Gates County's Port of Hamburg
The Cross Canal, or Hamburg Ditch, three miles (5 km) south of the Virginia line, was Gates County's water route to the major port of Norfolk. Opened in 1805-1822, it ran straight east for ten miles (16 km) through the Dismal Swamp, from a landing on Daniels Road in Gates County to the Dismal Swamp Canal. The Dismal Swamp Canal Welcome Center is now located there. The Cross Canal is no longer a through route. In the late 20th century, sportsmen in small boats still used the Gates County end, at the site of Hamburg, to enter the swamp. Hurricanes since then toppled huge trees across it, blocking all access to the canal.
Read more about this topic: Gates County, North Carolina, History, 1800s
Famous quotes containing the words gates, county and/or port:
“Railway termini ... are our gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, to them, alas! we return.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“It would astonish if not amuse, the older citizens of your County who twelve years ago knew me a stranger, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working on a flat boat—at ten dollars per month to learn that I have been put down here as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
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—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)