The Great Dismal Swamp

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THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP:

A TWENTIETH-CENTURY

PERSPECTIVE

Kevin Christopher Bradley

Submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

Public Anthropology

Chair:

Daniel Sayers, Ph.D.

Richard J. Dent, Ph.D.

Sue Taylor, Ph.D.

Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences

Date

2013

American University

Washington, D.C. 20016

Kevin Christopher Bradley

2013

THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP:

A TWENTIETH-CENTURY

PERSPECTIVE

Kevin Christopher Bradley

ABSTRACT

Research presented in this thesis will continue the investigation of (inter)actions within and around the Great Dismal Swamp, while expanding analysis beyond the current temporal focus of the Great Dismal Swamp Landscape Study. The twentieth century witnessed perhaps the most dramatic series of changes to landscape use in the Great Dismal Swamp throughout its entire social history, changes that undoubtedly affected previously established behaviors and relationships. Archival material and oral reports referenced in this work help identify the socioeconomic and ideological underpinnings of society, providing a means to evaluate how these broad processes influenced cultural activity in and around the swamp. Of particular interest in this thesis is the identification and understanding of the signs and manifestations of control expressed over the landscape, and the consequential acts of defiance taken by marginalized or disenfranchised communities. Archaeological evidence, also, has the potential to further illuminate our understanding of past actions in the swamp. However, since no concerted archaeological investigations of the twentieth century have been conducted there, it will be demonstrated that not only is such an endeavor possible, but it is ultimately worthwhile.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, I would like to thank my committee members. Dr. Daniel Sayers, Dr. Sue Taylor, and Dr. Richard J. Dent provided invaluable support and guidance, especially in the production of my thesis and, in general, throughout my matriculation at American University. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Sayers whose early receptive and candid conversations encouraged me to continue my education in archaeology at American University. Not only have I benefited greatly from his expert tutelage, but the numerous discussions we held in his office about baseball and animals will count among my fondest memories while in graduate school. As a research assistant to Dr.

Taylor and a student of Dr. Dent’s, I am thankful for the roles they played in my academic development and the genuine thoughts and opinions they shared with me over the years.

I am also fortunate in my personal life to be surrounded by unwavering support and encouragement. In particular, I would like to acknowledge fellow graduate student Rebecca

Peixotto for her friendship and consistently sound advice, without which I may never have successfully navigated graduate school. I am equally appreciative of Rebecca Stone Gordon and

Pin Thanesnant for their support and immensely positive attitudes about my work and just about everything else.

I will be forever grateful to my entire family, who not only fostered in me a sincere appreciation for the past, but a belief that one should constantly explore and pursue the things about which they are passionate. The daily encouragement and patience I received from

Richard, Cheryl, Geoff, Shannon, Brian, and Liz Bradley and Michael, Barbara, Mary, and

Regan McLaughlin was a much needed source of strength during the most challenging moments of the writing process.

Finally, my wife, Sarah, is deserving of my most heartfelt appreciation. Her unflagging confidence in me as a person and in my abilities carried me through countless times of doubt and iii

insecurity. She acted simultaneously as my editor, my counselor, and my mentor; and, like no other, Sarah shared with me in the difficulties and sacrifices required to successfully complete this thesis and my education. For that, she (and our girls) will always have my eternal gratitude and love.

Thank you all.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... iii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ...... vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Research Objectives ...... 3

Research Sources ...... 4

Theoretical Concepts ...... 7

Chapter Overview ...... 8

CHAPTER 2: CENTRAL THEORETICAL CONCEPTS ...... 9

Landscape ...... 9

Identity ...... 16

CHAPTER 3: PRE-TWENTIETH CENTURY HISTORY ...... 19

Prehistory ...... 19

European Colonization...... 21

Early Endeavors into the Dismal Swamp ...... 23

Enslaved Labor in the Great Dismal Swamp ...... 31

Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp ...... 36

The Civil War to the Turn of the Century...... 40

CHAPTER 4: THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ...... 44

Lumbering ...... 44

Hunters ...... 53

Illicit Activity ...... 65

The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge ...... 70

CHAPTER 5: Archaeological Potential...... 80

CHAPTER 6: Discussion ...... 89

REFERENCES ...... 98

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 USFWS Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge ‘Location Map’ ...... 2

Figure 2 USFWS ‘Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge’ map showing major canals...... 25

Figure 3 Feeder Ditch today ...... 26

Figure 4 Lumber rail in the swamp laid across fallen logs ...... 29

Figure 5 “Horse Camp” ...... 33

Figure 6 “Carting Shingles” ...... 34

Figure 7 “Cart-Boy” ...... 34

Figure 8 Reclaimed swampland near Feeder Ditch ...... 44

Figure 9 Supposedly the John L. Roper Lumber Company mill, Deep Creek...... 50

Figure 10 Richmond Times-Dispatch article about lost hunters ...... 57

Figure 11 Richmond Times-Dispatch expressing fear of moonshiners in the Great Dismal Swamp...... 67

Figure 12 USFWS map showing bear hunting restrictions within the boundaries of the GDSNWR ...... 77

Figure 13 Remnants of a structure in the Great Dismal Swamp, possibly a hunting club .... 87

vii

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge (GDSNWR) is a biologically and environmentally diverse area of swampland encompassing roughly 175 square miles in the states of Virginia and North Carolina. Situated in the Tidewater region just minutes from major metropolitan hubs (e.g., Norfolk and Suffolk, Virginia and Elizabeth City, North Carolina); the federally-protected wetlands stands in stark contrast to the rapidly developing world surrounding it (Figure 1). Since 1974, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has been charged with the stewardship of this unique landscape, protecting and preserving the diversity of plant and animal life existing within its boundaries. Currently, it is home to over 200 species of birds, 47 species of mammals, and numerous reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects. Apart from the 3,100-acre Lake Drummond located in the center of the refuge, the swamp’s nearly contiguous forest consists primarily of pine, Altantic white-cedar (otherwise known as juniper), maple-blackgum, tupelo-bald cypress, and sweetgum-oak poplar. When not in direct conflict with management’s primary objective, the USFWS promotes a public use program, so that visitors may come and experience this “outstanding ecosystem” for themselves (GDSNWR

2013).

The Great Dismal Swamp was a significant feature of the Tidewater landscape prior to its designation as a national wildlife refuge. To pre-colonial indigenous communities, the swamp provided a means of subsistence. Since the founding of Jamestown, the vast morass has played a variety of roles (quite often simultaneously) to people embroiled in a growing capitalist landscape. It has been viewed as a site for resource extraction, an intractable obstacle to

agriculture, and as a refuge from the oppression and brutality of capitalist machinations. It is this last usage that prompted Daniel O. Sayers to establish the Great Dismal Swamp Landscape

Study (GDSLS) in 2001 (Sayers 2008: 10).

Figure 1 USFWS Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge ‘Location Map’ (GDSNWR 2013).

Inspired by acts of resistance and defiance by marginalized individuals within the capitalist system, Sayers was intrigued by preliminary research that suggested the swamp was home to potentially thousands of maroons (or those who self-extricated from enslavement).

Upon further documentary investigation, he collected sufficient evidence to reasonably conclude

that three distinct groups of people inhabited the swamp between 1607 and the Civil War: disenfranchised Indigenous Americans, maroons, and enslaved canal company laborers. Sayers also assumed that indentured servants, criminals, and other social outliers in general were likely to seek refuge within the morass during this time (Sayers, et al. 2007: 78; Sayers 2008: 2, 13).

With these groups in mind, the GDSLS was established to gain a better understanding of the lifestyle of swamp inhabitants, their social history, and the previously underexplored phenomena of historical marronage in the United States. To this end, Sayers considered the formation of communities, landscapes, political economies, and their interconnectivity within both the swamp and the outside world. Archaeological studies, public engagement, and collaboration with the

USFWS have allowed Sayers and other GDSLS researchers to bring greater attention to this poorly understood aspect of Great Dismal Swamp history.

It is my intention that the analysis presented here will contribute a new perspective to the growing body of knowledge concerning the social history of the Great Dismal Swamp. While commendable and insightful work has been conducted on the social relationships that evolved within the swamp over the course of approximately 250 years, an exploration of the cultural developments in the twentieth century has yet to be considered as part of the GDSLS.

Research Objectives

ideological underpinnings of society and evaluate how these broad processes influenced cultural activity in and around the swamp. Of particular interest is the identification and understanding of the signs and manifestations of control expressed over the landscape, and the consequential acts of defiance taken by marginalized or disenfranchised communities.

As a secondary objective, I propose to demonstrate that a theoretically informed analysis of archaeological evidence has the potential to further illuminate our understanding of the events that occurred in the swamp during the twentieth century. However, since no concerted archaeological investigations of this kind have been conducted in the Great Dismal Swamp to my knowledge, I will argue that not only is such an endeavor possible, but it is ultimately worthwhile.

Research Sources

Similarly to the GDSLS, historical archaeology is the primary research vehicle in this thesis. The field, dually rooted in anthropology and history, is particularly well-suited to explore the social developments that unfolded during the twentieth century in the Great Dismal

Swamp. With a focus on the post-prehistoric past, historical archaeology combines an analysis of written accounts, non-traditional sources of information, such as oral stories, and a culture’s physical remains, each of which provided valuable insight in addressing the research objectives of this work.

Given the recent historical period under study, archival research provides a unique source of information about the activities that occurred within the swamp. The Great Dismal Swamp’s proximity to major urban areas, such as Norfolk and Suffolk, Virginia, as well as the federal government’s eventual interest in the landscape, made activities within the swamp of general interest to media outlets. While relatively local periodicals, such as the Suffolk News-Herald 4

and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, naturally dedicated coverage to newsworthy events occurring within the region, the publication of news concerning the Great Dismal Swamp in nationally distributed sources, such as the Washington Post and New York Times, demonstrated that developments in the swamp occasionally captured the attention of a broader public.

Newspapers also provide a critical resource in understanding local, regional, and national attitudes concerning the Great Dismal Swamp and whether or not opinions on use of the landscape differed based on geographic, political, or other affiliations. Major repositories, such as the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the Library of Virginia, have fortuitously preserved over a century of relevant periodical entries concerning the Great Dismal Swamp in physical or digital form and provided much of the historical research presented hereafter.

Oral accounts offer insight into how individuals uniquely experienced the events of the twentieth century in the swamp. People have many different ways of remembering the past

(Orser 2004: 183) and, fortunately for this study, a number of people have recounted their stories to interested historians, shedding some light on otherwise unrecorded activities and demonstrating how divergent opinions truly were on proper use of the landscape.

Historical archaeology has benefited greatly from the addition of oral accounts in its analysis of past events and understanding their broader significance to the general public. The

New York African Burial Ground (LaRoche and Blakey 1997) is one of the more prominent examples of how imperative the inclusion of multiple perspectives and voices is in accurately interpreting the significance of an archaeological site. Though no individual was alive to recount the historical event first-hand, the protestations of the descendant African-American community in New York against the approach initially taken by a predominantly white research team in excavating and interpreting a seventeenth century African burial ground clearly demonstrated

their disparate connections to the past and how each group related to that history. Only after consultation with the descendant community was included in the research design, did the historical and archaeological research produce a more inclusive, and therefore accurate, representation of the past.

In arguing for an archaeology for the working-class, Duke and Saitta (1998) urge historical archaeologists to consider the perspectives of those who are often voiceless in the process of documenting history. They argue that, “Working-class understandings of archaeology and the events of history are likely unique.” Archaeologists who make a priori assumptions about how working-class individuals (and indeed, all marginalized communities) experience historical events risk doing a grave injustice to understanding the natural complexity of those events. By reaching out to Colorado coal miners, for example, Saitta made sure that their perspectives and collective memories played a crucial role in interpreting the archaeology at the

Ludlow Memorial, the site of a 1914 clash between coal miners, their families, and the Colorado

National Guard – perhaps establishing the only forum for miners to express their version of history.

As was mentioned previously, little archaeological research has been conducted concentrating on twentieth century life in the Great Dismal. Material culture relevant to this study has, however, been recovered and recorded from a number of sites either as a result of contract archaeology or in the process of GDSLS research (Goode, et al. 2010, 2011; Sayers

2006b, 2007). The survey reports and associated material culture, while not specifically speaking to the focus of this work, do provide a glimpse into what could be expected should a more in depth archaeological investigation of the twentieth century be pursued.

Theoretical Concepts

Much like the GDSLS, an analysis of the research presented hereafter is theoretically informed by the acceptance of landscapes as social products, which potentially reflect the underlying processes of an inhabiting society (Sayers 2008: 40-41). They are generally accepted as cultural phenomena and shaped by countless interactions with people, while simultaneously serving as influential forces themselves (Anschuetz, et al. 2001; Gosden and Head 1994).

Embracing landscapes as active participants in the creation and perpetuation of societal aspects, as well as physical manifestations of the social, political-economic, and ideological conditions in which they were created (Sayers, et al. 2007: 65), is critical in understanding the concept’s importance in the GDSLS, as well as in this work. For example, the Great Dismal

Swamp post-emancipation remained a significant site of resource extraction. Increased exploitation of the swamp’s lumber was facilitated by the private acquisition of large tracts of land by several corporations throughout the twentieth century. A substantial portion of that land was ultimately donated to the federal government, transferring ownership to the state. Marx and

Marxist-influenced anthropologists have contributed much to our understanding of the consequential power relationships and social inequalities created from the break up and control of fragmented land (Sayers, et al. 2007: 65; Sayers 2008: 42-47). These theories of institutionalized inequalities brought about by private property, as well as other defining aspects of the capitalist mode of production, allow for a more critical examination of how movement throughout and use of the swamp was (and is) restricted as a result of corporate and state landownership.

A secondary theoretical focus considered in this research is an analysis of identity formation. Landscapes, quite often, play a prominent role in informing a community’s self-

image and, likewise, how a community is perceived by outsiders. Given the dramatic changes in the landscape during the twentieth century, it is safe to assume that those associated with the swamp were constantly renegotiating their identities. A better grasp on the interconnectivity of these two extremely fluid concepts may help to inform researchers about both, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of the past.

Chapter Overview

Immediately succeeding the introduction, Chapter 2 addresses the central theoretical concepts which frame my interpretation of historical and archaeological evidence presented in this study, specifically providing an explanation of landscape and identity as anthropological concepts. Chapter 3 details the history preceding the twentieth century, establishing a context in which to better appreciate the subsequent activities occurring in the swamp.

The primary focus of this thesis is grounded in the historical events taking place in the

Great Dismal Swamp primarily during the twentieth century, which are presented in Chapter 4.

In Chapter 5, I address the limited archaeological analysis of 1900s material cultural recovered and discuss the practicality and value of conducting such studies in the swamp. Lastly, in

Chapter 6, I conclude my thesis with a discussion of the twentieth century social history of the

Great Dismal Swamp, in which I synthesize the previously presented topics and suggest further areas of research.

CHAPTER 2

CENTRAL THEORETICAL CONCEPTS

Every anthropological study is informed by a set of central theoretical concepts. As a sub-discipline of anthropology, most modern archaeological inquiries, such as those researched by the GDSLS, operate within this same framework. This section will address two of the core concepts imperative to understanding the social significance of the Great Dismal Swamp in the twentieth century: landscape and identity. A more anthropologically nuanced understanding of these two ideas will ideally foster a greater appreciation for how the historical developments of the 1900s shaped the geography and social relationships of the area, creating the present-day environment.

Landscape

The GDSLS, as the name suggests, is primarily concerned with analyzing and understanding the sociality of the swamp landscape – a focus shared by this paper. To fully grasp the significance of landscapes one must attempt to look beyond their superficial and sterile representation as passive backdrops on which human (inter)actions play out. Equally prohibitive in appreciating the complexity of this concept is the acceptance of landscapes solely as environmental determinants, as in the assumption that perceived inhospitable areas precluded the occurrence of human activity. Efforts by geographically-minded social scientists, including many archaeologists, have advanced our understanding of landscapes beyond these two extreme and limiting interpretations.

Historically in the archaeological discipline, landscapes were primarily considered one of the two extremes mentioned above; they were either a passive background or a natural

determinant of culture (Anschuetz, et al. 2001: 157; Knapp and Ashmore 1999: 2). Eventually archaeologists began to include more critical notions of spatiality in their studies, influenced by scholars examining settlement patterns and the interconnectivity of cultures across great distances, such as Wolf (2010) and Wallerstein (1974). Though as Bruce Trigger critiqued, these approaches denoted the positivist influence of the time and were far more capable (and concerned) with describing how a settlement was organized than why it developed in such a way

(Anschuetz, et al. 2001: 174). In fact, much of the processualist influenced archaeology of the

1970s and 1980s involving landscapes was unabashedly antihistoric. Beginning with the postprocessual critique within archaeology, settlement pattern studies, and indeed all landscape and spatial analyses, began incorporating questions of history, as well as political-economics, agency, identity, and other social factors. One of the fundamental shifts in theorizing landscape during this time, though, was the rejection of the rigid dialectical categorization of landscapes as either natural or cultural.

Carelessly identifying landscapes as wholly natural or cultural can do an equally great injustice to understanding the concept. Archaeologists run the risk of overlooking vague, though potentially significant, human impact on an environment that is uncritically deemed natural.

Likewise, overzealously proclaiming a landscape as an entirely cultural product may do equal harm to understanding development by softening the impact of environmental factors, such as weather and topography. Knapp and Ashmore (1999: 6) acknowledge that “landscape is an

‘unstable’ concept, moving to and fro along a natural-cultural continuum.” In theorizing the concept of “powered landscapes,” Suzanne Spencer-Wood (2010) provides a more detailed explanation of such a continuum and posits that there are five levels of interaction between humans and the natural landscape. At one end of the spectrum, natural forces act as the sole

agent of change in the creation of a landscape. They possess the power to physically shape the geography of an area and determine the movement and action of people. Entirely natural features (e.g., volcanoes, deserts, and swamps) may possess a particular significance to a person or culture despite non-existent interactions with the landscape. The second level of landscape development listed by Spencer-Wood involves the unintentional alteration of natural landscapes by human activities, such as resource gathering and repeated movement over the surface. Next on the spectrum, humans may purposefully construct a built environment in which to live, simultaneously altering the natural landscape, though that is not their primary goal. The fourth level is characterized by humans intentionally changing the natural landscape through the construction of gardens, playgrounds, villages, cities, and other features of a built environment.

The final level of her spectrum, Spencer-Wood claims that human alterations to the natural environment and the influential power of natural forces no longer play significant roles in shaping the natural landscape. Most human activity is in fact played out on previously- constructed or modified built environments. The sole geographic setting is a landscape heavily altered by cultural processes alone.

If we follow Spencer-Wood’s argument, it is evident that a variety of natural and cultural forces combine to shape a landscape and give it meaning; importantly to archaeologists, both must be considered equal agents of change, as the process of landscape formation is the result of countless interactions between the two (Anschuetz, et al. 2001: 160; Gosden and Head 1994:

114; Spencer-Wood 2010: 12). Human behaviors that clearly shape the landscape (farming, construction, waste deposition) are at the same time encouraged or constrained by environmental factors (physical geography, weather, natural disasters). In other words, a landscape is a cultural product. Or, if one prefers to adopt a perspective of continuous landscape creation, a landscape

may be viewed as a cultural process (Anschuetz, et al. 2001, 160-161: 174-175), whereby people continually create space and simultaneously imbue that space with meaning (Orser 2004: 147).

The process is what Denis Cosgrove describes as “a bundling of physical attributes and social relations, [creating] a spatio-temporal ‘frame’ for action and thought” (Tilley 2006: 19).

Determining the manner in which landscapes are created, however, does not necessarily lead to an understanding of their significance. If it is accepted that landscapes are cultural products, then their importance and meaning is logically relative to the culture that produced them.

Speaking to this relativity, Knapp and Ashmore (1999:1-2) tell us that the most common understanding of landscape at present “is [as] an entity that exists by virtue of its being perceived, experienced, and contextualized;” hence, the interpretation of a landscape is a highly personal process. They go on to warn myopic social scientists that “ascribing significance to a specific configuration of natural and geographic features is never self-evident but rather culturally determined.” Such dependence is what led Christopher Gosden and Lesley Head to deem landscape a “usefully ambiguous concept” (Gosden and Head 1994). Since an understanding of landscapes can never be pinned to one absolute definition, its flexibility allows it to be applied in a multitude of anthropologic inquiries. Barbara Bender expounds on the complexity of landscapes by explaining that the same place at the same moment will not only be experienced contrarily by different people, but it may also be experienced differently by the same person depending on the time (Tilley 2006: 7).

Clearly landscapes are particular, flexible, changing, and – significant to archaeologists – historic. They change at speeds which archaeologists are capable of perceiving. By linking geographical processes with historical social relationships and their material correlates, it’s possible to gain a better understanding of the development of culture and communities over time.

In this way, archaeology is more capable of gaining insights into the fundamental sociality of landscapes than any other discipline (Gosden and Head 1994: 115). Of course, the insights gained will always be dependent on the theoretical framework applied to the analysis.

An analysis of landscape must first consider the roles it plays in the social, political- economic, and ideological world in which it exists. The GDSLS, as well as this paper, looks to

Marx’s critique on the capitalist mode of production to interpret the significance of landscapes.

In the capitalist mode of production, Marx explains how political-economic forces drove the concentration of capital into relatively small geographic areas, creating the dialectical relationship between town and country. The spatial significance of this event in capitalist history cannot be understated. What is clear after such a transformation is that within the capitalist mode of production, space, and therefore landscape, could be created, controlled, and eventually owned as private property (Axelos 1976; Harvey 1985; Klingle 2006; Sayers et al., 2007; Sayers

2008; Upton 1992). According to Axelos, the development of private property and the division of labor went hand in hand. “If the division of the city and country was the first major form of the division of labor,” he writes, “the first major form of private ownership was landed property”

(Axelos 1976: 67). Marx provided the foundation for Axelos’ claim in his Economic and

Philosophic Manuscripts in which he states, “Indeed the domination of private property begins with property in land – that is its basis” (Marx 1988: 63). Land thus becomes a commodity to be divvied up and bought and sold in fragmentary pieces by individuals, private institutions, and governments. With societal acceptance of private property comes the structurations of power and control which promote limitations on access to the land and use of its resources. What once was essentially common has been individualized and “locks [man] into relations of having”

(Axelos 1976: 67-68, original emphasis).

Of course, only a minority of the population is capable of owning landed property. The majority is forced to toil on the land as wage laborers, creating a class of landowners (capitalists) and renters (workers) (Marx 1988: 62-63). In order to perpetuate their existence, capitalists must ensure that the circulation of capital continues to supply them with privileged access to the necessary means of production, including access to raw materials and the ability to invest in fixed capital, such as technology and infrastructure. The physical representations of this unequal access are manifested across the landscape, ranging from urban to the rural settings.

Cultural geographer, David Harvey, continues Marx’s critique of the capitalist mode of production by claiming that the process of urbanization is a direct reflection of capitalism and, therefore, the physical makeup of cities (and landscapes in general) are indicative of the values that exist within that particular mode of production (Harvey 1989: 7). The modern city is thus emblematic of the social structures, power relationships, inequalities, and exploitations that developed within it. Harvey’s historical-geographical materialism (Harvey 1989: 5-6, original emphasis) provides a framework to identify these innate conflicts existing in capitalism through the built environment (Harvey 1989: 118).

A Marxist approach to understanding landscapes has also proven useful outside urban centers. Sayers (2008: 44-50) applies this theoretical lens in explaining extractivist sectors and remote landscapes within the capitalist mode of production, concepts central to appreciating the social history of the Great Dismal Swamp. The expansionist nature of capitalism, Sayers explains, requires an ever-increasing amount of capital accumulation to function. In order to sustain such growth in a geographically limited urban center, previously untapped sources of raw materials and resources need to be extracted and brought within the capitalist sphere. Much like the town/country dichotomy, these efforts shape a landscape in which a dialectically related core

is supplied by the periphery (see Wallerstein 1974). Additionally, in order to facilitate this relationship, transportation systems and infrastructure need to be constructed by capitalists across the landscape to connect both sites. The circulation of capital also requires that while resources are being transported to the core from the extractivist sites, commodities are simultaneously being returned to exploit new markets further entrenching the peripheral population in capitalist dogma.

Peripheral sections of the capitalist landscape, as Sayers elaborates, are not the only sources of extraction. Depending on the resource, a site providing raw materials may endure within the core indefinitely or until its exhaustion. Some sites existing well within the capitalist landscape are simply intransigent to the efforts of capitalists due to their inaccessibility based on technological capabilities, insufficient labor, lack of markets, or a variety of other reasons.

These places existing contrarily to significant capitalist exploitation remain remote landscapes.

These “spatial nodes of remoteness” (Sayers 2008: 48) remind us that capitalist forces did not spread in a unifying and cohesive fashion across the landscape. Though typically most of these landscapes are eventually exploited as the resources at the capitalist’s disposal become more advanced, resistant places, such as swamps, mountains, and deserts, withstand the advance of capitalism, at least temporarily, and stand in stark contrast to the developing world around them.

Because these areas are dialectically opposed to the developing world in which they exist, the perceived natural or wild state of remote landscapes imbue them with social meaning (Sayers

2008: 49). As made evident in the discussion on landscapes above, attempting to propagate a singular interpretation of these landscapes would fail to grasp their relativity and, therefore, their cultural significance. Remote landscapes, as well as urban centers and peripheral sites, could possibly be interpreted in a number of different ways simultaneously and over time; each

interpretation serving to inform the societal opinions of those associated with the area and, likewise, shaping how those inhabitants view themselves.

Identity

Another theoretical approach useful in understanding the sociality of landscapes, and that is quite often derived from a Marxian perspective, is that of identity formation. The social relationships critiqued by Marx and their physical correlates across the landscape weigh heavily on how people are perceived by others and how they perceive themselves. Bender believed that landscapes were more of a medium for the analysis of social identities (Tilley 2006: 8). After all, people commonly associate who they are with where they are from, and assumptions are made about the identity of that person based on what is known of that location. Identity formation though, much like landscape, is always in flux, never static, and constantly in need of renegotiating. Identity is more a reflection of where a person is at that particular moment

(Knapp and Ashmore 1999: 15; Tilley 2006: 8-9). Christopher Tilley explains that in an increasingly globalized world, a collapsing sense of space and time force people to begin questioning who they are, resulting in the creation of personal and social identities that are much more a matter of self-reflection than of geographical or biological factors (Tilley 2006: 10). For example, when identities are “deterritorialized” through migrations, diasporas, or by the limited access to the land they quite often become based on non-geographic phenomena, such as community, heritage, or ethnicity, allowing individuals to self-identify rather than associate themselves with something less desirable (Tilley 2006: 13). Identities, however, are not only constructions of the individual, but personal or group identity is frequently assigned by others based on associations with specific geographic locations. For example, an enslaved African-

American may not have chosen to identify as such, but their identity was most assuredly 16

categorized as “slave” by the plantation owner. Likewise, certain character and moral failings were assigned to Irish immigrants in eighteenth-century New York, commonly based on place of residence, and ethnicity, as seen in the infamous Five Points neighborhood (see Ward 1989).

Still Tilley contends that in an increasingly mobile and transient world, people continue to (and at times more fervently) associate who they are with place and landscape. The heritage tourism market – the development of which archaeology has played a major role – is a prime example of the connection between landscape and identity. Sites such as Colonial Williamsburg,

Chichén Itzá, and the monuments to Ramses II have been excavated, researched, interpreted, and reinterpreted in an attempt to establish connections between people, places, and memory for good or bad (McGuire 2008; Knapp and Ashmore 1999). As Tilley notes, a figurative return to an often romanticized past acts as a retreat from an uncertain present. The key point is that heritage sites, such as those mentioned are relatively stable and bounded entities in which to forge a personal and social identity (Tilley 2006: 16-17). Quite often, though, and particularly relevant regarding the Great Dismal Swamp, landscapes are co-opted by dominant capitalist or political forces either intentionally or as an indirect consequence influence the formation of identities and introduce and reinforce desired ideologies. However, a thoughtful, publically engaged, and at times activist archaeology has the ability to disrupt social hierarchies and institutionalized inequalities, freeing people to establish their own personal and social identities with respect to place and landscape.

Clearly, archaeology conducted from a Marxist perspective and concerned with identity formation is quite capable of grasping the sociality that exists within landscapes. As spatio- temporal repositories for social interaction, human activities are etched into the landscape leaving traces of the social, political-economic, and ideological conditions that constitute a

society. They are simultaneously formed through the thoughts and actions of individuals, and at the same time, reinforce or change social behaviors and patterns. They are cultural products and, as such, contain the potential to enhance our understanding of the past, as well as the present. A

Marxist influenced landscape archaeology is capable of not only revealing the inequalities and ideologies that exist within the capitalist mode of production, but is also equipped to connect capitalist phenomena, such as class hierarchy and racism, across space and time. Given such context archaeologists may also be able to gain a more nuanced understanding of the formation of identity. By considering the dynamic interactions people share with landscapes over the years, archaeologists are capable of bringing together themes crucial to understanding human sociality which would otherwise remain separated.

The central theoretical concepts discussed in this section should provide a useful framework for understanding the formative developments that occurred in the Great Dismal

Swamp over the course of its social history. The unique landscape has been shaped and reshaped through countless interactions with humans and by the pervasive influences of the capitalist mode of production. These processes have simultaneously contributed to the cultivation of individual and group identities for those who associated with the swamp. The following historical accounts will serve to contextualize these concepts and demonstrate how an anthropologically informed analysis of events may lead to a less mystified understanding of how social developments created the present-day state of the Great Dismal Swamp landscape. First, I will elaborate on the swamp’s pre-twentieth century history.

CHAPTER 3

PRE-TWENTIETH CENTURY HISTORY

Prehistory

The landscape known today as the Great Dismal Swamp has, of course, a history long preceding the arrival of Europeans. Indigenous people inhabited the region as it began its transition from open marsh to the now familiar swamp terrain around 12,000 years ago (Bottoms and Painter 1979; Whitehead and Oaks, Jr. 1979). The heaviest occupation, however, occurred during the Archaic period, approximately 9,000 to 3,500 years ago (Bottoms and Painter 1979:

44). By the end of this cultural age the Dismal Swamp had mostly assumed the topography encountered by Europeans thousands of years later. The swamp stretched from its eastern boundary, the Fentress Rise, to the Suffolk Scarp in the west and from its northern border approximately 7 miles south of the James River to its southern limits 14 miles north of the

Ablemarle Sound. Peat covered most of the swamp floor at this point and oak and hickory forests were gradually being replaced by gum, cypress, juniper, and a variety of other species

(Whitehead and Oaks, Jr. 1979: 25, 36; Simpson 1990: 3). Lake Drummond, located roughly in the center of the swamp, more than likely formed during this period of occupation as well

(Whitehead and Oaks, Jr. 1979: 38-39). Despite the evolution of the terrain into an increasingly swamp-like one, Indigenous Americans during the Archaic period frequently settled on the high elevations running along the eastern and western boundaries of the area to take advantage of its abundant natural resources (Bottoms and Painter 1979: 44-46).

Archaeological evidence suggests that hunting, fishing, and foraging were the primary means of subsistence for Indigenous Americans living along the edges of the swamp during the

Archaic period. The recovery of bannerstones, bola weights, and projectile points indicates that hunting the plentiful mammal and waterfowl life living within the swamp and open-air marshes was the most predictable and reliable source of food (Bottoms and Painter 1979: 46). Though hunting and trapping within the swamp and along the periphery most assuredly continued to provide a significant source of nutrition for local inhabitants during the prehistoric period and perhaps well into the historic era, palynological research shows that maize pollen is present about 3,000 years ago within the swamp suggesting that Indigenous Americans cultivated corn to supplement their diet to one degree or another (Whitehead and Oaks, Jr. 1979: 39; Simpson

1990: 3).

As the Archaic period transitioned into the Woodland, Bottoms and Painter describe the social environment around the Great Dismal Swamp as one characteristic of that cultural period.

Agriculture supplanted hunting and foraging as the primary means of subsistence. Indigenous people gradually became more sedentary, establishing permanent or semi-permanent villages, and technological advancements led to the adoption of the bow and arrow and the growing production of clay pottery (Bottoms and Painter 1979: 45).

As Sayers points out, gaining a more specific understanding of human activity in and around the swamp prior to European colonization is a complicated task; very little extensive archaeological work has been done regarding the pre-contact exploitation of the swamp and the groups who lived therein and nearby (Sayers 2008: 12). There is no arguing, however, that

European contact fundamentally altered the life-ways of those indigenous groups of people who made their home in and around the swamp for thousands of years prior to Western colonization.

As European colonialists gradually moved farther inland and settled the areas surrounding the

Great Dismal Swamp, they brought with them the mercantilist and capitalist systems that defined

their own societies. In order to satisfy the labor needs required by these exploitative modes of production, Indigenous Americans inhabiting the swamp environs were undoubtedly coerced into some level of participation. But as it would be to later generations of swamp denizens, the

Great Dismal not only served as a substantial provider of natural resources to local indigenous groups, but its naturally resistant character to complete exploitation made it a site of refuge for those seeking it, as well.

European Colonization

In order to fulfill the mercantilist goals of the seventeenth century, colonists secured footholds in foreign markets to extract resources from the land and transport the accumulated wealth back to their European homeland where it would be exchanged and distributed throughout the economy (see Wolf 2010). In North America the Spanish, French, Dutch, and

English were primarily concerned with exploiting natural resources, such as gold, silver, timber, and furs and cultivating new agricultural products; such as cacao, potatoes, and most significantly in the Mid-Atlantic tobacco (Wolf 2010: 109). Each of these processes required that colonials acquire and exploit “valuable” land. Located in between two of the earliest

English settlements in North America, the Great Dismal Swamp landscape would have been familiar to the early settlers in the Virginia and North Carolina colonies. A couple decades following the foundation of Jamestown in 1607, settlements that would eventually evolve into significant urban centers – Norfolk (1620s) and Suffolk, Virginia (1630s – 40s) – were established along the northern edge of the swamp. While no major colonial settlements existed in the northeast section of North Carolina at least until the late seventeenth century, the area surrounding the southern portion of the swamp was populated by farmers during this period of expansion, as well (Byrd 1841: 7; Sayers, et al. 2007: 68). 21

Despite colonialists’ assumed familiarity with and proximity to the immense morass, they generally avoided the Great Dismal Swamp (Sayers, et al. 2007: 69). William Byrd II expressed some doubt about how accurate local knowledge of the swamp was during his 1728 survey of the colonial boundary. “It is hardly credible,” he wrote, “how little the bordering inhabitants were acquainted with this mighty swamp, notwithstanding they had lived their whole lives within the smell of it…they knew no more of the matter than star-gazers know of the distance of the fixed stars” (Byrd 1841: 18). Sayers refers to areas deemed fit for neither settlement nor intensive resource extraction in the early colonial period, such as the swamp, as “remote spatial lacunae”

(Sayers, et al. 2007: 68). It is important to remember, though, that non-European inhabitants, such as the Nansemond, still made their home in the swamp along the Suffolk Scarp in the 1600s

(Simpson 1990: 3). Seen for the most part as an economically useless piece of land to the capitalist-minded Euro-Americans, the intractable wilderness of the swamp stood in stark contrast to the rapidly developing countryside all around it.

Byrd’s 1728 survey to draw a dividing line between the Virginia and North Carolina colonies required his crew to traverse the densely thicketed swamp. Byrd’s description of the swamp was rather bleak and no doubt fueled contemporary popular opinion of the landscape to some degree. Large-scale entrepreneurial endeavors into the swamp were surely deterred by his colorful insights into this “horrible desart [sic]” filled with “noisome exhalations” (Byrd 1841:

24; Byrd 1922: 19). During one if his more poetic musings he claimed that “never was rum, the cordial of life, found more necessary than it was in this dirty place” (Byrd 1841: 20). Byrd did notice, however, that settlers were engaged in small-scale harvesting of timber and the sporadic draining of land along the swamps edges in 1728 (Byrd 1841: 10). Perhaps inspired by these minor efforts, Byrd proposed that the entire swamp be drained despite its intimidating nature.

The reclamation of workable land, he contended, would not only benefit the crown economically, but would improve the health of local residents as well as create employment opportunities for many of them (Byrd 1922: 21-32). Byrd’s suggestions were not acted upon before his death in 1744, but his plans would be taken up by a group of Virginia investors two decades later in the 1760s.

Early Endeavors into the Dismal Swamp

Between 1763 and 1764 George Washington and several other land speculators obtained permission by the General Assembly of Virginia to drain and farm 40,000 acres located in the western half of the Virginia portion of the swamp (Rouse, Jr. 1988: 135; Royster 1999; Simpson

1990: 42-43; Stewart 1979: 59; Yarborough 1965: np). Washington having personally explored the edges of the morass in May of the same year was convinced that certain parts of the swamp could successfully support agricultural activities. Confident as he was in this assessment, three years after receiving the grant Washington invested in eleven hundred acres of marsh in North

Carolina meant to grow rice – the remnants of which may possibly be sitting today just north of the Cross Canal (Simpson 1990: 41; Stewart 1979: 59, Trout 1998: 24). Reclaiming the swamp for the purpose of creating new arable land was the primary motivation for Washington and his partners in the ‘Adventurers for Draining the Dismal Swamp’, or as they were later named the

Dismal Swamp Land Company (the Company).

The Company’s grand plans to create virgin farmland from the largest undeveloped tract of land left in the Virginia Tidewater proved more difficult than investors anticipated. Each member of the Company contributed money and manpower in the form of enslaved laborers at the start of this physically intensive undertaking. Washington refers to the Company’s early struggles with taming the recalcitrant wilderness in his business records. Virginia House of 23

Burgesses Speaker John Robinson was fined for “sending slaves not up to the task of subjugating the Swamp” (Simpson 1990: 43-44). Assigning blame to the enslaved labor force for failing to convert such an intractable wilderness into arable land seems wildly misplaced given the swamp’s continued existence more than two hundred years later. Nevertheless, this brief account indicates that reclaiming the swamp would not go as planned for the Company.

It was not until the 1770s that George Washington and his fellow investors were able to make a significant rice shipment out of the Great Dismal Swamp. Rice and corn were the two principal crops grown within the swamp’s boundaries though too few shipments were exported to make the venture very profitable. The American Revolution also hampered the Company’s efforts as British raiding parties laid waste to farms and fields and made off with tools, supplies, and enslaved laborers. The onset of war also provided the enslaved with an opportunity to gain their freedom by enlisting with British forces in Norfolk or absconding to friendlier locations nearby. The Company, in fact, complained that neighbors who had harbored runaway slaves during the war refused to return them. Labor problems continued to be an issue for Company management after the British army was defeated. Washington even contemplated settling

German immigrants in the swamp in the late 1780s, but by 1793 he was actively trying to rid himself of his shares in this investment. Shortly after the War of 1812 large-scale farming in the swamp was no longer viewed as a worthwhile activity and the Company’s interests were already diverted to other profit-making schemes (Rouse, Jr. 1988: 136; Simpson 1990: 44-45; Stewart

1979: 60).

Presently more than 50 ditches and canals crisscross the Great Dismal Swamp terrain, though most were excavated in the last one hundred years (Figure 2).

Figure 2 USFWS ‘Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge’ map showing major canals (GDSNWR 2013).

Constructed in the 1760s by Company laborers, Washington Ditch was one of the earliest ditches to be dug out. Located approximately half way between Suffolk, Virginia and the state line, it stretches about five miles from the Suffolk Scarp to the northern tip of Lake Drummond. The excavation of other major ditches or canals followed in rapid succession a few decades later. 25

Perhaps most significantly in terms of opening up the swamp to the outside world, the 22-mile long Dismal Swamp Canal located along the present day eastern edge of the morass was cut through the interior of the swamp in 1805. It remains a significant part of the Intracoastal

Waterway today, essentially connecting the Chesapeake Bay to the Albemarle Sound. The

Jericho Canal (or Ditch) was built in 1810 and runs about nine miles from the edge of Suffolk,

Virginia to the northern tip of Lake Drummond. The Feeder Ditch, finished in 1812, established a navigable waterway connecting the Dismal Swamp Canal to the eastern side of Lake

Drummond (Figure 3). The Cross Canal cut just south of the state border opened in 1822 and traverses the entire breadth of the southern portion of the swamp from Gates County, North

Carolina to the Dismal Swamp Canal (Trout 1998: 4, 32, 34). If the initial goal of the Company and others entities like it in constructing canals and ditches throughout the swamp was to promote its drainage and eventual transformation into arable land, it quickly became apparent that their true value was in providing a relatively convenient means of extracting resources found deep within the swamp interior; most notably timber.

Figure 3 Feeder Ditch today (photo courtesy of Edd Fuller).

As noted previously in Byrd’s observations, harvesting the seemingly limitless supply of timber located within the Great Dismal Swamp occurred at least as early as his expedition along the state boundary. The Virginian noted that markets in Norfolk possessed a “pretty deal of lumber from the borderers on the Dismal…They not only maintain their stocks upon it, but they get boards, shingles, and other lumber out of it in great abundance” (Byrd 1841: 10). At the time of the Company’s organization, the arboreal makeup of the swamp was quite diverse consisting of a variety of trees; including pine, red maples, black gums, chestnuts, and most notably large stands of Atlantic white cedar (called juniper) and cypress. The majority of lumber products taken from the swamp in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were primarily made of juniper and cypress. Purportedly, the more ancient of these trees could mature to enormous sizes of sometimes 15 feet in diameter. Workers supposedly resorted to blasting these behemoths with explosives in order to create more manageable pieces of timber prior to floating them out of the swamp (Davis 1981: 10; see also Simpson 1990: 29). With such resources available to the

Company, as well as other profit seeking organizations, historian Bland Simpson accurately points out that despite early colonial farming efforts, lumber was “the real crop of the Great

Dismal” (Simpson 1990: 46).

The success of early timbering in the swamp is presumably evident in the increase in the exportation of lumber from the port in Norfolk. From 1730 to 1772 the number of shingles

(small planks of wood, typically juniper or cypress in this case, applied to roofs and building sides) shipped out of Norfolk jumped from 500,000 to 8 million. The Company made its first shipment of shingles in 1773 and by 1795 they alone were responsible for cutting over a million and a half shingles. During this same period, Company competitors, such as the North Carolina based Lebanon and New Lebanon Companies, were also laying claim to large tracts of land and

floating large amounts of lumber out of the swamp. In the 1780s ships from Suffolk and Norfolk were regularly carrying shipments of shingles and general lumber rendered from the swamp’s forests to major metropolitan markets, such as Philadelphia and New York. Lumbering in the swamp was a sufficiently lucrative prospect that an ad in the Virginia Gazette on November 19,

1772 featuring land for sale along the Washington Ditch made special mention of the abundance of cypress timber that grew within the property boundaries. Likewise, Washington used the availability of lumber as an incentive when trying to sell his shares in the Company to Henry

‘Lighthorse Harry’ Lee (Rouse, Jr. 1988: 136-137; Stewart 1979: 61; Trout 1998: 33).

As demand for prime timber increased, companies exhausted stand after stand of trees, moving from one profitable site to the next, leaving their mark throughout the swamp. Canals and roads were slashed through the landscape. Camps, mills, and even small towns were erected along or in close proximity to the ditches to facilitate the extraction and processing of lumber.

Trees were felled by workers in the interior of the swamp and either split into shingles at campsites, bundled, and loaded onto flats or floated down the canal as logs to be processed at mills. For example, upon its construction in 1810 Jericho Canal replaced Washington Ditch as the main lumbering route out of the swamp. A mill bearing the same name was established at the canal’s terminus to receive and saw the wood sent from the interior. Business was evidently successful enough that a small town also given the name Jericho sprouted up in support of the lumber industry there. The town, however, fell victim to the itinerant nature of timbering efforts in the swamp. Once resources were essentially depleted along Jericho Canal the town was abandoned; the space eventually subsumed by the City of Suffolk (Trout 1998: 20, 33). As companies and their personnel moved across the swamp in search of the next source of quality timber new canals were dug, camps were laid, and mills were constructed. In the 1830s the first

railway was laid in the swamp to literally help carry the load. The first train along the

Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad was drawn by horses. As technology advanced and trains became a more practical option to ferry resources in and out of the swamp rails were laid in nearly every area of the swamp. Robert Arnold, a resident of Suffolk, Virginia, observed in 1888 that “railroads, like hog paths, are being run in every direction” (Figure 4) (Arnold 1888: 31).

While timber served as the great driver behind such dramatic modifications to the landscape, other goods were being ferried through the swamp via canal, road, and rail, as well.

In his 2008 dissertation, Sayers (2008) paints a detailed picture of just how vital the swamp thoroughfares were to regional, national, and international economies. By compiling a variety of

Figure 4 Lumber rail in the swamp laid across fallen logs (Washington Post 1969). sources, including cargo manifests, contemporary newspaper articles, and first-hand accounts

(Sayers 2008: 76-78) it is plain to see that an eclectic mix of goods were ferried in, out, and 29

through the Great Dismal. Disregarding the previously discussed timber products, ships carried foodstuffs, such as corn, peas, rice, tobacco, and fish; building materials, such as nails, tar, lead and iron; and other miscellaneous goods, including fishing poles, cotton, alcohol, skins and pelts.

The intensification of infrastructure development within the boundaries of the swamp accommodated those seeking more efficient means of transporting goods. The completion of

Cross Canal in 1822, for example, connected the merchants and agriculturalists of Gates County,

North Carolina and beyond to the Dismal Swamp Canal and, therefore, the major markets located on the eastern side of the swamp (Norfolk, Elizabeth City). Vast amounts of grain and other goods could be sent directly through, as opposed to around, the swamp. Increased points of ingress and egress also made the deeper recesses of the morass more accessible and guides and boat operators soon found themselves escorting more lively cargo along the canals.

As extractivist activities continued and surrounding population centers expanded, familiarity with the Great Dismal spread beyond the Tidewater and tourists became increasingly curious about the swamp. No doubt its reputation as an untamed wilderness drew those who appreciated the swamp’s stunning array of plant and wildlife. And a body of lore which grew from the swamp’s mysterious nature and long history, including stories featuring fire birds,

French buried treasure, and witches among other fantastical things (see Davis 1981; Traylor

2001; 2002; 2005) most assuredly piqued the interests of visitors. Travelers lodged in any of the surrounding cities were likely to find a boat willing to float them down one of the canals and out to Lake Drummond. Several hotels opened within the boundaries of the swamp, as well, during the nineteenth century to accommodate visitors, including the infamous border-straddling,

Halfway House (Simpson 1990: 114-117; Stewart 1979: 66; Trout 1998: 62) – though none of them operated for a terribly long time. To the benefit of succeeding generations several poets,

journalists, novelists, and other observers preserved their experiences in the swamp in picture or word. One of these visitors was illustrator Porte Crayon (real name David Hunter Strother) who may have visualized one of the most insightful depictions of swamp life in the nineteenth century.

Enslaved Labor in the Great Dismal Swamp

Efforts to exploit the Great Dismal Swamp landscape originally suggested by Byrd in

1728, began in earnest by Washington and the Dismal Swamp Land Company, and continued by other profit-seeking individuals and organizations required a tremendous amount of manpower.

The construction and maintenance of canals, rails, and roads; the establishment of camps, mills, towns, locks, toll booths, and other infrastructure; not to mention the actual lumbering, transportation, and other associated industry tasks in the swamp were typically, though not entirely, satisfied by enslaved individuals. Crayon, on a trip to the Great Dismal, penned a detailed description with a number of accompanying images for Harper’s New Monthly

Magazine in 1856 featuring, among more general observations of the swamp, the working and living conditions of African-American laborers for the Company along Jericho Canal (Crayon

1856). Of course, an enslaved labor force had been utilized in the swamp at least a century prior to Crayon’s visit.

Byrd’s initial proposal to drain the Dismal Swamp included his suggestion to purchase 10

“seasoned negroes” of both sexes (Byrd 1922: 27). In fact, in providing an estimate of expenses he envisioned acquiring approximately 170 more enslaved laborers over the course of the following seven years, who when combined with their expected progeny would total about 300 in all (Byrd 1922: 29). Washington’s business records – mentioned previously – attest to the

Company’s use of African-American slaves in the second half of the eighteenth century. In 31

1767, slaves not only grew crops and cut shingles for the Company, but they also excavated the canal named after Washington. Over the course of a ten year period it is estimated that about 50 enslaved laborers performed a variety of company jobs (Sayers 2008: 103, citing Royster 1999), though there is evidence that free African-American laborers were recruited as well. The labor practice of employing free and enslaved individuals continued through the remainder of the century and intensified in the nineteenth century.

Naturally, after it was demonstrated that profiting from extractivist ventures in the Great

Dismal Swamp was feasible, more projects were initiated requiring an increase in manpower.

While it is unlikely to know the exact number of enslaved workers toiling in the swamp at any one time during the nineteenth century (Edmund Ruffin estimated 500 slaves were employed by the Company in 1836 (Simpson 1990: 48)), records, such as those left by the Dismal Swamp

Canal Company – the body created and charged with overseeing the construction of the interstate waterway – indicate that the population of African-American laborers increased from their pre- eighteenth century levels and continued to do so until the Civil War (Sayers 2008: 104-105;

Trout 1998: 72). While these records may provide a general idea of the number of workers and occasionally the tasks performed within the swamp, descriptions of the working and living conditions are nearly non-existent, making Porte Crayon’s illustrations so significant and valuable to understanding the social history of the Great Dismal Swamp.

March 19th, 1856 Crayon (1856: 451-452) set off down the Jericho Canal on a flatboat being towed by two “stout negroes.” Upon arriving at his destination he noted stacks of recently hewn shingles on the wharf awaiting transport out of the swamp. He was then led down a corduroy, or gum, road (a path constructed of downed trees and logs arranged side by side) until he reached Horse Camp (Figure 5). Here he found a group of momentarily vacant “picturesque

sheds” of the “rudest character” designed to house the shingle-makers and the mules that assisted them. While sketching the scenery around him, seven carts laden with shingles led by man and mule returned from their task deeper within the swamp and unloaded their haul on the canal landing (Figure 6). By Crayon’s estimate the laborers were not very well dressed, though it is unclear whether he was making a comment on the condition or the style of their garb. Based on one of his depictions it’s possible he may have been referring to both (Figure 7).

Figure 5 “Horse Camp” (Crayon 1856: 449).

Figure 6 “Carting Shingles” (Crayon 1856: 450).

Figure 7 “Cart-Boy” (Crayon 1856: 451).

Nevertheless, he goes on to point out that those who made their living at Horse Camp did not appear to be “ill-fed or overworked.” In fact, he felt that the camp was provisioned with “every material for physical comfort…There was bacon, salt fish, molasses, whisky, and sweet potatoes, besides plenty of fodder for the mules.” In this particular case he informs the reader that not only does the Company supply their employees with provisions and a fixed rate pay, but they are also compensated for any work completed beyond what is expected of them; which prompts

Crayon to note almost enviously that “an expert and industrious workman may gain a considerable sum for himself in the course of a year.” We should not forget, however, that the employees that Crayon encountered and shared a camp with on his 1856 adventure into the swamp were generally either enslaved laborers owned by the Company itself or hired-out from other slave owners.

Two notable visitors of the Great Dismal Swamp, like Crayon, took the time to record their impressions of the “shinglegetters’ Swamp life” (Simpson 1990: 46) during their travels there in the nineteenth century, as well. In 1836, the editor of the Farmers’ Register, Edmund

Ruffin (Simpson 1990: 47-48), painted a drearier picture of the living conditions at a Company shingle camp than what Crayon observed. Ruffin wrote of small sheds and shanties barely long enough to cover the entire length of a man’s body (of which five or six slept tightly side by side).

The height of these shelters did not afford their occupants room to stand without bending over and the floors were covered in shingle shavings which served as bed and foundation. Ruffin claimed, however, that the laborers were generally “pleased with their employment” and enjoyed a fair amount of free time. Frederick Law Olmstead, a journalist and landscape architect, visited the swamp in 1853 and proclaimed that the enslaved laborers belonging to the Company were not “driven at all…he lives as a free man; having the liberty of the swamp; hunts ‘coons, fishes,

eats, drinks, smokes, sleeps, and works according to his own will” (Simpson 1990: 48-49).

Again, we must not forget though that despite the at times rosy accounts of three white male explorers visiting the Great Dismal Swamp in the nineteenth century, the social and economic landscape that existed in the morass was one characterized by exploitation, oppression, and racism. Despite an enslaved laborer’s “freedoms” in the swamp Ruffin tells us that the greatest worry concerning their employment belonged to their masters and the surrounding (presumably white) community. In their view, the roughly 500 men the Company employed (Ruffin’s estimate) possessed too much leisure time. Once the labor for the week was complete, Ruffin explained that the men were “given to idleness, and by many to drunkenness” (Simpson 1990:

48). Would the same concern exist had the labor force been predominantly free white workers?

Idle and drunken enslaved company laborers were but one concern evident to those operating in and living around the Great Dismal Swamp in the nineteenth century.

Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp

In Crayon’s tale detailing his travels down the Jericho Canal and visiting the residents of

Horse Camp he describes another supposed encounter with a different type of swamp denizen:

Osman, the maroon – or one who self-extricated from society or slavery to one degree or another and sought refuge from the outside world, in this particular case, in the recesses of the swamp.

While the life-ways and social systems of the maroons residing in the Great Dismal Swamp are not the primary focus of this paper they nonetheless makeup a significant chapter in the history of the region. Maroons not only played a vital role in shaping the popular image of the swamp, but represented very clearly the social and ideological conditions entrenched in pre-Civil War nineteenth century American life. Thanks to the recent efforts of historians, anthropologists, archaeologist, and other social scientists – and in large part to the GDSLS initiated by Sayers 36

(see Sayers 2008) – the cultural worlds in which the maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp lived in, outside of, and in between has received a great deal more attention than before when telling the swamp’s story (for example see Maris-Wolf 2013; Nichols 1988; Peixotto 2013; Riccio

2012; Sayers 2004, 2006, 2007a, 2007b).

As scant as the historical record is concerning the lives of enslaved laborers within the swamp, information regarding the lives of maroons residing there is that much more limited by comparison. This dearth of info may speak volumes about the motivations of those who chose to seek refuge there and the seclusion it afforded. Simpson tells us that “most of those [runaway slaves] who were ever lost in The Desert [The Great Dismal Swamp] wanted to be” (Simpson

1990: 69). Key to understanding the Great Dismal Swamp’s value to those wishing to flee the oppressive and cruel nature of the prevailing social and economic systems was its inaccessibility.

As has been previously mentioned in this paper, the swamp was naturally resistant to colonial settlement and exploitative incursions for the most part despite its geographic proximity to

Virginia and North Carolina entrepots. Even though the Dismal Swamp Land Company began to beat a path into the deeper parts of the swamp in the 1760s and many other profit-seeking organizations followed suit through the Civil War, there remained large tracts of relative wilderness “that in a sense defied the logic of efficiency and economic control” (Sayers 2008:

83). The fact that most individuals chose to avoid such inhospitable areas bestowed on these

“nodes of spatial remoteness” (Sayers 2008: 85) a degree of isolation favorable to those wishing to avoid attention.

Sayers (2006a: 15) deemed the Great Dismal a “diasporic landscape where people from quite disparate backgrounds found some form of refuge from the exploitations and transgressions of colonial expansion, human activity, and enslavement in the outside world.” This form of

resistance taken by enslaved African-Americans (as well as others, though African-Americans were undoubtedly the most significant group (Sayers 2006a: 12)) is evident in the historical record as early as the 1720s. Again providing one of the earliest accounts of the swamp, Byrd meandered about half a mile into the swamp before the excursion to map the state line took his team into the morass. He and his companion encountered an African-American family claiming to be free; Byrd, however, expressed his doubts about their legality due to the head of the household’s apparent avoidance of the white visitors. However, the Great Dismal seemed to already possess a reputation for safely hosting runaways as Byrd explains, “It is certain many slaves shelter themselves in this obscure part of the world, nor will any of their righteous neighbours [sic] discover them” (Byrd 1841: 17). Whether due to increased extractivist activity or an increase in maroon populations (more than likely a combination of both), accounts and descriptions of runaway slaves taking refuge in the swamp are more prevalent during the period between 1800 to 1860 (Sayers 2008: 90-91).

While eighteenth century sources confirm the presence of runaway slaves in the Great

Dismal Swamp, turn-of-the-century reports began to represent maroons as a more menacing threat to the local and regional community (see Royster 1999: 250; Sayers 2006a: 13; Sayers

2008: 93-102; Simpson 1990: 70-71). Coinciding with – though probably not coincidentally so – the entrenchment of the enslaved labor system in Virginia and North Carolina (Sayers 2006a:

11), cautionary tales and stories of insurrection characterized much of the historical record concerning those who resided in the swamp during the nineteenth century. Personal accounts of hostile or threatening run-ins with supposed maroons were penned by locals and visitors alike.

Individuals were encouraged to “be on [their] guard against the attacks of runaway negroes”

(Sayers 2008: 93) and that “travelling here [the swamp] without pistols is considered very

dangerous” (Simpson 1990: 71). The connection between Great Dismal maroons to several slave rebellions (e.g., Nat Turner’s Rebellion in 1831) did nothing to allay the suspicions and fears of local residents either.

Other motives, besides insurrection and fugitivism, existed in attempts to vilify the enslaved that fled to the swamp. Ruffin, whose thoughts on the enslaved lumber camps were noted earlier in this work, was one of the most outspoken voices in support of reclaiming the swamp and transforming it into workable farmland (Stewart 1979: 63). In the 1830s, Ruffin was certainly aware of the success found by lumber companies within the swamp and the potential monetary gain that existed for enslaved laborers and maroons directly or indirectly employed by those companies (see Sayers’ discussion of Intra-Exilic Group Exchange and Labor Systems

2006; 2008: 106-110). Inciting fear of the swamp as a safe haven for escaped (and therefore assumed dangerous) slaves as well as providing a legitimate means for those laborers to finance their freedom must have seemed an effective tactic to Ruffin in attempting to turn popular opinion to complete reclamation of the swamp. Though despite his fear mongering, lumber interests remained dominant in the nineteenth century and the twentieth century, as well; the swamp remained to some degree wild and people seeking refuge from enslavement continued to choose freedom in the morass in the face of captivity.

As previously stated, the documentary evidence dealing with the lives of maroons in the swamp is sparse. Prior to archaeological explorations specifically focused on understanding community formation, insight on the behaviors and patterns of runaway communities within the swamp was achieved by piecing together vague, second-hand accounts (e.g., Sayers 2006a: 12-

13; Sayers 2008: 93). In 1988, however, graduate student Elaine Nichols performed what Sayers

(2008: 16) referred to as “a pioneering moment in North American maroon archaeology.” While

her findings over the brief three day field session were ultimately inconclusive in Sayers’ opinion, he lauds Nichols’ project as a significant first step in geographically placing maroon habitation sites throughout the landscape. Thirteen years after Nichols conducted her research

Sayers began developing the GDSLS.

Much credit is owed to Nichols, Sayers, and many other scholars for the work conducted primarily over the past 12 years or so illuminating the history of potentially thousands of individuals seeking refuge in the Great Dismal Swamp from a hostile outside world. From the time of European contact to the Civil War, individuals choose exile as opposed to enslavement and exploitation. Individuals adapted to new social realities based on the political-economic and geographic circumstances that characterized swamp life (Sayers 2008). And if we follow

Sayers’ “modes of communitization” predictive model it can be argued that maroon communities existing in this apparently inhospitable landscape used settlement location to more or less control the level and character of interactions between themselves and outsiders; including those who may have wished to resubjugate them. Much like the rest of the country, though, the Civil War had a dramatic impact on those that lived and operated within the Great Dismal Swamp.

The Civil War to the Turn of the Century

December 18, 1865 saw the 13th amendment to the United States Constitution adopted into law abolishing slavery in this country. While racism and violence towards African-

Americans persisted, especially in southern states such as Virginia and North Carolina, those enslaved individuals who fled bondage and absconded to the Great Dismal Swamp were no longer in danger of being recaptured by their former masters. It therefore seems logical that no mention of maroons or runaway slaves hiding out in the swamp appears to exist in the documentary record after 1865. One of Sayers’ (2008: 101) latest citations concerning maroons 40

is a letter written by a Confederate soldier fighting around Norfolk and Suffolk in the waning years of the war. The soldier relays news of a skirmish in the swamp with “75 negroes.” While

Sayers concedes that this group may have been an African-American contingent of the Union

Army, he posits that this force could just as likely have been maroons using the dense vegetation of the swamp to ambush Southern soldiers. Poet John Boyle O’Reilly (1890) traversed the canals of the swamp to reach Lake Drummond in 1888 and recorded his thoughts on the landscape during his adventure. He provided plenty of commentary on “the southern negro” of

1888 and of the so-called “swampers” (all of whom were presumably African-American) working and residing in the morass at the time of his visit, but mentions maroons only twice early in his work and only to illustrate the swamp’s past significance to runaways during the colonial and antebellum period. More than likely maroons after being relieved of their fugitive status either broke north for less hostile territory or remained in or near the swamp and sought

(or continued) employment lumbering for one of the many organizations still working to extract the Great Dismal’s wealth.

Lumbering remained a major operation in the swamp after the Civil War, though a century of virtually unabated extraction took a severe toll on the natural landscape. Beginning in the 1830s prime juniper trees traditionally targeted for shingle-making became scarce forcing companies to produce shingles from the more accessible and cheaper cypress. Visitors to the post-Civil War swamp noted that most of the forests had been cut at least once before, if not multiple times, replacing ancient trees with canebrakes and new growth. Upon witnessing the effects of constant lumbering during his trip to the swamp, O’Reilly (1890) condemned the seemingly unintelligent design employed by previous companies claiming that the “selection of trees has been wholly left to ignorant men.”

Despite the changing availability of wood, disruptions caused by the Civil War, sporadic fires, and changing tastes in building construction severely crippling the juniper and cypress shingle market, companies continued to extract lumber products from the Great Dismal. These difficulties, however, apparently prompted the departure of the Dismal Swamp Land Company in

1871 (Simpson 1990: 49-50). The Company’s entire holdings within the swamp were leased to

Baird, Roper and Company for $12,000 a year and in accordance with a few surprising stipulations. With what appears to be an eye for conservation, either for future profit’s sake or the swamp’s, the Company prohibited the lessee from employing more than one hundred workers at any one time, taking a tree under eight inches in diameter, subletting, using machinery, and required that the new company continue operations in previously owned land and maintain Jericho Canal. Baird, Roper and Company (which later became the John L. Roper

Company) apparently adhered to this agreement at least until 1888. In addition to this new company, Richmond Cedar Works was established in the swamp in 1867, and when it was incorporated in 1890, owned 300,000 acres in the swamp. The Gray Lumber Company was another competing organization founded in Nansemond County in 1884 and after bouncing between Virginia and North Carolina finally settled in Sussex County, Virginia in 1897 were they bought 4,000 acres of pineland (Rouse, Jr. 1988: 141-142). These major lumber outfits, as well as several other smaller organizations, all vied for territory within the Great Dismal Swamp, divvying up and altering the landscape as they went. In 1899, however, William Nelson Camp purchased the 40,000 acres of former Dismal Swamp Land Company property leading to arguably one of the most dramatic shifts in the use of swampland.

***

The area known today as the Great Dismal Swamp has supported human activity for thousands of years. Prior to European contact and development, prehistoric peoples relied on the estimated 2,000 square miles of swampland and its abundant natural resources to survive.

Colonial and early American endeavors into drainage, farming, and lumbering drastically reduced to the size of the swamp beginning in the eighteenth century. Estimates suggest that by the end of the nineteenth century the boundaries of the swamp had shrunk to somewhere between

1,500 and 700 square miles (Whitehead and Oaks, Jr. 1979: 2-3). Agriculturalists and lumber companies employed perhaps thousands of exploited laborers, most of which were either free or enslaved African-Americans, to satisfy a need for an enormous amount of manpower and permanently altered the landscape in the process. While a site of oppression and racism, the swamp also represented a place of resistance and defiance, providing a refuge for those who self- extricated from the capitalist and enslaved labor systems.

Following the Civil War, popular opinion on the best use of the swamp appeared widely divergent with some still supporting the idea of complete reclaimation, others preferring to conserve what remained, and some speaking out in favor of transforming the entire swamp into a health spa, game preserve, or other such attraction (O’Reilly 1890; Stewart 1979: 62-65). Either way, life in the swamp remained very much the same. Locals to the Great Dismal Swamp typically accessed the morass as they saw fit; whether that be to explore, hunt, fish, or engage in a variety of other activities. Lumber organizations continued operating much in the same way they did a century or more before; goods continued to move through the swamp via canals, roads, and rails; and African-American laborers continued to toil there and were quite possibly employed by the same companies that enslaved them just a few years prior.

This was the scene in the Great Dismal Swamp at the turn of the twentieth century.

CHAPTER 4

THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Lumbering

The idea of completely draining the swamp and turning it into the most fertile tract of farmland in Virginia since the eighteenth century was still championed by agriculturalists well into the twentieth century. Bits and pieces of swampland had been wrested away by farmers from the thickets and bogs since the time of European colonization (Figure 8); yet cash crops, such as tobacco and wheat, yielded very little in the surrounding soils. Only after agricultural improvements and the expansion of truck farming (growing produce intended to be sold in markets) did farming on reclaimed swampland experience a level of success (Stewart 1979: 62).

Figure 8 Reclaimed swampland near Feeder Ditch (photo courtesy of Edd Fuller).

Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, peas, melons, beans, and sweet potatoes were cultivated around the swamp, and with the application of lime to the soil in the twentieth century, botanist Thomas Kearney noted that former swampland was also capable of supporting corn and

celery (Stewart 1979: 64). An article appearing in the Washington Post, February 23, 1902 lauded the productivity of the Great Dismal Swamp farms, calling the area the “greatest vegetable producing center of the Atlantic seaboard” (Washington Post 1902). The columnist also describes the swamp proper as “the largest body of waste land east of the Appalachians,” suggesting its wholesale destruction. Opinions concerning the landscape were as divergent on a national level as they were locally.

Much contemporary thought during the turn of the century (especially that which was being expressed in places distant from the swamp) seemed to share similar dichotomous feelings about the Great Dismal. Commentators appeared at times torn between utter amazement at the swamp’s natural beauty and storied past, and unfettered excitement at the potentially lucrative prospect of tearing it down. In O’Reilly’s account of his trip out to Lake Drummond (1890), for example, the writer seems to be at odds with his own emotions wavering between complete awe and absolute disdain for his surroundings. He at once describes it as “one of the celebrated features of the American continent,” noting its supposedly curative properties, serene wilderness, and majestic wildlife, but ultimately endorses a plan to drain and reclaim the swamp around the lake, adding a “property of very large value…to the States of Virginia and North Carolina.”

Likewise, in the May 6, 1906 edition of the Washington Times Magazine (Washington Times

1906) an editorial highlighting the natural and cultural history and uniqueness of the Great

Dismal Swamp proclaimed that “Romance Has Had Its Day”, exuding the industrial age sentiment of man’s capability – if not duty – to conquer nature:

“A thousand square miles of rich farming land have been won away from the dominion of cypress and fen. Between six and eight hundred square miles yet own that ignoble sway. If these reports that come from Norfolk are true, and this territory is to be reclaimed by nature and rendered fit for cultivation and the habitation of man, the country will be benefited as largely as it would be by the discovery of a new gold field. Perhaps more, for the vegetable gardens into which the reclaimed swamp areas are transformed

are sources of constant wealth, their riches are inexhaustible…Romance will not fill pockets – or the stomach, for the matter of that.”

A few local families were persistent and fortunate enough to establish large, productive farms on former swampland in the 1800s and 1900s, likely most notable among them were the

Wallaces. For three generations, beginning in the 1840s, Wallaceton was the site of the Wallace family farm, located on reclaimed swampland bordering the eastern side (and a small part of the western side) of the Dismal Swamp Canal. Simpson claims that the Wallaces had “earlier and more grandly than any other, practically realized George Washington’s dream of swamp agriculture” with the success of their corn, potatoes, and eventually soybean fields (Simpson

1990: 126-127).

Nonetheless, lumbering continued to represent the dominant interests in the swamp during the twentieth century. Part of the reason for this is given in Simpson’s book (1990: 27) by Reggie Gregory, a one-time Dismal Swamp State Park ranger with a long history of working in and around the Great Dismal. “Reggie remembered Depression soybeans going for fifty cents a bushel, corn for a quarter. Farm labor paid a dollar a day.” In contrast, O’Reilly tells us of a

“very old colored man” named Ned Boat who earned 40 dollars a month working for the John L.

Roper Lumber Company. Surely when compared to the relatively stable employment provided by lumber companies, the prospect of devoting a great deal of time and energy to farming for unpredictable rewards must have deterred many local residents from pursing the endeavor. Even the agriculturally successful Wallace family supplemented their earnings from farming with sporadic lumbering operations (Stewart 1981: 106).

Several lumber outfits had already staked their claim in the forested areas of the Great

Dismal Swamp prior to the turn of the century, including the aforementioned Richmond Cedar

Works, Camp family, and Gray Lumber Company. In 1905, the Norfolk Southern Railroad took

an interest in the timber industry and acquired the John L. Roper Lumber Company, including its estimated 200,000 acres of land, 18 miles of railway, many miles of wooden roadways, and a company-owned community along the Dismal Swamp Canal named Deep Creek (Stewart 1981:

103). Other large companies operating in the swamp during this time included the Tunis Lumber

Company, established in 1889, the Foreman-Blades Lumber Company, based out of Elizabeth

City, North Carolina, and the Norfolk Timber Company, organized in 1888. The Tunis Lumber

Company operated a few mills in the area, but due to its focus on the pine stands surrounding the

Great Dismal Swamp, spent very little time within its boundaries and the latter two companies were eventually acquired by the Richmond Cedar Works (Stewart 1981: 103-104).

The two companies that figured most prominently into the twentieth century development of the swamp were the Richmond Cedar Works and the Camp Manufacturing Company. The

John L. Roper Company (Norfolk Southern Railroad) remained a significant player in the area, though much less so than the other two. A Richmond Times announcement dated July 5, 1899

(Richmond Times 1899) confirmed that William Nelson Camp purchased 40,000 acres of land adjacent to the Dismal Swamp Canal, much of the property formerly owned by the Dismal

Swamp Land Company. The blurb also made clear Camp’s intention to drain Lake Drummond in order to access the valuable timber submerged in the lake bed – a prospect that would ultimately be denied by the courts. In fact, the court’s ruling made clear that Camp, while owner of the land around and under Lake Drummond, had no right to its water. This same ruling also left Camp helpless when the Lake Drummond Canal and Water Company (the successor to the

Dismal Swamp Canal Company) increased the draft depth of the Dismal Swamp Canal, draining just enough water out of the lake to render the Jericho Canal unsuitable for floating Camp’s logs out of the swamp to the sawmills (Rouse, Jr. 1988: 131). Nevertheless, the Camp Manufacturing

Company began harvesting timber around Washington’s Entry in 1918, more than a hundred years after the Dismal Swamp Land Company’s first cutting and nearly half a century since

Roper leased the land and began working on it himself (Simpson 1990:51).

Richmond Cedar Works was a large company, employing 1,500 workers in its Richmond plant in 1920. While not all of the cedar obtained by the company was ripped from the Great

Dismal, from the early 1900s to about 1940, Richmond Cedar Works relied heavily on the remaining juniper and cypress found mostly in the eastern and southern reaches of the swamp

(Simpson 1990: 28; Stewart 1981: 104). Perhaps due to the location of company land or the difficulty in locating and retrieving prime cedar, the Camp Manufacturing Company generally cut pine and other non-hardwood trees. Richmond Cedar Works produced buckets, tubs, pails, and even lifeboats for the U.S. Navy all made of cedar, while in 1936 Camp Manufacturing merged with the Chesapeake Corporation and opened a pulp and paper mill in 1938. By 1950 both of these companies owned roughly 50,000 acres each of Great Dismal Swamp land (Rouse,

Jr. 1988: 141; Stewart 1981:104, 107).

The two companies, along with a few of the smaller organizations, were also responsible for major alterations to the swamp landscape – many of which can still be seen today. As in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the lumber companies of the twentieth century put great effort into taming the unruly wilderness of the swamp. The availability of new machinery made accessing older, previously unreachable areas of the morass a great deal more manageable – a fact illustrated in the excavation of 30 new ditches by the Camp Manufacturing Company alone.

These new paths more than doubled the total cut into the swamp in a significantly shorter amount of time than it took previous organizations (Rouse, Jr. 1988: 144; Trout 1998: 32). The Camps also laid a couple of short-line railroads to assist in the removal of swamp timber, as did the

Roper Lumber Company and many others, but it was the Richmond Cedar Works’ rail line that left an indelible image in the minds of those familiar with lumbering in the swamp.

The Richmond Cedar Works Railroad, also called the Dismal Swamp Railroad, was a major timber line that ran south from its terminus on the Elizabeth River, south of Norfolk, crossed the Dismal Swamp Canal just below its junction with the Feeder Ditch, continued southwest into North Carolina, and then headed directly south stopping about 10 miles away from the state border (Simpson 1990: 28; Trout 1998: 44). Reggie Gregory witnessed firsthand what the rail meant to lumbering in the swamp. Instead of shingleflats or barges hauling out one load of shingles or logs at a time, companies at times relied on a 40-ton steam engine which

“carried a hundred carloads of logs when it went out.” As Gregory pithily recalled, “It was a big train” (Simpson 1990: 28-9). Eventually a lumberman named Moses White would use three gasoline-powered locomotives to haul logs out of the swamp, but in 1975 he was in all likelihood the last who used railroads (Trout 1998: 47).

Trout reprints, by his estimation, one of the most complete maps of rail laid in the Great

Dismal Swamp, compiled by Mallory Hope Farrell (Trout 1998). From this admittedly incomplete work, one can fully appreciate the magnitude of lumber operations in the swamp. As was true for the Dismal Swamp Land Company in the late eighteenth century, extractivist operations in the twentieth century required a tremendous amount of manpower, regardless of technological advancement. Who were the laborers that fulfilled this requirement?

Unfortunately, a search for company records for both the Camp Manufacturing Company and the

Richmond Cedar Works only produced unreturned phone calls and an explanation that after a series of corporate acquisitions, personnel information that old was likely not retained. Once

again, though, we are fortunate that contemporaries recorded their observations during their travels into the swamp.

Figure 9 Supposedly the John L. Roper Lumber Company mill, Deep Creek (O’Reilly 1890).

O’Reilly (1890) provides a (near turn of the century) look at the John L. Roper Lumber

Company mill at Deep Creek along the Dismal Swamp Canal (Figure 9). Along with piles of railroad ties, shingles, and juniper logs, “the yard of the factory swarmed with colored workmen.” In addition to the men at the mill, we’re told that Roper sends 100 men or more into the swamp to cut the cedar trees. The terminology used by O’Reilly may indicate a bit more about the laborers in the swamp than just their place of employment. The “colored workers” – who he identified as “swampers” – are, according to the author, the swamp’s only inhabitants.

O’Reilly’s trip into the swamp occurred in 1890, 25 years after the abolition of slavery. While it is possible that during those 25 years, new generations of African-Americans relocated to the

Great Dismal Swamp in search of employment, it is logical to assume that individuals or families living and working in the swamp (either freely or as enslaved laborers) prior to the Civil War decided to stay after emancipation, some finding work with the Roper Company. This certainly 50

seems to be the case with the aforementioned Ned Boat – the elderly African-American Roper employee who we are told lived in the swamp for 74 years prior to O’Reilly’s trip.

The demographics of the lumber workforce seemed to have changed little by the third generation of Camps. Reminiscing about company operations in the 1920s, Jack Camp (a grand- nephew of William Nelson) recalled that most of the timbercutters employed by his family’s business were “huge black men” – so large in fact, that the company stores had to keep extra- large overalls and boots in stock. According to Camp, these men would appear out of the woods next to the train’s main line every morning, waiting to be picked up and carried into the swamp for the day along with a tin full of lunch (Simpson 1990: 54). However, both Gregory and Camp described eight-by-sixteen foot company structures transported down the rails and setup in the swamp to accommodate workers and their families, indicating that lengthier stays in the swamp were not uncommon. These types of shelters were used by both Richmond Cedar Works and the

Camp Manufacturing Corporation, and when grouped together, established log-camps, consisting of living quarters, company stores, and machine shops (Simpson 1990: 28, 54).

Much like the nineteenth century descriptions of shingle camps documented by Porte

Crayon and Edmund Ruffin, contemporary accounts of these log-camps and those that resided there provide a significant, albeit brief, glimpse at a twentieth century laborer’s life in the Great

Dismal Swamp. These temporary sites of habitation undoubtedly served as the social milieu for lumbermen and possibly their families. Gregory tells us that the companies (or at least the

Richmond Cedar Works) did not operate in the swamp on most Saturdays and never on Sundays

(Simpson 1990: 28); and so if the weekends were truly days of rest for company workers how might they have spent their free time in the swamp? “The big men,” Camp told Simpson, “and their women and their children would gather and hang around.” Some lumbermen would

congregate around the company store, Camp continued, and one store clerk took it upon himself to correct what he deemed inappropriate behavior. After repeatedly ordering seated lumbermen off his counter, the store employee ran a series of electrified wires along the countertop, shocking anyone who decided to take a seat there again (Simpson 1990: 55).

In attempting to determine how workers left to their own devices in the swamp spent their time, it might be helpful to know what goods were at their disposal through the company stores. During the Great Depression, the Camp Manufacturing Company paid their laborers in company checks, essentially ensuring the flow of capital remained within the company and severely limiting the potential for those workers to accumulate any wealth or access any goods offered outside the company. From Camp’s testimony it is evident that clothing (e.g., overalls and boots) was sold at the log-camp stores, though nothing else is certain based on the documentary evidence gathered. During these difficult economic times, it seems fairly evident that the goods utilized by workers and their families would have been obtained through the company that employed them – or from their own production. It may also be safe to assume that only after the economy began to recover and companies eventually moved away from compensating their employees in company checks would we see an increase in products obtained from other sources outside the lumber camp stores. The potential material remains and the political-economic and social conditions that they represent make camps, such as these, significant sites for archaeological research (see Chapter 5). The recovery of artifacts associated with the laborers in the Great Dismal Swamp could potentially inform us of the unique social and economic patterns that developed in this twentieth century landscape. An understanding of issues specific to those who labored within the Great Dismal Swamp, such as consumer choice

(such as it was), the expression of agency through those choices, access to alternate resources

located in the swamp via foraging, fishing, and hunting, and the development of social bonds and connections forged by individuals or groups of people, may be possible through a theoretically informed archaeological exploration of camp sites.

Although smaller enterprises continued to log in the swamp well into the second half of the twentieth century, the activities of the two remaining large lumber operations – Camp

Manufacturing Company and Richmond Cedar Works – were beginning to dwindle. Large-scale extractivist operations in the majority of the swamp were essentially coming to an end. Camp

Manufacturing Company merged with Union Bag and Paper Company in 1956 (creating Union

Camp) and faced increasing opposition from conservationists about the company’s operations in the swamp (Rouse, Jr. 1988: 144). The presence of Richmond Cedar Works in the swamp apparently lessened through the middle part of the century, and in 1967, the company was purchased by tobacco brokers whose company has since merged twice with other entities (Grant

1999).

Thanks to descriptions like those provided by O’Reilly, Gregory, Camp, and other contemporaries, we are afforded at least a partial glimpse at what life was like for some of the inhabitants found in the Great Dismal Swamp during the twentieth century. Lumber company officials and their employees, however, were not the only people accessing the morass during this time.

Hunters

Archaeological evidence, such as the bola weights previously discussed, suggest that the swamp’s wildlife was a valuable resource to the area’s earliest inhabitants. The first European settlers took note of the abundance of animal life throughout the Virginia and Carolina colonies, mentioning, among other species, beavers, otters, rabbits, and foxes. Larger animals were also

reported in the region, including wolves, bears, and deer supposedly in great abundance, as were buffalo, elk, and panthers (or other large cats); though, by the time most of these observations were penned (mid-seventeenth to eighteenth centuries), these particular creatures were either rare in the region or possibly vestiges of local folk lore. Botanist John Clayton wrote that by 1739 many of the prey species, such as deer, beaver, and rabbit were common throughout the

Tidewater, but larger mammals, including many predatory species – bears, panthers, buffalo, elk and other wildcats – were driven to the “mountainous and desert parts of the countrey [sic] where there are as yet few inhabitants and the hunting there is very toilsome and laborious and sometimes dangerous” (Handley, Jr. 1979: 298). Clayton may as well have been referencing the

Great Dismal Swamp.

Another observer in 1650, Edward Williams, made clear what benefits exploiting the wildlife would bring to early settlers, as the many species of animals roaming the area could provide “delightful nourishment for food, and their Furres rich, warm, and convenient for clothing and Merchandise” (Handley, Jr. 1979: 297). Sporadic hunting on the fringes of the thicketed area most assuredly occurred as settlers moved around the swamp, but knowledge of the animals living within it remained limited to those creatures that most commonly ventured into surrounding areas. Handley, Jr. (1979) does an admirable job gathering the available data on wildlife in the swamp since European colonization. Though accounts prior to the Civil War concerning animal life, such as those above, provide an early representation of specific species in the area, Handley, Jr. points out that the most intensive investigations of the swamp’s biodiversity began late in the 1800s (Handley, Jr. 1979: 301). Perhaps as a result of the growing familiarity with what was lurking deep within the morass in the end of the nineteenth century,

the swamp was increasingly promoted as an outdoorsmen’s paradise heading into the twentieth century.

Charles Hallock in 1877 published a sporting gazette highlighting the swamp’s plentiful fishing and hunting opportunities. “The Dismal Swamp,” Hallock preached, “is the haunt of a great number of bears, panthers, deer, coons, otters, ducks, geese, swans, turkeys, partridges, and other game” (Handley, Jr. 1979: 301). Though bears, deer, and ducks were abundant enough according to other sources, Hallock’s inclusion of panthers seems more an attempt at creating excitement amongst hunters or the persistence of tall tales, as it is generally believed that large cats (excluding bobcats) were non-existent in the area, at least by the time of Byrd’s survey

(Handley, Jr. 1979). Nevertheless, Hallock’s piece contributes to our understanding of hunting in the swamp, as well as some information relevant to the previous discussion on lumbering, as he proclaimed that the swamp has been hunted very rarely and “the game is unmolested save by the lumbermen or shinglemen who depend largely upon the rifle for their subsistence” (Handley,

Jr. 1979: 301).

O’Reilly was readily convinced by a Washingtonian named Rudolph A. King in 1888 that the Great Dismal Swamp would serve as the perfect site for a game preserve. In a clear example of how private property and the commodification of land severely limited access to what many might consider communal or shared, King was not shy about his attempt to establish

“The Pioneer Shooting Park, Game Preserve, and Health Resort of America, exclusively for businessmen, to provide shooting, fishing, and outdoor recreative attractions…” (O’Reilly 1890).

King’s dream never came to fruition, but hunting and fishing attracted just as many people to the swamp as did the cedar trees over the course of the last three centuries, if not more.

Even as the twentieth century progressed and development continued, the swamp remained a mysterious and bewildering place. Despite an increasing amount of visitors in the last century, the swamp remained an enigmatic and unfamiliar landscape. Venturing into its depths alone was still unadvisable, which was evident in the occasional notice about lost hunters featured in a number of periodicals. One of the more noteworthy instances of a hunting trip gone awry was mentioned in the Washington Post and covered at length by The Richmond News

Leader and The Richmond Times-Dispatch in 1955. The December 15 article appearing in the

Washington Post began “To the hunter, Dismal Swamp offers two things: a wealth of game and extreme peril” (Washington Post 1955). W.E. Haywood and his son, Alton, went squirrel hunting with their dog on Monday morning, December 12. After trailing the dog into the swamp, the pair became turned around and spent the next three days attempting to find their way out. Between 200 and 400 people, including a National Guard unit, the Navy, the Army, the

Coast Guard, and a few hunting clubs, organized a search party in an effort to locate the missing hunters, which led two marines to become lost themselves. Cold and hungry, the two hunters were eventually spotted and airlifted out of the depths of the swamp by a Navy helicopter on

Thursday afternoon and the two marines followed the voices of rescuers on the edge of the swamp and soon after made their way out, as well. After the ordeal the elder Haywood claimed that it was “like living in Hell” and swore he would never go back again (Figure 10) (The

Richmond News Leader 1955; The Richmond Times-Dispatch 1955; Simpson 1990: 81).

Even the most experienced outdoorsmen found navigating the swamp challenging at times. Shelton Rountree, the Nanesmond County game warden from 1945 to 1965, spent most of his life bouncing in and out of the morass. Even so, sometime in the early 1940s, Rountree – a Suffolk city sheriff at the time – chased a flock of turkeys somewhere near Washington Ditch

and quickly found himself lost (Simpson 1990: 86-87). Rountree eventually made it back to his entry point after a few hours, but the very fact that someone as knowledgeable as the warden could become lost in the expansive wilderness proved reason enough for most hunters to collaborate with others, usually becoming members of hunting clubs.

Figure 10 Richmond Times-Dispatch article about lost hunters (Richmond Times- Dispatch 1955).

Owning roughly a quarter of the entire swamp and being ardent hunters themselves, the

Camps permitted more than 30 hunting clubs to construct cabins on company property near Lake

Drummond (Rouse, Jr. 1988: 143). Among the clubs existing in the 1900s, Rountree recalled the

Yadkin Hunt Club, the Black Cats Hunt Club, the Lady of the Lake and Jack’s Hunt Clubs. The

Ed Gillette and Magnolia Hunt Club counted among their members Toni Darden, the only woman hunter Rountree remembered in the twentieth century (Simpson 1990: 94-95).

Sam Perry’s hunting club was located on the northwest shore of Lake Drummond, built out over the water. During the winter of 1932, Rountree, then 17, and a few friends visited the club after boating in from the Feeder ditch during the winter as Perry was trapping during the season. After being trapped by ice on a particularly cold night, Perry sent Rountree and his party back into town with five hundred dollars-worth of furs (Simpson 1990: 84-86).

Reggie Gregory shared his memory of the makeshift hunting camp he kept near

Corapeake Road with Simpson (Simpson 1990: 35). “I had two old school buses,” Gregory said,

“and we converted one into a kitchen to cook in, the other for beds to sleep in nights, beds for about ten or twelve…Oh, we had a good time. Weekends, holidays, Thanksgiving. Back there outen everybody’s way. We had a good time.”

It is unclear whether Gregory’s hunting shelter was an official hunting club; no trivial matter on the privately owned land of the Great Dismal Swamp. Jim Owens, stationed at the nearby marine barracks during the 1950s, was a member of the Southwest Gun Club located off

U.S. Route 17. Owens’ club, which consisted of anywhere between six to 12 members at one time, leased the property from a lumber company and kept a kennel on the property to hunt deer and squirrel. By leasing the property from the lawful owner, the Southwest Gun Club secured permission to hunt on its land. A hunter acting independently without consent from the owners,

Owens’ confessed, would have been a difficult thing in the swamp (personal communication with author, March 2013). A 1964 article ran in the Washington Post told of four young men that had gone snake hunting in the Great Dismal and promptly lost their way (Washington Post

1964). After being spotted by a Coast Guard helicopter and retrieved from the swamp after nine

hours, the boys were charged with violations, including hunting on posted property. Some disputes over land rights, though, were more contentious than merely being served a citation.

Jack Camp admitted that there was a lot of controversy over who could hunt in the swamp:

“Because it was ringed by people who were all pretty damn independent. When we [The Camp Manufacturing Company] tried to get the hunting established so that we would have everything organized in hunting clubs who in turn would be responsible for fire control in a measure, our attorney got in touch with one man who said, ‘Look, don’t bother me about hunting. I hunted here, and my father and my sons, and we’re gon hunt here as long as we want to hunt here. You can forget trying tell us what not to do.’ Now that’s how rugged a lot of people were around the edge of the Swamp. If people got upset with you, they’d set your woods on fire. That was their retaliation, you couldn’t catch em” (Simpson 1990: 57).

Legal or not, hunting was an extremely prominent and, at times, lucrative activity in the

Great Dismal Swamp. In the early part of the twentieth century, Gregory estimated that at least

20 to 25 farmers, including him, supplemented their income by trapping in the Gates County section of the swamp and, importantly to archaeologists, sometimes abandoned their iron traps where they lay. During the Depression, when produce prices were down, Gregory claimed that a mink skin could fetch as much as seven dollars and raccoon skins were bought for three to five dollars which would then be shipped off to New York. At one time the demand for mink skyrocketed and trappers could get between ten to fifteen dollars for one pelt. During this period buyers were so eager to collect the furs they would seek-out trappers, like Gregory, on the edge of the swamp. “He’d [the buyer] find your car where you’d park, or mule and cart, whatever you drove up to the Swamp, and he’d sit there and wait for you to come back. I’ve come out there lots of times and he paid me a hundred dollars for that day’s work, and that’s more money than I got off the farm the whole year” (Simpson 1990: 27, original emphasis).

Rountree described another old-time trapper working in the north side of the swamp, named Evick (Simpson 1990: 92-94). His account, whether intentionally or not, spoke directly to the greater effect hunters and trappers had on swamp wildlife. Evick used to run a 50-trap line 59

near the Norfolk and Western Railroad tracks for much of the twentieth century, and according to Rountree, he “caught a lot of fur.” Evick was primarily concerned with trapping mink and raccoons, as those were the most valuable quarry at the time. Though mink was abundant in the swamp, he had the most trouble trapping raccoons, especially during the Depression – a fact he chalked up to the popularity of coonskin coats amongst “college boys.” Fox was seldom Evick’s target back then because their hides were worth comparatively little; however, in 1990 fox was valued at 35 dollars, perhaps because, as Rountree points out, they were scarce in the swamp.

Finding otter was rare, we’re told, and beaver, even rarer, when Evick trapped the swamp.

According to Rountree though, the two species developed more of a presence in the Great

Dismal by the 1990s. Handley, Jr., however, compiled a number of accounts that dispute Evick and Rountree’s assessment of the otter population in the swamp (Handley, Jr. 1979: 342-344).

As opposed to being rare, many of the stories concerning otters portrayed them as troublesome and destructive creatures, causing heartache especially to trappers and fishermen. Perhaps the lack of awareness about otters shown by Evick and Rountree was due to the creatures being

“systematically trapped [in the northwestern quarter of the swamp] as vermin” and not for the value of their skins. If the animal was not profitable to trappers, then perhaps indifference caused them to overlook their numbers. As far as the presence of beaver, Handley, Jr.’s research supported the trapper and game warden’s assessment of their population in the swamp (Handley,

Jr. 1979: 319-329). Though seemingly abundant in and around the swamp at the time of the earliest settlers, references to beaver in the swamp since that time are rare. At the turn of the century it was believed by some that the species was all but exterminated in the area, an easily believed theory based on the fevered pace at which the animal was hunted in North America. By

1979, Handley, Jr. was aware that the beaver was being introduced to the Tidewater region, but

had not yet gained a foothold in the swamp. Perhaps the resurgence of beaver that Rountree noticed in 1990 was a sign that the creature was finally beginning to reestablish itself in the morass.

Hunting and trapping for food and furs was certainly not the only reason the wildlife was being targeted in the swamp during the twentieth century. King’s dream of establishing a

“sportsmen’s paradise” in the Great Dismal Swamp was to serve those who sought adventure and pleasure from killing the creatures that resided within its boundaries. Along with the commonly hunted deer and squirrels, area newspapers and other historical accounts mention some of the less-common species taken from the swamp. While a constant presence in the swamp, snakes were very rarely the target of hunting to supplement one’s diet or to make a profit. The article mentioned previously concerning four young snake hunters lost in the swamp, though, is evidence that some did seek to eliminate a few of these infamous residents, most likely out of sport. At least twice were bald eagles brought down by hunters; during O’Reilly’s trip into the swamp in 1888, a companion took two shots at one of the perched raptors, and in 1911 the

Washington Post reported that two hunters killed a “king” eagle, weighing 31 pounds and measuring seven feet from the tips of its wings (Washington Post 1911). The Post also reported three separate times in the 1900s of run-ins with an even more unexpected species dwelling in the swamp. On July 17, 1920 a Suffolk man shot and killed a 29-inch alligator in the Jericho

Ditch, and in 1962 police and hunters responded to a report of an alligator in the Dismal Swamp

Canal, locating and firing upon two, though the gunmen were unsure whether or not they hit either of them. One of the alligator hunters proclaimed that “only in the new city of Chesapeake can you hunt bears and ‘gators smack dab in the middle of town.” Again, a three-and-a-half foot alligator was spotted in the Dismal Swamp Canal in December 1976, but this particular

individual was fortunate enough to be captured and turned over to a herpetologist, rather than shot on site (Washington Post 1920; 1962; 1976). Another story of uncommonly hunted animals comes from Waverley Traylor (2005: 19-21), though this story may be based more on folk lore than fact. Hunting with dogs was a common practice in the swamp and occasionally these companions would lose their way in the dense forests, as many people have, giving chase to prey. Given up for dead, it was (or is) believed that the abandoned canines persisted in the depths of the morass, reverted to a feral nature, and formed roaming packs. Hunters since have supposedly “ventured into the swamp in pursuit of a highly prized trophy [wild dog] for their wall,” though Traylor tells us the dogs, too, wait in ambush for passing hunters, seeking revenge against those who left them to a “life of hell.”

If those animals previously mentioned were the ones that garnered the least amount of attention from hunters, trappers, and visitors to the swamp, then the black bear was the species most notable to the outdoorsmen hunting in and around the fen. Historical accounts, as well as the traditional folk lore or tall tales, are replete with stories of black bears in the Great Dismal.

To recount all of them here would be lengthy and unnecessary in gaining an appreciation for the relationship humans shared with bears during the twentieth century, therefore, considering a few accounts recorded since 1900, should suffice in demonstrating how people interacted with bears across the Great Dismal Swamp landscape.

Beginning in the seventeenth century, observers have been astounded at the ubiquity of black bears around the Great Dismal Swamp. Nearly every visitor commented on their presence, except for Byrd in 1728 oddly enough. About his misconception of their numbers in the swamp,

Edmund Ruffin commented in 1836 “…probably most have thought, as I did before this visit, that they were so rarely met with, that the killing of a single one would be a matter for great

exultation, and cause for some notoriety to the huntsman who was so lucky. But I now learned that they were so numerous, that there were but few men who resided near the margin of the swamp who had not killed one or more” (Handley, Jr. 1979: 332). As development in and around the swamp continued over the years, Ruffin’s observation would continually be proven true. In addition to gum berries, blackberries, and bugs, black bears took advantage of the produce planted in the fields adjacent to the edges of the swamp. Corn, watermelon, and sometimes pigs were pilfered from farmers’ fields setting up constant conflicts between them and the hungry bears. Gregory and his family were on one such farm located on the periphery of the swamp. One year, according to Gregory, they killed 27 bears that meandered into their crops, sometimes deploying a shotgun contraption rigged with a trip-wire to go off anytime

(presumably) a bear crossed its path (Simpson 1990: 33).

While Gregory and other farmers could be perceived as merely protecting their livelihood from the swamp’s wildlife, others regularly stalked bear deep in the swamp for sport. Unlike deer, rabbit, and a number of other creatures in the swamp, bear most assuredly was not a common source of food for those who set about hunting the area. In the early years of the twentieth century Elizabeth Parker Roberts lived at Juniper Lodge, at Arbuckle Landing near the confluence of Feeder Ditch and the Dismal Swamp Canal. The lodge’s table was filled with crabmeat and roastbeef obtained during her family’s visits to Norfolk, wild turkey and venison plucked from the swamp, and one time bear. “I think Pap [Outlaw – a swamp hermit and bear hunter] brought us some bearmeat,” she said, “but I wouldn’t advise anybody to eat bear”

(Simpson 1990: 123). To hunters, bear was more often than not a trophy animal. Pap Outlaw, and other notable bear hunters like him, would sometimes lead adventure-seeking outdoorsmen back into the swamp to hunt bear. Gregory mentioned that Billy Ed Temple and Cortez Temple

were two of the most well-known hunting guides, and occasionally escorted hunters who flew down to the swamp solely to track the animals (Simpson 1990: 33). For a detailed personal account of a bear hunt in the Great Dismal, see Rupert West’s story published in a 1930 periodical in which he describes the event in its entirety, including the vengeful motivations of a fellow hunter who had recently lost crops to bears, the weapons used, the efforts of and injuries to the pack of dogs accompanying his party, and how the three-man group dealt with retrieving the carcass of the 350 pound bear they shot from the swamp (West 1930).

The total number of bears killed in and around the swamp during the twentieth century could be staggering, depending on the veracity of local claims. In a U.S. Geological Survey,

N.S. Shaler concluded that in 1890, approximately 200 bears were killed in the swamp each year

– to him, a seemingly sustainable number as he noted the abundance of the creatures (Handley,

Jr. 1979: 333). As was mentioned, Gregory claimed his family shot and killed 27 bears in one year. The Wallaces of Wallaceton were equally as vigilant about bears roaming onto their property (Simpson 1990: 130-131). Captain John Wallace supposedly killed 30 the winter of

1887-88 – one purportedly weighing 850 pounds. His grandson, John Wallace III, couldn’t think

“of anybody right off hand that has trapped any more bear” than he himself had. He supposedly trapped, killed, and sometimes dismembered anywhere between 50 and 100 bears all in the name of preserving his cornfield. Handley, Jr. includes a number of other similar claims in his report.

These totals were significant considering, that in 1973, Brooke Meanley believed that there were less than 100 bears left in the swamp (though Handley, Jr. believes this estimate to be low)

(1979: 331-340).

Clearly, hunting the wildlife of the Great Dismal Swamp was one of the most common aspects of landscape utilization during the twentieth century. Countless numbers of animals,

including fish, waterfowl, mink, deer and bear, were all stalked throughout the swamp and killed in order to satisfy people’s need for food, money, or pleasure. Not only would this facet of social history in the swamp be indicated in the population fluctuations of specific species, but human activity also continued to be physically imprinted across the Great Dismal. Remnants of hunting lodges, ammunition, and forgotten traps deposited during the first half of the last century still liter the depths of the morass, and more recent signs demonstrate the practice’s continuation, albeit under new regulations and laws.

It is evident that the combination of lumbering operations, hunting, and curiosity brought many people into the swamp during the last century. Their relationship to the Great Dismal

Swamp and the changes they made to the landscape have been discussed, and in 1973, those who participated in these mostly lawful activities were forced to comply with the new limitations and restrictions instituted by The Nature Conservancy and eventually the U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service. The seclusion of the swamp, however, has always and continues to attract a number of people wishing to remain unnoticed.

Illicit Activity

Much like the disenfranchised Indigenous Americans and defiant African-American maroons who valued the Great Dismal Swamp’s seemingly impregnable natural features, individuals wishing to avoid the gaze of law enforcement in the twentieth century found the relatively remote morass an ideal environment. Given how the activities discussed in this section went relatively unnoticed and undisturbed despite what seems to be one of the busiest times in the swamp’s history, we must remember that there remained (and remains today) vast tracts of unpopulated swampland. Near the turn of the twentieth century, the swamp was believed to be roughly 1,500 square miles in size, and by some estimation, shrunk to 700 square miles by 1930

(Whitehead and Oaks, Jr. 1979: 3-4). Despite the intrusive effects of consistent commercial, agricultural, and residential development, existing law and game enforcement officials were still responsible for monitoring an enormous landscape in the 1900s. Shelton Rountree, the one-time police officer turned 20 year game warden, for example, was responsible in the late 1940s for patrolling the entire Virginia section of the Great Dismal Swamp. The fact was that the majority of the swamp was virtually unmonitored and an ideal place to conduct illicit activity. Rountree knew the risks of operating in the swamp on his own – which he did for some time – but the constant presence of danger in the swamp obliged him to eventually add a partner to his patrol

(Simpson 1990: 87-89).

In May of 1923, a prohibition agent and police officers from Arlington and Alexandria,

Virginia engaged in a high-speed car chase in northern Virginia. The authorities pursued and opened fire on five vehicles transporting liquor through the city, disabling one, but ultimately broke off the chase after one of the vehicles deployed a smoke-screen that allowed the remaining cars to escape. How does this dramatic cinema-like event relate to the Great Dismal Swamp?

According to Burrell (the prohibition agent) “the whisky which is coming through Alexandria in large quantities is made in the Dismal Swamp” (Washington Post 1923).

Beginning in 1921, the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States

Constitution effectively prohibited the production and distribution of alcohol in the United States

(otherwise known as Prohibition). Not surprisingly, the depths of the swamp provided locals a superbly discreet area in which to defy the law and rumors of the presence of bootleggers in the swamp were widely circulated during the twentieth century. A writer named Charles Stansbury took his seaplane into the swamp in 1921 and put it down on Lake Drummond. Upon his return, a Norfolk newspaper editor informed him just how dangerous his trip was, explaining “The

Great Dismal Swamp swarms with moonshiners. They are not society people; they certainly do not relish sudden visits from strange gentlemen from the sky. Perhaps you were out of range; but, for the sake of your friends, please don’t go there that way again” (Simpson 1990: 97-98).

Five years later a Richmond Times-Dispatch report on two lost men in the swamp expressed concern over their safety (Figure 11) (Richmond-Times Dispatch 1926). The two young men “in search of local color” disappeared from their camp, according to their guide, and one fear expressed in the article was that they may have been mistaken for revenue officers and, therefore, kidnapped by moonshiners. In 1930, a Virginian named George Dean came across physical evidence of the distilling activity in the swamp. After spying a wooden plug in a

Portsmouth city water pipe, Dean followed a trail leading into the thicket until he came upon a clearing. “In the opening...were several mash boxes with mash well-ripened, a twenty-gallon still, cans, and other necessary equipment” (Simpson 1990: 98).

Figure 11 Richmond Times-Dispatch expressing fear of moonshiners in the Great Dismal Swamp (Richmond Times-Dispatch 1926).

The Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment in December of 1933, ending Prohibition. Despite this legislation, the illegal distilling of liquor did not stop in the

Great Dismal. A frequent visitor to the morass since the 1950s, ornithologist Brooke Meanley has encountered several rusting stills in the North Carolina portion of the swamp. Likewise,

Rountree regularly encountered working equipment during his time as warden. He explained to

Simpson how he managed these situations:

“If I passed a whiskey still, I saw it and didn’t see it, see what I mean? That wadn’t in our line of work. Unless it was a still large enough that I thought the man was making a lot of profit, maybe he shouldn’t be doing, I would turn it over to the A.B.C. board…And a lot of em I didn’t mind turning in, but some of em I wouldn’t – little coffee-pot still, man was making a little for himself, maybe for his neighbor, he was carrying in maybe a gallon a week. Little small rigs, there were several of those along the Swamp” (Simpson 1990: 98)

Most of these stills, Rountree continued, were located in the woods near fields along the northern and western edges of the swamp. He also described some of the distillers:

“And they were local people, they wadn’t running no big rigs. Some of em was older people. I don’t want to say they were all black, there was some whites, some of em I didn’t know who the owners was. I wouldn’t stay around em long enough to find out who the owner of the still was” (Simpson 1990: 99).

The largest moonshining still ever seized in the swamp was taken two months after

Simpson met with Rountree whereby 69-year-old Alvin Sawyer of North Carolina was arrested for operating a 2000 gallon still. It was the largest illegal liquor bust in North Carolina in 10 years (Simpson 1990: 99).

The Great Dismal Swamp was the site of more sinister acts, as well. One of the most dramatic events to occur within the fen in the twentieth century was reported in the Washington

Post over the course of four months. In January 1973, Richard Alvin Ausley, a 32-year-old ex- convict, was sought on kidnapping and sodomy charges after four hunters happened upon a coffin-like box partially buried on the western edge of the Great Dismal Swamp. The box

contained a sexually molested and beaten 13-year-old boy. After two days at large, Ausley surrendered to the FBI at his family’s Portsmouth home on January 24. Three months later,

Ausley escaped from the Nansemond City jail where he was being held, visited his parents, and left a note saying “the Great Dismal Swamp is my home and that’s where I’ll die.” Five days later, Ausley was caught in an abandoned shack, though it was not clear whether that was in the swamp or not (Washington Post 1973a; 1973b; 1973c; 1973d; 1973e; 1973f).

Over the course of its social history, the Great Dismal Swamp landscape has provided an environment for a number of human activities. During the centuries of prehistory, the swamp was in all likelihood a communal landscape utilized by local indigenous people as a source for necessary raw materials, including wood and wildlife. The introduction and entrenchment of the capitalist mode of production in the Virginia and North Carolina colonies fostered the establishment of privately owned landed property in areas adjacent to the swamp. While the

Tidewater region was rapidly developing, though, the Great Dismal Swamp remained relatively intractable to exploitative measures, creating a remote landscape. For approximately 235 years

(Sayers 2008: 120) disenfranchised Indigenous Americans and exploited African-American slaves sought refuge in the secluded reaches of the morass from the oppressive and innately unequal nature of capitalism and its derivatives, such as slavery, developing communities and establishing appropriate political-economies. Increasingly pervasive extractivist activity during the antebellum period, though, brought the enslaved labor system to bear on swamp resources.

After the Civil War and throughout most of the twentieth century, the landscape of the

Great Dismal Swamp became more fragmentary as an increasing number of organizations sought to exploit the natural resources within the swamp. Technological advancements and wage labor allowed for dramatic alterations to the physical landscape at a speed nearly double that of the

previous generations. Lumbering and agriculture severely diminished swampland piece by piece; prompting outcries from conservationist-minded politicians, journalists, and citizens, all while the public accessed the interior to explore, hunt, and perform other activities with relative impunity. In 1973, however, a significant portion of privately owned land within the Great

Dismal Swamp would essentially be conveyed to the federal government and ultimately designated as a national wildlife refuge, obfuscating previously defined relationships between society and the landscape.

The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge

In mid-January 1973 the Union Camp Corporation began the process of deeding roughly

50,000 acres of its Great Dismal Swamp property to the Nature Conservancy; a historic moment in the conservation of the country’s remaining natural resources. The significance of the gift was notable enough that news of the transaction was not only reported in local periodicals, such as the Richmond News Leader and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, but was also picked up by more national platforms, such as the Washington Post and New York Times. In 1974 the Nature

Conservancy conveyed all donated land to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Of course, governing bodies have always taken some level of interest in the Great Dismal Swamp since the colonies were established. A brief look back at the occasional involvement of state and federal governments in the swamp will illustrate just how unique and socially formative the events of the early 1970s were.

In his 1728 expedition to chart the boundary between the Virginia and North Carolina colonies, William Byrd noted that borderers of the swamp took great liberty with the “king’s land thereabouts” (Byrd 1841: 10). Though not directly a representative of the government,

George Washington was one of the initial investors in the Dismal Swamp Land Company, along

with a number of other statesmen. More pointed involvement from governing bodies came in

1816 when the Virginia legislature approved the use of raffles to raise money for the construction of the Dismal Swamp Canal (the Canal); three were held in 1819, 1820, and 1829.

In 1818 then United States President James Monroe and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun toured the Canal and Lake Drummond, as did Andrew Jackson in 1829. During the same year of

Jackson’s visit, the United States government invested heavily in the Dismal Swamp Canal

Company (Simpson 1990: 106).

After decades of steady traffic, competition from the Ablemarle and Chesapeake Canal, constructed in 1859, was siphoning business away from the more inland Canal. After falling into disrepair, a new organization named the Lake Drummond Canal and Water Company purchased and rebuilt the Canal in 1892. Another round of hardship was experienced again by those relying on the Canal’s operation when the United States Government purchased the Ablemarle and Chesapeake Canal and operated it toll-free. On April 17, 1912 a hearing before the

Committee on Commerce was held in which a contingent of local representatives (mostly North

Carolinians from Elizabeth City) attempted to convince the United States Senate of the additional benefits purchasing the Dismal Swamp Canal would bring to the country and the local

Tidewater economy (United States Senate 1912). One such argument was put forth by the

Secretary of the Navy who felt that the Canal provided a strategic advantage to the movement of

Navy vessels should the country come under attack along its eastern seaboard (Unites States

Senate 1912: 6). The Navy most assuredly had been analyzing the Canal’s military capabilities at least 13 years prior to the hearing, given that the Washington Post reported in October 1899 that at least one Navy torpedo-boat cruised down the Canal from Norfolk (Washington Post

1899). Swayed by these arguments and others, the U.S. government officially purchased the

Dismal Swamp Canal in 1929.

Lumbering, hunting, and plenty of other activities continued unabated in the Great

Dismal while the U.S. Government considered the idea of purchasing its eastern most boundary.

The public sentiment for conservation of the swamp, though, was well represented prior to the

Union Camp donation. As early as 1925 while Camp, Richmond Cedar Works, Roper and several more companies were busy at work in the morass, Thornton W. Burgess briefly wrote of the threat facing wildlife from timber operations in the Great Dismal Swamp (Washington Post

1925). Twenty years later, The Richmond News Leader urged its readers to support steps taken by Virginia and North Carolina state commissions to petition the United States Congress and the

Department of Agriculture to adopt the Great Dismal Swamp as a national forest (Richmond

News Leader 1945). The state governments’ primary motivation for conservatory steps, however, seemed largely financial as opposed to environmental. “Sound forest management, fire control, and planned reforestation,” the paper argued, “are desperately needed if Dismal Swamp is not to become a blighted area. It is capable of producing enormous quantities of needed timber if a thoughtful program of reforestation is put into operation.” Nevertheless, the concept of preserving the natural resources of the swamp would receive attention yet again.

Previous political efforts at conservation in the twentieth century stalled and concern over the fate of the swamp increased. In the 1960s, editorials began pushing for complete conservation of the swamp as a national park. An editorial from the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot picked up by the Richmond Times-Dispatch argued for “the Right Role for Old Dismal”

(Richmond Times-Dispatch 1964):

“It is time that the friends of Dismal Swamp – and we count ourselves among them – straighten out their thinking about that fast-diminishing tract of wilderness…A large

portion of it…should be preserved, not as a park for the water skier, the swimmer, or the casual picnicker, but for what it is, a swamp” (original emphasis).

The Washington Post in 1965 posited that the entirety of the Great Dismal Swamp would be destroyed within 60 years if urbanization and the exploitation of natural resources continued

(Washington Post 1965). As late as 1967 and 1968 it appeared that nothing was going to be done to save the Great Dismal Swamp. Ben H. Bolen, the States Park Commissioner of Virginia in 1967, admitted that protecting the swamp was difficult due to pressures from the expanding

Tidewater cities. The Richmond News Leader complained that “while the General Assembly [of

Virginia] equivocates, much of the area around the swamp has fallen to development in one of the fastest-growing sections of the State” (Richmond News Leader 1968). Seemingly overcome by the prospect, Bohlen said, “What the loss of the Swamp would do to civilization is your guess as good as mine” (Washington Post 1967). In 1972 the issue of preserving the Great Dismal

Swamp and the Dismal Swamp Canal was brought to the attention of the United States Senate again, though nothing appears to have come from this hearing like so many other failed efforts at the state and federal level (United States Senate 1972).

The Camp Manufacturing Company, Rouse, Jr. claims, was conscious about the need for timberland preservation since its inception in 1887. Education, awareness, and the implementation of specific harvesting practices during the first half of the twentieth century allowed the organization to claim that in 1947 its property supplied “a guaranteed perpetual supply of Southern Pine” (Rouse, Jr. 1988: 145). Conservationists, however, pointed to the company’s practice of cutting ditches through the wetlands as the main cause of the swamp’s diminishment. Whether motivated by an institutional obligation to preservation or outside pressure from conservationists, the Union Camp Corporation began entertaining the idea of donating their extensive holdings in the Great Dismal Swamp to the United States in the 1960s

and 1970s. The decision was made in 1972, and on February 22, (Washington’s birthday) 1973

Union Camp announced that it was donating 49,097 acres, nearly one-fourth the area of the entire swamp, to the Nature Conservancy. It was the largest corporate land donation in U.S. history (Rouse, Jr. 1988: 144-146).

In 1974 the Nature Conservancy turned management of the extensive land grant over to the federal government. This gift, along with additionally purchased and donated land, forms the

111,203 acre GDSNWR (USFWS 2006: 35). With the enactment of the Dismal Swamp Act of

1974 (Public Law 93-402), activities performed within the swamp for generations became subject to scrutiny by federal officials or halted all together. To properly grasp such a dramatic change in permitted use of the landscape, we must first consider the guiding policies institutionalized by governing agencies.

The Dismal Swamp Act of 1974 directs the USFWS to:

“Manage the area for the primary purpose of protecting and preserving a unique and outstanding ecosystem, as well as protecting and perpetuating the diversity of animal and plant life therein. Management of the refuge will be directed to stabilize conditions in as wild a character as possible, consistent with achieving the refuge’s stated objectives.”

As a secondary purpose, the USFWS is expected to:

“Promote a public use program when not in conflict with the primary objectives of the refuge” (Public Law 93-402, emphasis added).

The GDSNWR vision statement, while similar in message to the Dismal Swamp Act, provides a great deal more detail and bears repeating here:

“The refuge will endeavor to restore the biological diversity of the Great Dismal Swamp ecosystem through hydrologic restoration and fire management. The refuge will support the diverse flora and fauna that have historically existed within a healthy swamp ecosystem, including one of the largest populations of black bears on the east coast. Seasonally flooded forests will be maintained as habitat for neotropical migratory birds and waterfowl. The rare Atlantic white cedar forests will be restored through forest management practices that promote natural regeneration. Remnant bogs, marshes, and pocosin habitats will be restored and maintained to enhance habitat diversity as well as provide potential habitat for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. Wildlife and 74

wildlands-related research, environmental education, natural and cultural interpretation, and wildlife-dependent recreation will be developed and managed in a manner that does not conflict with the primary objectives of the refuge and promotes awareness and understanding of the entire Great Dismal Swamp ecosystem. Refuge land acquisition will focus on those areas where public ownership is required for hydrologic protection and restoration, for restoring and maintaining fire-dependent habitats, and for habitat development for wintering waterfowl. Through partnership, wildlife corridors that link the refuge to natural areas within the Albemarle-Pamlico watershed will be protected” (USFWS 2006: 78).

At least 300 years of unrelenting human interaction took its toll on the Great Dismal

Swamp Landscape. From its supposed original size of more than 2,000 square miles, extractivist activities and urban expansion have reduced it to the roughly 175 square miles managed by the

USFWS today. In order to accomplish its mission given such destruction, the GDSNWR has instituted sweeping regulatory policies concerning appropriate land use since its creation.

Popular opinion, based on contemporary accounts found in newspapers, would seem to indicate overall enthusiasm for government stewardship. A Richmond Times-Dispatch article announcing the Union Camp gift began like this:

“The most precious gift any human being or organization can give to other human beings or organizations is a gift of such lasting value that it can be passed down from one generation to another. Union Camp Corporation has given just such as gift…” (Richmond Times-Dispatch 1973).

The Washington Post also featured several shining articles discussing the change in trajectory for the swamp, including two titled “The Great Dismal Hangs On” (Washington Post

1973g) and “‘The Right Thing’ for Great Dismal Swamp” (Washington Post 1973h). In yet another Washington Post article (1977), Alvah Duke, a “friend who envisioned…a future [for the swamp] free from the depredations of man,” seemingly relished the change in ownership. Duke supposedly had “little use for the timber companies that used to own the swamp…‘they cut all the trees and shot all the game off,’” he claimed.

While opinions featured in local and national newspapers seemed to consistently express a positive outlook on the new proprietorship, there were still dissenting voices to be heard. New regulations and rules, naturally, affected access to and use of the swamp for some. As this section has demonstrated, lumbering and hunting activities in the swamp during the twentieth century were made possible almost entirely as a result of institutionalized capitalist tenets, specifically private property. The ownership of land allowed private companies to harvest the

Great Dismal Swamp forests and simultaneously control public access to the land. Hunters, who may have relied on the swamp resources for generations, were forced to comply with company regulations and were often required to associate with a permitted hunting club or risk legal retribution for trespassing on private property, poaching, or other hunting-related infractions.

Despite additional restrictions, outdoorsmen were still capable of continuing their hunting and trapping activities prior to the designation of the swamp as a National Wildlife Refuge. In 1974, however, the USFWS began enforcing perhaps the most prohibitive measures concerning swamp use in its social history.

All commercial and private lumbering in the GDSNWR ceased after the Union Camp

Corporation donated their entire swamp holding, ending nearly 200 years of corporate activity that began with the Dismal Swamp Land Company (the USFWS, however, continues to harvest timber selectively in order to promote natural and healthy regrowth, as well as protect wildlife, see USFWS 2006). The refuge’s policy prohibiting the “collecting or harming [of] any plant or animal life” intentionally halted any small-scale timber gathering, as well (i.e., taking wood for fire or other personal use). The dismissal of large lumbering operations would have also eliminated the need for log-camps within the swamp, essentially severing ties between the laborers and the resources of the landscape (see Handley, Jr. 1979: 301).

The ability to provide oneself with food or supplemental income, as so many farmers did in the early twentieth century, has also been crippled since the federal acquisition. The 20 existing hunting club leases in 1973 were immediately scrutinized and ultimately not renewed by the first director of the soon-to-be refuge (Suffolk News-Herald 1973). Presently, hunting in the swamp is limited to the months of October and November. Limits of bear and deer in size and in number shot are strictly regulated, as are the permissible weapons and hunting zones within the refuge. Furthermore, only a limited number of hunters are granted a permit to hunt in the Great

Dismal Swamp each year, and each individual must purchase permits and pay state, federal, and refuge fees (Figure 12).

Figure 12 USFWS map showing bear hunting restrictions within the boundaries of the GDSNWR (USFWS 2013).

Simply visiting the GDSNWR is not without its restrictions, either. Boating on Lake

Drummond is permitted year round, provided the guest has previously acquired a license to do so. Hiking and biking trails allow the general public to explore the depths of the refuge, though only during daylight hours and never overnight, and they may be shut down occasionally for repairs, weather, hunts, or other reasons deemed necessary by the USFWS. An increase in visitors to the swamp has also prompted the USFWS to consider “law enforcement/public safety” a key “issue/concern” in managing the refuge (USFWS 2006: 39). Increased staff time and patrols are dedicated to investigating criminal activities, such as illegal access, marijuana cultivation, bear and deer poaching, and lewd and lascivious behavior – concerns which bring to mind the illegal alcohol distillers operating in the swamp during the twentieth century.

The government acquisition of the Great Dismal Swamp and the resulting implementation of a complex and extensive set of rules and regulations undoubtedly changed the way many people interacted with the landscape. Though most would ostensibly agree that the conservation and restoration efforts of the USFWS are not only worthwhile, but absolutely necessary for the continued existence of such a unique landscape, there are those who can’t help but despondently recall their relationship with the morass prior to 1974.

In the 1980s, Shelton Rountree, the 20-year Nansemond County warden, remarked how much he missed going in to the swamp:

“I like Lake Drummond, I’d like to stay. But now it’s under government control…you got so many rules and regulations that I give it up. You don’t know when you’re doing right and when you’re doing wrong. If you plan to go tomorrow and it rains, well, you’re not supposed to use the roads when it rains. All the regulations like that, see, that bothers you” (Simpson 1990: 100-101).

Reggie Gregory, the park ranger, farmer, and trapper, was equally as frustrated and seemingly more emotional:

“Excuse me if I get a little sentimental sometimes. That old Swamp is my home, my living, my life. Now they gon [sic] take it away from me. And all I ever worked for and enjoyed, my grandson won’t ever be able to go in there and enjoy it, what I did, and that’s what tees me off. Just on account of some screwball, that don’t know no more about this Dismal Swamp than I know about Washington, D.C., and ain’t never been here” (Simpson 1990: 159).

Today, the GDSNWR is open to the public. Trails, roads, and ditches are maintained by the USFWS making it more accessible to the occasional outdoors person. Simpson recollects on the growing diversity of swamp visitors since the refuge opened by describing an ill-suited

“group of fey, urban campers” who crossed his path during a visit (Simpson 1990: 164). Even in the last few decades, the Great Dismal Swamp remains a contradictory landscape. The establishment of the swamp as a national wildlife refuge halted the advance of urban sprawl and opened it up to new groups of modern-day “swampers,” while simultaneously ending long-held and meaningful local ties. Perspective is key in understanding what this transition in landscape use means to a broad and diverse public. For Gregory, the swamp had been preserved, but this meant his progeny would never know it like he did – hunting and trapping. In a way the Great

Dismal Swamp was lost to him (Simpson 1990: 156).

CHAPTER 5

ARCHAEOLOGICAL POTENTIAL

Twentieth century life in the Great Dismal Swamp certainly left physically traces across the landscape, yet research indicates that no archaeological surveys have been conducted in the swamp specifically aimed at uncovering this activity. The GDSLS currently limits its temporal scope to the Civil War, though material remnants of human occupation from the 1900s have been recovered during the process of excavation by project archaeologists. Likewise, a few archaeological assessments have been conducted by cultural resource management firms on behalf of government agencies (i.e., the USFWS and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), mostly along the edges of the swamp, and in their surveys discovered artifacts relevant to the time period in question (Goode, et al. 2010, 2011; Sayers 2006b, 2007). These limited recoveries demonstrate that not only is an archaeological study of the Great Dismal Swamp in the twentieth century possible, but in conjunction with the documentary record and oral stories, they represent the vast potential such studies hold in understanding the activities and relationships that existed within it more completely.

Sayers (2007: 150) points out that “there had never been any systematic archaeological survey or intensive excavations of any sort in the GDSNWR.” Prior cultural resource management assessments conducted by John Milner Associates, Inc. (JMA) on behalf of government agencies explored the landscape for significant historical occupations, but most of these investigations took place on the fringes of the swamp. The GDSLS represents the only archaeological excursions to take place deep within the interior of the morass. As lumber companies, hunters, and other visitors operated well within the boundaries of the fen, logically twentieth century sites could potentially be found in both locales of the current refuge. 80

Since locating and analyzing twentieth century material culture has never been the sole priority of archaeological excursions into the Great Dismal Swamp, artifacts relevant to this time period recovered by JMA or the GDSLS have received little interpretation. The discoveries noted below, however, should demonstrate that exploring the twentieth century social history of the swamp archaeologically would prove a fruitful and worthwhile mission.

From 2009 to 2011, JMA was retained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a

Phase I survey of Corps property flanking the Dismal Swamp Canal (the Canal) and the Feeder

Ditch. Apart from the Feeder Ditch section, most testing was performed along the banks of the

Canal and not within the swamp interior. Such proximity to a relatively high traffic area, such as the Canal, would obviously influence the types of activities that occurred there, hence affecting material depositions encountered. Nevertheless, JMA, unsurprisingly, uncovered a great deal of twentieth century artifacts on either side of the Canal, as well as down the Feeder Ditch.

Several sites located in the Virginia portion of the testing area, speak to the manner of occupation existing there in the recent past. Most apparently, site 44CS300, located on the western side of the Canal and just south of the Feeder Ditch, represents a unique twentieth century site associated with lumber operations. The site was identified as remnants of the

Dismal Swamp Railroad and a staging area for the Richmond Cedar Works lumber company.

44CS300 is, in fact, the point at which the major railroad crosses over the Canal. Material recovered at this site, such as sherds of historic ceramic, wire nails, and clear bottle fragments, are not especially diagnostic, but their association with the construction and operation of the railroad and Richmond Cedar Works may allow archaeologists to infer something of the lifestyles of the laborers present at this site between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth

centuries. JMA recommended that the site’s features, especially the railroad grade, be preserved

(Goode, et al. 2011: 169-181).

44CS306 (Goode, et al. 2011: 216-225) is a potential domestic refuse feature along the eastern side of the Canal near the northern limits of the refuge. It, too, may possess some value in understanding the lives of laborers in the employ of lumber companies in the twentieth century. JMA associated site 44CS306 with two previously identified structures (Historic

Structure 131-0382 and 131-0383) suggested to be the dwellings of timber workers (Goode, et al.

2011: 60). Material found in the supposed refuse feature included 43 datable artifacts which seem to correspond to JMA’s assessment. For example, 27 fragments from glass canning jars possessing a date range of 1858 to 2010 were recovered, as were 10 pieces of canning-lid liner made of milk glass dating from between 1869 to 2010 (Goode, et al. 2011: 225).

Sayers also uncovered evidence of twentieth century activity in the swamp, though at sites considerably deeper in the morass than the Canal adjacent JMA sites. His GDSLS-related surveys led him to several areas of high-ground located in the southern portion of the Great

Dismal Swamp. Site 31GA120, dubbed the Nameless Site, is one such remote island in the

North Carolina section of the swamp determined to host years of human activity. On it, Sayers noted indications of early twentieth century logging, including carved initials on trees likely made in the middle decades of the 1900s. He also noticed the remnants of a mid-century shack and an old iron rail on the twenty-acre spot of land (Sayers 2007: 154). The GDSLS artifact inventory list from the Nameless Site further demonstrates the extent of twentieth century activity at the site. Shovel test pits (STPs) and more extensive excavation units (EUs) rendered a range of relatively recent objects, such as Leighton’s patent molded bottle fragments, tin cans, pieces of Mason jars, a sardine can, nails, rubber, plastic, and modern firearm ammunition. A

number of faunal remains were recovered, as well, which most certainly could have been deposited in the twentieth century.

Sayers also surveyed site 31GA119. Another mesic island located in the North Carolina portion of the Great Dismal Swamp interior, 31GA119 was named the Cross Canal Site due to the canal of the same name being cut across the northern most third of the island in the 1820s.

Sayers noted that two railroad grades crisscrossed an area in the southern portion of the landmass

(named Concentration 3), which would likely indicate twentieth century lumbering activity. No

STPs were placed in the area, however, due to the heavy obstruction of vegetation and tree falls.

Hundreds of twentieth century artifacts were observed, though, in Tree Root Masses (TRMs, the unearthed portions and the resulting depression of uprooted trees) and scattered across the ground. Complete and partial Mason jars, liquor bottles, many tin cans, metal fragments, a cast iron well spout, along with many other artifacts were all noted or sampled during survey. Of particular interest in this recovery was a six-sided gaming die and two complete bottles; one of which is a Fairmount Bottle and Glass Co. machine-made vessel which dates from 1945 to 1960 and a Hazel Atlas extract or cologne bottle which was produced between 1920 to 1964 (Sayers

2006b).

Three additional artifact inventories catalogued by the GDSLS also contain late- nineteenth and twentieth century material recovered in the Great Dismal Swamp. Virginia site

44SK0070 was previously identified as Dismal Town, the first settlement associated with George

Washington and the Dismal Swamp Land Company. GDSLS surveys uncovered additional artifacts at the site, including fragments of Leighton’s patent bottle glass (which possess a post-

1850s manufacturing date), as well as modern nail fragments. JMA also conducted excavations on behalf of the USFWS in 2010 on this site uncovering mostly pre-twentieth century artifacts,

except for pieces of nonelectrical wire, presumably modern nails, barbed wire, a few turn-of-the century bottle fragments, and 4 shotgun shells. In their report, JMA also notes an abandoned railroad bed and the potential trace of a road (Goode, et al. 2010). Sites 44SK0506 and

44SK0508 are two of the three multicomponent mesic islands discovered along Jericho Ditch.

Though most closely associated with earlier occupations (Goode, et al. 2010), both sites contain twentieth century material, including plastic, can fragments, possible bearings, and a spent shotgun shell.

An obvious benefit to conducting archaeology with a relatively recent focus is the extensiveness of the documentary record. The written history of the Great Dismal Swamp, for example, became more comprehensive as the years progressed and capitalist influences, advancements in technology, and changing uses in the landscape allowed for a steady increase in human presence in and around the swamp. Sayers’ archaeological explorations into the swamp have been crucial in filling in the historical gaps concerning diasporic and exilic communities inhabiting the morass in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries simply because such little written information about these populations was recorded. This lack of information also complicated research efforts, though, as knowledge of settlement locations, for example, were for the most part non-existent (Sayers 2007: 150). Despite an increase in occupation, certain aspects of twentieth century life in the Great Dismal Swamp remain elusive, just as they did in the centuries prior. Archaeology, therefore, remains an applicable tool in attempting to more conclusively understand the social history of the swamp. As demonstrated in the previous section, however, researchers are aided by a greater amount of sources regarding activities and their location in the 1900s.

Lumbering activities clearly left the most visible impact on the Great Dismal Swamp landscape. They also received the most attention by contemporaries and historians. Extant infrastructure projects, such as the remnants of canals, railroads, corduroy roads, and mills, provide archaeologists concerned with extractivist activities in the swamp obvious focal points in which to direct their research. Simpson, Trout, O’Reilly, and others referenced in this work also provided relevant information regarding infrastructure that has since vanished from sight, succumbing to the degradation of time and reclamation by the swamp, leaving traces identifiable only to archaeologists. The exploration of defunct railroad paths laid down by lumber companies detailed in Trout’s Great Dismal Swamp Atlas, for example, may lead archaeologists to other potential sites of interest. Given the predominance of lumbering in the swamp, it may be safe to assume that the majority of human activity during the twentieth century occurred most commonly along corridors facilitated by the numerous organizations operating in the morass.

Indeed, O’Reilly, Simpson, and a few others have documented to some degree the conditions found at mills and log-camps established along these transportation paths. While some mills were constructed to be more permanent structures, such as the large Roper Lumber Company mill and factory at Deep Creek described by O’Reilly, careful interpretation of sources may assist archaeologists in locating more transitory sites of labor and habitation. As Simpson mentioned, structures were deployed down railways and established as makeshift settlements at extraction sites. These log-camps were presumably dismantled and hauled off to the next camp site once resources were depleted in the immediate area, most assuredly leaving material traces of occupation in the ground. Additional information, such as Jack Camp and Edmund Ruffin’s descriptions of (unequal) worker relations and workers’ ability to hunt while in the swamp, may provide much needed context in accurately interpreting recovered artifacts at sites such as these.

Documentary evidence is a great resource in directing archaeological investigations concerned with lumber company operations in the swamp during the twentieth century. The written record can be equally as useful in guiding archaeological attempts at understanding hunting.

While perhaps not as demonstrably as lumber companies, hunters have also left physical evidence of their presence in the swamp and, again, historical records may assist archaeologists in locating and understanding this material culture. For the majority of the twentieth century, swampland was privately owned by lumber operations. Legally hunting in the Great Dismal

Swamp during this period was only permitted to members of organized hunt clubs. Clubhouses constructed by these groups in the interior of the swamp undoubtedly served as centers of socialization and sites for the performance of hunting related activities (e.g., eating, sleeping, dressing hunted animals) (Figure 13). The location of hunt clubs across the landscape, combined with material remains scattered throughout the swamp, may also indicate the range (if one existed) of hunters setting out from a particular house. Archaeologists interested in studying these clubhouses may be hindered in their efforts due to the USFWS instruction that all remaining hunt clubs active in the swamp upon government acquisition be burned in place.

Fortunately, though, details on a few buildings have been recorded by contemporaries providing a general idea of their location. Should one choose to excavate the site of a hunting club, a great deal of knowledge could be gleaned from information recovered. For example, while the remains of a permanent hunting club would seem to indicate legal consent from the property’s owner, remnants indicative of a temporary or makeshift club may suggest a hunter or group of hunters defiantly utilizing the landscape. An analysis of architectural and domestic material cultural may allow a determination between the two. Reggie Gregory’s description of his school bus-turned-shelter camp may represent such an illegal shelter. In contrast, Simpson notes

material scattered along the banks of Lake Drummond that would seem to indicate the presence of more permanent – and presumably legal – structures, including a dilapidated outhouse, kitchen sink, water heater, charred pilings, and sheets of corrugated tin (Simpson 1990: 163-

164).

Figure 13 Remnants of a structure in the Great Dismal Swamp, possibly a hunting club (photo courtesy of Edd Fuller).

Traces of hunting can be seen throughout the swamp, as well. Spent firearm ammunition, forgotten or discarded steel traps, hunting stands and other related material left behind would be a testament to the vigorous activities performed by hunters in the swamp. It may also be possible to recover the remains of hunted animals. Though bone does not preserve particularly well in the saturated conditions of the swamp, the recovery of biological material at hunting clubs or campsites within the interior of the Great Dismal could inform archaeologists on a number of relevant behaviors (e.g., dressing habits, potential diet in the swamp, numbers killed, etc.).

Again, first-hand accounts could perhaps provide some indication of the patterns and locations of

hunting activity during the twentieth century. Both Gregory and Rountree relayed stories to

Simpson in which they discussed common stomping grounds in general for some hunters and trappers. Newspaper articles, like Rupert West’s account in the Washington Post, while not overly specific, may also prove useful in understanding entry points or preferred locations within the swamp to hunt, along canal banks or old corduroy roads, for example.

Rountree’s testimony to the actions of illegal distillers in the swamp during the twentieth century also provides insight into the location and materials associated with this activity. An awareness of his claim that most distilling operations were located along the northern and western edges of the swamp near farm fields (locations confirmed by hunter Jim Owens) could perhaps direct archaeologists in their search for relevant sites. Recorded experiences of visitors coming across active distilling sites, such as those by Brooke Meanley and George Dean, also provide information regarding the potential material signatures of such places. Cans, glass jars, metal stills, as well as an accessible water supply, all necessary aspects of moonshining in the swamp, would survive in twentieth century historical deposits.

All activities occurring in the 1900s are certainly identifiable in the archaeological record. The research potential presented in this section demonstrates that archaeologists interested in exploring swamp activity in the twentieth century could contribute significantly to the public’s knowledge of the Great Dismal Swamp, specifically, and an understanding of life in remote landscapes, in general.

CHAPTER 6

DISCUSSION

“It is through a detailed examination of the effects that landscapes and places have on the way we think and the way we act that we may come to better reflect on how we understand ourselves and how we relate to others” (Tilley 2006: 18).

By bringing each of the concepts discussed in the preceding sections of this thesis to bear on a study of the twentieth century history of the Great Dismal Swamp, we may achieve the goal described by Christopher Tilley. To my knowledge, the synthesization of the research gathered and presented in this thesis represents the first attempt at analyzing the twentieth century Great

Dismal Swamp landscape from an anthropological perspective. This work would serve admirably as a foundation for a variety of future research goals, should social scientists pursue more specific and in depth explorations of this time period. The theoretical, historical, and archaeological information presented here can help us better understand the dynamic, complex relationships that formed the current swamp landscape and its influence on those who moved through it.

Over the last few centuries, the swamp has been utilized in a myriad of ways, and the physical manifestations of those activities are indicative of the political-economic and ideological imperatives of each society responsible for those changes. During the end of the nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth, the capitalist mode of production surrounded the swamp landscape and continued to penetrate its boundaries. While the swamp’s recalcitrant nature supported its continued contradictory existence as a remote landscape within the

Tidewater region, lumber companies, hunters, and other visitors to the swamp strove to more or less use the landscape as they saw fit. Countless interactions between the landscape and the

people populating it contributed to a drastically changing physical environment, which required the inhabitants of the area to constantly renegotiate their relationship with the land.

One such change occurred after the Civil War. The abolishment of slavery meant that previously enslaved individuals were no longer brutally bound to the landscape by lumber organizations. Rather than abandon the swamp, though, it may be safe to assume given relevant historical descriptions that laborers entered into a new (though not entirely different) dialectical relationship with the lumber companies. Labor relations in the swamp transitioned from one reliant on the complete subjugation of human beings to one operating on the capitalist principles of wage labor. Identifying such a social and political-economic change in swamp life presents an interesting avenue of questioning for archaeologists. For example, how is this change represented in the material culture? Did formerly enslaved laborers remain in the swamp to continue working in its recesses more often than not after emancipation? Subsequently, was there a dramatic shift in their relationship to the land? How did their relationship with lumber companies and peers change, if it changed significantly at all? The workings of a capitalist society, after all, can be extremely oppressive. To what extent were workers free to utilize the landscape and is it possible to identify matters of choice and agency? After emancipation, an entire population of recently freed people was faced with renegotiating its relationship with a rapidly changing country; this profound change undoubtedly played-out in the swamp, as well, and archaeology may help to illuminate this new way of life.

As the twentieth century progressed, lumber operations intensified and technological advancements allowed companies to carve up the landscape at a more rapid pace, constantly altering the Great Dismal Swamp landscape. Nearly every acre of the swamp was commodified and privately owned (including the land under Lake Drummond). Possession of landed property

(in most cases thousands of acres) entailed complete control over access to the land and the resources upon it, which happened to include the wildlife. The evolving capitalist landscape forced individuals who had previously developed a relationship with the land, perhaps over generations, to reassess that connection.

Much like timber, the wildlife roaming the Great Dismal Swamp was presumably treated as a communal resource at one time. By the twentieth century, however, private property laws prohibited hunters from accessing the swamp without explicit permission from the land’s owners

(represented most commonly by membership to an approved hunting club), simultaneously inhibiting traditions, restricting behaviors, and institutionalizing a system of unequal access to the land. Defiantly disregarding such rules, which some undoubtedly did, could have resulted in citations, fees, or imprisonment.

The exploitation of animals in the swamp beyond subsistence levels was also engendered by capitalist forces, impacting landscape development and likely fostering new relationships between hunters and wildlife. Testimony by individuals, such as Gregory and Rountree, demonstrated the financial motivations of those who were permitted to trap animals in the swamp. Skins and pelts of animals, such as raccoons, minks, and foxes, were ardently collected and sold to local and national markets, supplementing the trapper’s income, severely reducing populations, and altering the ecosystem. The persistent slaughter of black bears (when not for pleasure) was also commonly done in the name of financial stability by farmers attempting to protect their crops from these hungry creatures, effectively limiting the number of apex predators present in the swamp.

Again, as a result of pervasive capitalist forces, people were required to adapt to a changing landscape. The near complete fragmentation of the Great Dismal Swamp into privately

owned chunks of landscape most assuredly disrupted local reliance on the wildlife dwelling within its boundaries. Subsistence-level hunting was typically only practiced if hunters and trappers were able to gain the consent of the individual lumber organizations that owned the land. Even if granted permission, hunters were likely to find themselves in competition with each other not only to satisfy subsistence needs, but to supplement their wages outside of the swamp. An informed archaeological inquiry may offer insight into the relationships that developed due to changing access to the landscape and to the wildlife during this period. Did the commodification of land and private property restrictions leave visible traces throughout the landscape? How did hunters respond to these new measures of control? Can we glean any information from hunting-specific material culture that would inform us of subsistence practices and how those practices changed due to landscape utilization?

In 1973, though, the Great Dismal Swamp experienced quite possibly the most dramatic landscape change in its social history when it was designated a federally protected and managed wildlife refuge. By some accounts, years of constant exploitation of the swamp’s raw materials would have eradicated the unique landscape if continued unabated. Therefore, conservation efforts concerning the Great Dismal Swamp increased in the twentieth century, culminating in the Union Camp Corporation donation. While preserving the unique cultural and natural history of the swamp, USFWS management significantly impacted the way in which the landscape was used from that point forward. The federal government is equally, if not more, restrictive in landscape use than was any private corporation during previous centuries. The government implemented its own agendas and priorities – noble as they are – thusly altering the environment.

The capitalist tenets of land ownership and control of property remain in effect today, as visitors now have to observe legal requirements concerning points and times of access and egress,

hunting, utilization of plant life, and the occasional payment for licenses or fees. What was once likely a communal resource is so again, as all visitors are welcome to access this unique and resilient landscape; however, the people and communities venturing into the swamp today must adhere to strict restrictions about how to behave within it.

An archaeological focus on the last few decades would certainly recognize such drastic restrictions in landscape use. As operations ceased in the swamp after 1973, remnants of lumbering would indicate an earlier deposition, and similarly, it is expected that hunting-related artifacts would prove scarcer due to federally-imposed limits on the activity. What could the archaeological analysis of post-1973 material teach us about landscape use today?

Archaeologically studying the swamp may inform us of the demographic changes in visitors after its designation as a refuge. Thereafter, who typically accessed the swamp? Experienced outdoorsmen, unprepared urbanites, disgruntled locals? What, if any, relationships formed between these groups? I believe that the capability demonstrated by past archaeologists to identify acts of defiance and willful disobedience among swamp inhabitants would prove useful, yet again, in this context. Did unlawful access to the swamp occur after the USFWS assumed management of the Great Dismal? What types of activities were illicitly being performed on federal land? How can these acts of disobedience inform our understanding of how people viewed the landscape’s transition into a national wildlife refuge?

The swamp no longer serves as a site to fulfill people’s daily needs and desires (for good or bad) as it did in past generations. For many, long-held and diverse associations with the Great

Dismal Swamp landscape helped foster a sense of identity for themselves and others. Physical changes to the swamp and rules on its utilization during the twentieth century forced people to

renegotiate their relationships with it, which in turn affected how they viewed themselves and the communities around them.

Tilley (2006) contends that people associate who they are with place and landscape. In

1890, John O’Reilly imparted his own descriptor on the inhabitants of the Great Dismal, naming them simply “swampers,” clearly linking their geographical location with their personal identity, though, like landscape, identity is of course a complex juxtaposition of many factors, including race and class. It is likely no coincidence that those O’Reilly dubbed “swampers” most often appeared to be African-American wage laborers. Whether laborers toiling in the swamp viewed themselves in such a way is unclear. It is just as likely that swamp inhabitants anchored their self-imposed images on factors other than their place of residence and employment. Regardless, outsiders, like O’Reilly, associated those living and working within the morass with the physical landscape, and based on his reported interactions with “swampers”, this appellation may have served as a source of pride to some. “Yes, sah! I like de swamp,” an African-American laborer told O’Reilly during his trip into the Great Dismal. “I wouldn’t wuk nowhere else…I like to wuk in de old Dismal best of any.” The desire to be connected to the remote landscape expressed to O’Reilly by more than one inhabitant in the swamp, whether based on a degree of freedom, supposed health benefits, or relatively steady employment, was an attitude similar to those expressed by some in the twentieth century, as well.

Local inhabitants in the 1900s reportedly relied on the swamp to meet a number of their needs. Lumber organizations, local law enforcement agencies, as well as the U.S. military, operated in the swamp and provided employment for some. Hunting, trapping, and fishing wildlife allowed people to meet their subsistence and financial needs. The deep connection to the Great Dismal Swamp shared by some in the twentieth century was clearly engendered by a

sense of self-reliance and freedom. In a rapidly expanding capitalist world, the swamp remained a contradictory landscape, continuing to resist the development characteristic of the time and area. The apparent wilderness of the Great Dismal Swamp surely represented an escape for the socially and economically oppressed, where people could exercise some manner of control over their life just as many maroons did in the centuries prior. Identifying oneself with the Great

Dismal Swamp might have served as a “badge of honor” in a way, a testament to one’s personal capabilities harkening back to a romantic notion of frontier survival, or perhaps simply a defiant stand against entrenched and ubiquitous capitalist ideology. Nonetheless, the significance of the swamp to some is evident in the protestations expressed by those faced with measures of control and restriction to its use, examples of which have been cited earlier in this paper.

Despite personal ties to the landscape, the wave of conservationism washed over the swamp and the USFWS prioritized preservation of its plant and wildlife, eliminating threats from excessive lumbering or hunting, and tightly regulating access to the morass. Activities performed in the swamp for generations were either immediately prohibited or dramatically limited to specific locations or times, prompting many to adapt to yet another change in the landscape. Responses to this particular shift were predictably varied, as they tend to be when changes affect diverse communities possessing separate values and ideologies. Today, the Great

Dismal Swamp is accessible to a greater number of people, and the flora and fauna have begun to reclaim portions of the swamp scarred by hundreds of years of human occupation; but as

Gregory lamented, the swamp has been lost to some.

I would be remiss if I did not take a moment at this juncture to express the importance of oral traditions in helping archaeologists understand the varied and intensely personal connections people created with the Great Dismal Swamp landscape during the twentieth century. For

historical archaeologists, written documentation is a valuable asset in deciphering the significance of material remains; yet oral sources of information can be equally illuminating, especially regarding relatively recent historical events. In fact, Orser reminds us that “orally presented histories have been part of anthropological research for many years,” providing versions of the past nonexistent in published sources (Orser 2004:180-181). Since people experience the world differently, memories are a reflection of their unique and personally lived pasts. Projects like the New York African Burial Ground and the Ludlow Memorial mentioned earlier in this thesis demonstrate that combining archaeological information with oral stories may help capture and promote a more comprehensive and egalitarian picture of past daily lives and social relationships, as opposed to unjustly restating a myopically informed version of history.

Including the stories recalled by the likes of O’Reilly, Gregory, and Rountree in the overall telling of the Great Dismal Swamp history ultimately produces a more truthful and realistic understanding of the landscape and its past.

Orser succinctly concludes his thoughts on the value of oral traditions by writing:

“Oral accounts can provide great depth to our knowledge of the past. When used in conjunction with textual sources and archaeological data, they can be extremely powerful ways to interject a profoundly personal perspective on the past.”

Hopefully, I have adequately demonstrated in this paper that ubiquitous and permeating capitalist ideologies, and the environmental and societal responses to those ideologies, dramatically altered the Great Dismal Swamp landscape, affecting established relationships, and engendering new or renegotiated identities associated with the land in the twentieth century.

Despite an understanding of how these cultural processes have led to the current existence of the swamp as a national wildlife refuge, the complex social activities performed in and around the swamp by countless individuals and groups that fostered this transition remain relatively poorly understood and, therefore, have not received sufficient attention in discussions about the refuge’s 96

history. A concerted theoretically-based archaeological effort to study the material remains of twentieth century activity, along with the thoughtful collection and consideration of historical document and oral stories may likely bring these issues and relationships to prominence.

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