The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-02-24
THE DISMAL SWAMP.

one might credit what was said in ''the
quarters" Indeed there was scarcely n
slave or the plantation but had startling
experience to relate of the ghosts that
haunted Graysville, one of the most IA
nous old plantations Of Louisiana. Every
slave that ever t-od southern soil is afraid
of graveyards, and the Graysville grave
yard was indeed a solemn old place, and
awesome enough to those minds super
stitiously inclined. 1t was not more than
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 gen.
erations.
1t was not originally meant TO be grave
yard. One of the first Gray women had lost
a babe, and it was her desire that the child
might be buried somewhere in sight of her
window, where she might have the com
fort 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 Graysville.
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 be-
! fore the flowers bloomed again in the old
| Louisiana woods another grave was opened
beside the lonely little sleeper, and Grand
mother Gray went to keep her child COM
pany under the rustling old liveoaks OF
course grandfather 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 graveyard" SO to speak, estab-
hshed within stones throw of the back
door,
But it was not the graveyard which
made one afraid of Graysville. Beyond,
more than mile, and cut off by one of
those still, treacherous lagoons so common
to Louisiana, stretched for several miles
low wet strip of timber land known as the
Dismal Swamp.
The place was full of uncanny associa-
tions--as the hiding place for runaway
slaves, the hotbed Of malaria and all man
ner of ills and aches. At length the crown
ing 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 there they were rehearsed
night after night with startling and blood
curdling variations.
1t was said that nothing ever came out
of the swamp alive-even the cattle, wan
stung to death by the poisonous reptiles
there, or else broke their necks among the
tangles of bamboo and rattan, crossvine
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 wa
tiers of the lagoon.
OF the ghosts had no fear whatever;
l,,% - L Al
sonous atmosphere and the unfortunate
cattle had filled my mind with horror of
the place which to this day have never
been able to shake off.
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 a big black shadow had
run out 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 bedead
somewhere il the impenetrable depths of
the Dismal Swamp. He had indeed been
there all the while, living upon the wild
plums and berries which grew there in
rank profusiou. He returned to his hiding
place and died there. his dead body having
been discovered by seeing the buzzards cir
cling about it on the farther bank of the
lagoon.
Literally torn to pieces by the Witches"
they said in the cabins of the superstitious
blacks, who repudiated the existence of
the briers for the more thrilling idea of
witches"
From that time forward the ghost of
Crazy Dick was said to wander about the
swamp, and could be seen almost any
night, ''all in white" crossing the lagoon
and the rice field, and coming on across
the lawn to the graveyard, where he disap-
peared lust at daylight" in his own grave
in the far corner of the lot, lover todes the
great house." The story was told until it
was believed by every negro on the planta-
ton; and when at last the overseer him
self, returning from the quarters after
midnight, where he had been to sit up with
a very sick slave. declared that he had
with his own eyes seen the ghost, there
was something of a panic in and about
Graysville
was a girl then of about seventeen
years of age, and my terror of the swamp
became so intense that would stop my
ears and leave the room at the bare men
ton of the place 1t preyed upon my
thoughts day and night.
At night my dreams were full of it. /
had wandered among all those mysterious
depths, trampled upon the nest of the cop
perhead and adder. breathed the soft per-
fume of the wild magnolia and brushed
aside. as it trailed against my forehead.
the rank red blossoms OF the poisonous
oak and the deadly ivy. In my dreams
had dipped my feet into the still, sleek
waters of the lagoon and followed the path
made By the ghost of Crazy Dick across
the rice field and the family graveyard,
dense shadows.
would wake at sunrise, nervous and
feverish. and as weary as If had indeed
made the horrible journey. And even then
| would creep under the bed covers and try
to forget the horrors of my dream.
grew thin and pale and nervous AL
the gold in Louisiana could not tempt me
near the Dismal Swamp. my terror of it in
creased as |, night after night. roamed
through its terrible tangies of vine and
brier in my dreams
One morning the very climax Of wonder
WAS reached when my father. returning
home just before day from a meeting of
the rice planters az q village some fifteen
miles distant, himself encountered the
Graysville ghost returning from its Md
night ramhle through the Dismal Swamp
IL WAS only balI visible IN the uncertain
hight. but stan distinct enough for him 70
distinguish s supple. wiIlowy something
clad in white and moving without noise,
almost without motion. be thought, toward
the dismal shadows of the Graysyille