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The Great Dismal Swamp ~ j THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP ~ Edited by Paul W. Kirk, Jr. Published for the Old Dominion University Research Foundation by the University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF VIRGINIA Copyright' 1979 by the Old Dominion University Research Foundation, Inc. First publishtd /979 , Proceedings of a Symposium Sponsored by Old Dominion University and United Virginia Bank-Seaboard National 14 March 1974 Endpapers: LANDSAT I false color infrared muhispectral scanner image of the Great Dismal Swamp and vicinity, taken from an altitude of ·approximately 800 km. (EROS Data Center, Sioux Falls, SD 57198). Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: The Great Dismal Swamp. Includes bibliographies and indexes. 1. Natural history-Dismal Swamp-Congresses. 2. Dismal Swamp-Congresses. I. Kirk, Paul W., 1931- II. Old Dominion University. Ill. United Virginia Bank-Seaboard National. QH 105.V8G73 500.9'755'523 79-375 ISBN 0-8139.0759-4 Printed in the United States of America MAMMALS OF THE DISMAL SWAMP: ; A HISTORICAL ACCOUNT Charles 0. Handley, Jr. EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA AND CAROLINA When the English came to the coast of Virginia in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, they found mammals, both large and small, abundant throughout. Captain Arthur Barlowe discovered the Carolina Banks and Roanoke Island during his voyage of 1584. He described the islands as "beautiful to behold and rich in deer, rabbits, hares, and other animals" (Lorant 1946, p. 133). A year later Thomas Hariot, the first naturalist to visit this coast, arrived with colonists in northeastern North Carolina. In a report to Sir Walter Raleigh he observed: "the Beares of the countrey are commonly very fatte, and in some places there are many.... All along the Sea coast there are great store of Otters." "Deare, in some places there are great store: neere unto the sea coast they are of the ordinarie bignes as ours in England, & some lesse: but further up into the countrey where there is better seed they are greater: they differ from ours onely in this, their tailes are longer and the snags of their homes looke backward" (Hariot 1893, pp. 16 and 29). Settlers came to the lower James River in April 1607, and George Percy wrote that they found "great store of Deere both Red and Fal­ low. There are Beares, Foxes, Otters, Bevers, Muskrats, and wild beasts unknowne" (Cumming et al. 1972, p. 258). Edward Williams, extolling the virtues of "Virginia in generall, but particularly Carolina" wrote in 1650: "Nor is the Land any lesse provided of native Flesh, Elkes bigger than Oxen, whose hide is admirable Buffe, flesh excellent, and may be made, if kept domesticke, as usefull for draught and carriage, as Oxen [!]. Deere in a numerous abundance, and delicate Venison, Racoones, Hares, Conyes, Bevers, Squirrell, Beares, all of a delightful nourishment for food, and their Furres rich, warme, and convenient for clothing and Merchandise" (Force, 1836-46, p. 11 ). John Clayton, rector of Crofton at Wakefield in Yorkshire, wrote of a visit in 1686 to 298 Charles 0. Handley, Jr. Tidewater, Virginia: "there are abundance of brave Red Deer so that a good Woodsman, as they call them, will keep a House in Venison." "And Wolves there are great store; you may hear a Company Hunting in an Evening, and yelping like a pack of Beagles; but they are very cowardly" (1694, pp. 122, 125). ' In 1701 John Lawson made a seven weeks' trek through the Caro­ linas that carried him from Charleston to the sites of Salisbury, Hills­ boro, Goldsboro, and Greenville in North Carolina. His accounts of natural history are surprisingly accurate and detailed and thus are quite valuable. He described about 30 kinds of mammals, including not only large and impressive species, but even rats, mice, flying squir­ rel, chipmunk, shrew, and bat. He found bear "very common" and deer, a staple food, abundant, but elk and buffalo were seldom seen near the settlements. The panther, he observed, was a great enemy of the planters. Wolves were common. Beaver were "very numerous in Carolina, there being abundance of their Dams in all Parts of the Country where I traveled" (Harriss 1937, pp. 119-129). William Byrd's natural history of Virginia, originally published in 1737 (Beatty and Mulloy 1940), is largely paraphrased or copied from Lawson's history of North Carolina and thus mostly does not pertain to Virginia at all. Byrd's modifications and additions generally were not improvements on Lawson's account. LATE COLONIAL PERIOD In a distressingly short time, as settlement was extended and the Euro­ pean population grew, the mammalian fauna began to change. The larger species were most vulnerable. As early as 1686 John Clayton, the rector of Crofton, wrote: "Elke, I have heard of them beyond the Inhabitants ... " but "I have never heard of any Lions_ . .. [and) Bears there are, and yet but few in the inhabited part of Virginia; towards Carolina there are many more" (1694, pp. 122, 124). Little more than 10 years later, Beverley (1705, v. 2, p. 37) observed that while there were still plenty of beaver, otter, muskrat, and mink in the coastal marshes, swamps, and savannas, and deer, rabbit, fox, raccoon, squir­ rel, and opossum in the uplands, it was necessary to go inland to the "Frontier Plantations [Appomattox, etc., in the Piedmont) ... [to] meet with Bears, Panthers, Wild-Cats, Elks, Buffaloes" and in 1739 John Clayton, the botanist, living in Gloucester County, Virginia, wrote that "the bears, Panthers, Buffaloes and Elks and wild cats are only to be found among the mountains and desert parts of the countrey where there are as yet few inhabitants and the hunting there is very toilsome and laborious and sometimes dangerous" ( 1899, p. 174 ). Mammals: A Historical Account 299 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF DISMAL SWAMP MAMMALS In colonial times, as now, the Dismal Swamp, bypassed by civiliza­ tion, was a sanctuary for many creatures (such as bear, bobcat, and perhaps puma) already eliminated from the settled country. Our first impression of it may have come from Augustin Herrman, an early mapmaker, who may have had the Dismal Swamp in mind when he imprinted on his map of Virginia and Maryland (1673): "The Land between James River and Roanoke River is for the most parts Low Suncken Swampy Land not well passable but with great difficulty. And therein harbours Tygers Bears and other Devouringe Creatures." It may not have seemed a sanctuary to William Byrd II, whose diary for March 1 728 provided the earliest detailed information on the Swamp. There is no evidence that Byrd personally observed a single wild mammal during his brief (one-half mile) foray into the Swamp's eastern edge or on his trek around its northern borders and down to Corapeake Creek on the west. He did record that his surveyors en­ countered "Bever Dams & Otter holes" and that the local people reported panthers, wolves, and foxes, as well as free-ranging cattle and hogs (Boyd 1967). Byrd's most notable contribution to mammalogy was his often quoted and often challenged negative observation on the scarcity of animal life in the Swamp. On 17 March 1728 he wrote: "Since the Surveyors had entered the Dismal they had laid Eyes on no living Creature; neither Bird nor Beast, Insect nor Reptile came in View. Doubtless, the Eternal Shade that broods over this mighty Bog, and hinders the sun-beams from blessing the Ground, makes it an uncom­ fortable Habitation for any thing that has life .... foul Damps ascend without ceasing, corrupt the Air, and render it unfit for_ Respiration. Not even a Turkey-Buzzard will venture to fly over it" (Boyd 1967, p. 70; see also Byrd 1789, p. 231; Ruffin 1837b, p. 595; Murray 1950, p. 225; and Olsen 1962, p. 70). A contrary view was expressed by George Washington, who visited the Swamp at least five times between 1763 and 1768. He found it a " 'glorious paradise' abounding in wild fowl and game" (Troubetzkoy 1961, p. 19). Bassett (1901, p. 60) observed that "Byrd's description of this swamp is too unfavorable. The place is not uninhabited at this day. Persons who live in the adjacent country go thither to hunt bears and deer as well as wild cats." In spite of his own lack of personal observation of the Swamp, al­ though he was on its fringes for more than two weeks, ~ was con­ temptuous of the similar ignorance of the farmers living nearby. On 13 March 1728 he wrote: "Tis hardly credible how little the Border- 300 Charles 0. Handley, Jr. ing inhabitants were acquainted with this mighty Swamp, notwith­ standing they had liv'd their whole lives within smell of it" (Boyd 1967, p. 60; also Ruffin 1837b, p. 593; and Hunter 1881, p. 3). Of Captain Wilson, in whose house he spent the night of 14 March 1728, he wrote: "This worthy Person lives within sight of the Dismal ... and yet he knew as little of it as he did of Terra Australis lncognita. He told us a Canterbury Tale of a North Briton, whose Curiosity Spurr'd him a long way into this great Desart, as he call'd it, near 20 Years ago.... [He] gave such a frightful account of the Monsters he saw, and the Distresses he underwent, that no mortall Since has been hardy enough to go upon the like dangerous Discovery (Boyd 1967, p. 64; also Ruffin 1837b, p. 594; and Hunter 1881, p. 3). PRE-CIVIL WAR PERIOD Over a hundred years after Byrd's survey, Edmund Ruffin (1837a, p. 513), editor of the Petersburg, Virginia, Farmers' Register, observed the persisting lack of factual information about the Swamp: Few strangers would ever have been induced by curiosity to attempt the great labors necessary for even a slight examination [of the Swamp); nor would any have probably seen more than some points on the outer margin, but for the great highways now opened through the swamp-the great canal, the road on its bank, from Norfolk to North Carolina, and the railway which dips into the northern extremity of the swamp.
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