Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1892-04-14
A TALE or A DISMAL SWAMP.

Indeed there was scarcely q slave on
the plantation but had o startling
experience to relate of the ghosts
that haunted Graysville, one of the
most famous old plantations of
Louisiana. Every slave that ever
trod Southern soil is afraid of grave
yards, and the Graysville graveyard
was indeed q solemn old place, and
awesome enough to those minds
superstitiously inclined. Itwas not
more than o hundred yards from
the back doorstep, and in full range
Of the little windows of the room
that had been the sitting-room of
all my grandmothers for unnum-
bered generations.
1t was not originally meant to be
a graveyard-one Of the first Gray
women had lost babe, and it was
her desire that the child might be
buried somewhere in sight of her
window. where she might have the
comfort of seeing its little grave at
all times, and knowing it was not
quite alone when the wind blew at
night and the snow fell over Grays-
vile.
But the little grave which held
the dead did not by any means help
to heal the wound in the heart of
the living, and before the flowers
bloomed again in the old Louisiana
woods another grave was opened be-
side the lonely little sleeper, and
Grandmother Gray went to keep
her child company under the rustl-
ing old live-oaks. OF course grand
father was put to sleep beside his
wife, and so in time all the Grays
were laid there under those grim
old oaks, and the ''family grave
yard. SO to speak, established with
in a stone's-throw of the back doer.
But it was not the graveyard
which made one afraid of Grays-
vile. Beyond, more than a mile,
and cut off by one of those still.
treacher0us lagoons so common to
Louisiana, stretched for several
miles low, wet strip of timber-iand
known as the Dismal Swamp.
The place was full of uncanny
associations-as the hiding-place for
runaway slaves, the hot-bed of ma
laria and all manner of ills and
aches. At length the crowning i'll
was put upon it when it became the
abode of the Graysville ghost.
True, these stories of the ghost
never, for long while at least, got
beyond the quarters; but they were
rehearsed night after night with
startling and blood-curdling varia-
tions.
It was said that nothing ever
came out of the swamp alive-even
the cattle, wandering within its
deadly limits, were either stung to
death by the poisonous reptiles
there, or else broke their necks a
mong the tangles of bamboo and
rattan, cross-vine and swinging
MOSES of the swamp.
l was always mortally afraid of
the swamp, and no human power
could have persuaded me beyond
the separating waters of the lagoon.
OF the ghosts I had no fear what
ever; but stories of the runaway
slaves, the poisonous atmosphere,
and the unfortunate cattle had fill
ed my mind. with a horror Of the
place which to this day l have never
been able to shake of.
MY first recollection of it was the
time one of the men came running
in from the field, painting with fear
and declaring that something like
o big black shadow had run ont of
the swamp and chased him home.
The something" proved to be
Crazy Dick, an old slave who had
disappeared months before and was
supposed to be dead somewhere in
the impenetrable depths Of the Dis
NAL Swamp. He had, indeed, been
there all the wli't. living upon The
wild plums and berries which grew
there in rank profusion. He re.
turned to his hiding-place and died
there. his dead body having been
discovered by seeing the buzzardi
circling about it on the further banl
of the lagoon.
Literally torn to pieces by tbs
witches" " they said in the cabins o.
the superstitious blacks, who repu
dated the existence of the brier,
for the more thrilling idea O
"witches.