The Great Black Swamp, or simply Black Swamp, was a glacially caused wetland in northwest Ohio, United States, extending into extreme northeastern Indiana, that existed from the end of the Wisconsin glaciation until the late 19th century. Comprising extensive swamps and marshes, with some higher, drier ground interspersed, it occupied what was formerly the southwestern part of Glacial Lake Maumee, a holocene precursor to Lake Erie. The area was about 40 kilometres (25 mi) wide (north to south) and 160 kilometres (99 mi) long, covering an estimated 4,000 square kilometres (1,500 sq mi). Gradually drained and settled in the second half of the 19th century, it is now highly productive farm land.
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Famous quotes containing the words black and/or swamp:
“The body is no body to be seen
But is an eye that studies its black lid.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“We read that the traveller asked the boy if the swamp before him had a hard bottom. The boy replied that it had. But presently the traveller’s horse sank in up to the girths, and he observed to the boy, “I thought you said that this bog had a hard bottom.” “So it has,” answered the latter, “but you have not got half way to it yet.” So it is with the bogs and quicksands of society; but he is an old boy that knows it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)