The Norfolk Virginian. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 186?-189?, 1897-06-01
Enterprise That Wilt Have a Marked Effect
Oh Transportation North and Sauth.
PLANS OF BALTIMORE CAPITALISTS
Gnuni to Iso Enlarged and Restored
TO It's Former 1mportance rs an Tn-
iand Neutrality-suspicious. Region
mat Excites Fascination and III or.
ror-Celobrated In Song anI story.
{Modern Machinery

Capitalists OF Baltimore are engaged
in an enterprise destined to have a
marked effect upon transportation be-
tween North and South. The scheme
contemplates the general enlargement Of
the Dismal Swamp Canal and the res
toratlon of that ancient waterway to
something like It's former Importance as
q means Of bringing freight from the
carolina rivers into Chesapeake bay
This statement arouses far different
Images in the mind than would the an
nouncement OF the invasion of COM
merce into any other as small region in
the United States. It Is like reading OF
electric lights in Kenilworth castle or q
railway past Aud Kirk Alloway; 1t dis
turbs one OF the few haunted spots in
our new country, opening it up to the
light Of day that is so unkind to ghosts.
me many traditions OF the Dismal
Swamp make 1t legendary land; the
impenetrability, the desolatlon, the half
savage fugitive slaves who once in
hibited 1t, living by woodcraft, the very
name Of It breathing deeolation, and
the gruesome interest attached to 1t by
Moore's exquisite ballad, '"The Lake Of
the Dismal Swamp" have invested it
with fascina ton whose counterpart is
to be found only in the weird tales Of
edgar Allen Poe. His "Ullalume" par
taxes or the same hopelessness and hor-
ror; only the half mad could 20 there.
ana once there the spell OF the lost Is
upon them and they never come back
The images Of the Dismal Swamp are
indefinite. If the boundaries of the
Nights putonic shore were given, it
would occasion no more necessity for
mental readjustment than to be told
that the Dismal Swamp lies just south
or Norfolk, Va, between Chesapeake
bay and Albemarle sound, and directly
west Of Cape Hatteras, off which so
many good ships have foundered In the
las! 250 years and so many souls have
fastened to their account. This IS the
reason for the canal. 1t Is but twenty
two miles long, from Deep Creek to
Pasquotank river, 10 connect two inland
seas less than fifty miles apart, but It
VIII cut off, for shipping purposes, the
most dangerous part Of the Atlantic
coast from Charleston to New York.
There has never been time when
this region Of the Dismal Swamp did
not excite fascination and horror Tho
earnest account of a passage through
1t is by Colonel Byrd, Of Westover Man
SION, va, who surveyed the boundary
North Carolina in 1928. He said briefly
IN his sedate report to the Governor:
Until this time the dreadful swamp
was ever Judged impa ssable," but what
images those few words conjure IN. We
can picture him, white handed, urbane.
lncased legs under his own mahogany
and his hand on decanter, relating 10
his fair daughter, Evelyn Byrd. who was
70 win the homage OF London gallants.
10 suffer bighted affections and early
death, how he went
through tangled juniper, beds Of reeds,
AND many fen where the serpent feeds,
And man never trod before.
AND the black boy who stood behind
MS chair may well have been the first
slave who ever heard described the desc
late region where SO many Of his race
We're to find refuge from the consequent
ces Of crime or the uncomfortable burdens
Of servitude. Before the French and
Indian war 1t was believed that fugi-
tive slaves were living in the swamps,
but the horrors to be encountered and
the Jungles Of noisome vegetation to be
penetrated prevented white men from
loiioWlng them, so the desperation Of
ana the region was avoided. The depths
OF the sea would not hide man more
securely. Nearly thirty years after Colo
mel Byrd's surveying expedition, q
Scotchman by the name Of Drummond
penetrated to the Very centre Of the
swamp, discovered lake, and named it
after himself-a name that was never
very generally accepted, for very early
IN the present century Thomas Moore.
who escaped the irksorfe duties IF n
consulate In the Bermuda Islands bv
travelling in the United States, wrote
the mournful ballad, THE Lake Of the
Dismal Swamp" and by this name onlv
has the melancholy sheet Of water been
identified in literature for nearly hun.
dren years.
In 1853 George Washington, then only
81, explored the swamp, and, as he
quantity says, "encompassed the whole
Of It." With some knowledge Of the
sciences and civil engineering he made
the first discoveries Of Importance about
the region. He camped one night on the
past shore and discovered that the mys-