park - History

History

By 1650, few American Indians remained in the Great Dismal Swamp area, and European settlers showed little interest in the swamp. In 1665, William Drummond, future governor of North Carolina, was the first European to explore the lake which now bears his name. William Byrd II led a surveying party into the swamp to draw a dividing line between Virginia and North Carolina in 1728. George Washington visited the swamp and called it a "glorious paradise". He then formed the Dismal Swamp Land Company in 1763, which proceeded to drain and harvest timber from part of the area. A five-mile (8 km) ditch on the west side of the current refuge still bears his name. In 1805, the Dismal Swamp Canal began serving as a commercial highway for timber coming out of the swamp.

Before and during the American Civil War, the Great Dismal Swamp was a hideout for runaway slaves from the surrounding area. Recent research showed that thousands of Great Dismal Swamp maroons lived in the swamp between the 1600s and 1865. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp is based on them.

While all efforts to drain the swamp failed, logging of the swamp proved to be a successful commercial activity. Logging operations continued as late as 1976. The entire swamp has been logged at least once, and many areas have been burned by periodic wildfires. Agricultural, commercial, and residential development destroyed much of the swamp, so that the remaining portion within and around the refuge represents less than half of the original size of the swamp.

Before the refuge was established, over 140 miles (230 km) of roads were constructed to provide access to the timber. These roads disrupted the swamp's natural hydrology, as the ditches which were dug to provide soil for the road beds drained water from the swamp. The roads also blocked the flow of water across the swamp's surface, flooding some areas of the swamp with stagnant water. The logging operations removed natural stands of bald cypress and Atlantic white cypress that were replaced by other forest types, particularly red maple. A drier swamp and the suppression of wildfires, which once cleared the land for seed germination, created ecological conditions that were less favorable to the survival of cypress stands. As a result, plant and animal variety decreased.

Dismal Swamp State Park opened in 2008. It is accessed via a floating bridge over the Dismal Swamp Canal. This is the only public access to the park's visitor's center, other than boat launches along the canal. Hiking and biking trails have opened and additional trails are under construction.