Swamp Lit

                                    “The Lake of the Dismal Swamp” (Historic Print)

The Great Dismal Swamp is America’s most famous swamp, drawing poets, novelists, journalists, naturalists, and painters to its black, primordial waters. Some of the greatest literary names of the last two centuries have paid homage to its mysterious allure; including Edgar Allen Poe, William Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sir Thomas Moore and Robert Frost. All of these writers penned vivid descriptions of the Swamp, ranging from sinister to glorious, and dismal to dream-like.

Each generation brought their own unique cultural perspective to the Swamp. In 1728, Colonel William Byrd II wrote an account of leading a surveying party to help set the state boundary line. From Byrd’s viewpoint, as the owner of the large and prosperous Wakefield Plantation, there was absolutely nothing redeeming about the swamp. Byrd, a rational 18th century pragmatist,  estimated that it would take a full decade just to drain and clear the bog for farmland.  

Byrd’s dismissal of the terrain as “Dismal” actually became synonymous with the word swamp. His account noted, “that whole distance was through a miry cedar bog, where the ground trembled below their feet most mightily” and they had “a dread of laying their bones in a bog that would spew them up again.”

(Photo Source: “The Dismal Swamp, Canoeing Sketches” by John Boyle O'Reilley)

Nonetheless, the Dismal Swamp quickly became known as one of the great natural phenomena of the new country, and George Washington, Patrick Henry, James Monroe and Andrew Jackson all made the pilgrimage to the cypress lined shores. Tales of the swamp circulated throughout the educated world; and in 1803, Sir Thomas Moore, Irish poet and British Consul to Bermuda, found his way to Lake Drummond. Moore then retreated to Norfolk to write, “A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal Swamp”, with its famous opening refrain:

“They made her a grave, too cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true;
And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,
Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe.”

The Age of Reason had given way to the romantic sensibilities of the 19th century. Not surprisingly, the macabre Edgar Allen Poe was drawn to the swamp’s dark and sinister qualities. Poe traveled the canal, and his feverish imagination described it as “the boundary of the dark, horrible, lofty” forest. An unsubstantiated story credits him with penning parts of his most famous poem, “The Raven,” at the notorious Halfway Hotel, so-called because it straddled the North Carolina and Virginia State Line in the swamp. Poe was a known guest at the Halfway Hotel, which was the scene of many marriages, duels, and other dubious assignations.

“The Hotel at Lake Drummond” (Historic Print)

In his poem “The Lake,” Poe describes a sunset visit to the shore of a lake haunted by the ghosts of two lovers. Lake Drummond is believed to be the lake based on the physical description, with the wet cypress roots along the shoreline resembling black rocks.

“In spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less--
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound
And the tall pines that towered around.”

The dark interiors of the Swamp were rumored to have been a refuge for local and runaway slaves dating  back to the 1600’s. The accuracy of stories about large colonies of slaves in the Dismal Swamp are debated by scholars, but slaves certainly sought refuge in the swamp. The waterways have been designated by the National Park Service as a site of the Underground Railway Network. The horror of slavery set against the backdrop of the menacing, mysterious landscape captured the imagination of poets, writers, and painters.

Longfellow’s poem, “Slave in the Dismal Swamp”,  portrayed the suffering of humans seeking freedom.  In 1856, a fictitious account in Harper’s Weekly by David Strother, told the story of the legendary “Osman,” who protected runaway slaves in the swamp. This account provided the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s second anti-slavery novel, “Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp” in 1856; following the enormously successful “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, the first American novel to sell a million copies.

By 1893, naturalist accounts began to make their appearance, such as, “The Dismal Swamp, Canoeing Sketches” by John Boyle O’Reilly. The book features charming photographs of the excursion, and detailed accounts of the flora and fauna. The Nineteenth Century ended on a suitably romantic footnote. Poe’s poem, “The Lake”, captured the imagination of a young Robert Frost in 1894. Rebuffed by his sweetheart, a heartbroken Robert Frost decided to come to Virginia and wander around the swamp hopelessly until he perished. Fortunately, he was discovered, returned home, and married the object of his earlier angst.

(Photo: “The Dismal Swamp, Canoeing Sketches" by John Boyle O'Reilley)

Americans in the early 20th century, now in the era of the exuberant Teddy Roosevelt, set out to explore the swamp as naturalists and adventurers. The appreciation of the swamp as a rare and important wilderness area continues with volumes such as Bland Simpson’s, “The Great Dismal, a Carolinian’s Swamp Memoir” (1998), and our very own naturalist librarian Karen Kearney, with her new blog, “On the Wing.”  The Great Dismal Swamp, Chesapeake’s greatest treasure, continues to provide a stunning contrast to our busy, modern suburban life, providing a deep, ancient, and primordial call of the wild.

(Photo Source: “The Dismal Swamp, Canoeing Sketches" John Boyle O'Reilley)

Betsy Fowler