Dismal Swamp State Park
Encyclopedia
Dismal Swamp State Park is a North Carolina state park in Camden County
, North Carolina
in the United States. The park was created as a state natural area in 1974 with the help of The Nature Conservancy
, and on July 28, 2007 the NC General Assembly re-designated it as a state park. It opened to the public in 2008. This marked the first time that public access to Great Dismal Swamp
was made possible in North Carolina. The park covers 14432 acres (58.4 km²) of protected land on the North Carolina/Virginia
border. Park offices are three miles (5 km) south of the border on U.S. Route 17
near South Mills. Features of the park include the canal which is used regularly by boaters using the Intracoastal Waterway
and several miles of hiking and biking trails.
remained in the Great Dismal Swamp
area, and European settlers showed little interest in the swamp. In 1665, William Drummond
, future governor of North Carolina, was the first European to explore the lake which now bears his name. William Byrd II
led a surveying
party into the swamp to draw a dividing line between Virginia and North Carolina in 1728. George Washington
visited the swamp and called it a "glorious paradise". He then formed the Dismal Swamp Land Company in 1763, which proceeded to drain and harvest timber
from part of the area. A five-mile (8 km) ditch
on the west side of the current refuge still bears his name. In 1805, the Dismal Swamp Canal
began serving as a commercial highway for timber coming out of the swamp.
Before and during the American Civil War, the Great Dismal Swamp was a hideout for runaway slaves
from the surrounding area. Some people believe there were at least a thousand slaves living in the swamp. This was the subject of Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp
, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
.
While all efforts to drain the swamp failed, logging
of the swamp proved to be a successful commercial activity. Logging operations continued as late as 1976. The entire swamp has been logged at least once, and many areas have been burned by periodic wildfire
s. Agricultural, commercial, and residential development destroyed much of the swamp, so that the remaining portion within and around the refuge represents less than half of the original size of the swamp.
Before the refuge was established, over 140 miles (225.3 km) of road
s were constructed to provide access to the timber
. These roads disrupted the swamp's natural hydrology
, as the ditches which were dug to provide soil for the road beds drained water from the swamp. The roads also blocked the flow of water across the swamp's surface, flooding some areas of the swamp with stagnant water. The logging operations removed natural stands of bald cypress
and Atlantic white cypress
that were replaced by other forest types, particularly red maple
. A drier swamp and the suppression of wildfires, which once cleared the land for seed germination
, created ecological conditions that were less favorable to the survival of cypress stands. As a result, plant and animal variety decreased.
Dismal Swamp State Park opened in 2008. It is accessed via a floating bridge over the Dismal Swamp Canal
. This is the only public access to the park's visitor's center, other than boat launches along the canal. Hiking and biking trails have opened and additional trails are under construction.
Dismal Swamp State Park is much drier than it was in the past. The efforts of man in the last 200 years to drain the swamp have left it drastically altered. Ditches and logging trails have cut off the normal flow of the swamp and created a series of stagnant pools and patches of dry land where continuously water covered swamps once stood. The trees of the area have changed from various types of cypress and other water loving plants to red maple and white cedar
.
The white cedar thrives in the peat
that is common in the area. These trees provide a habitat for several rare species. Hessel's Hairstreak a species of butterfly
that is dependent on the white cedar has been spotted at the park. Black-throated Green Warbler
s make their nests in the white cedars.
The drained swamp lands have converted to hardwood forests of red maple, Black Walnut
, Pawpaw
and several species of oak. White-tailed Deer
, Wild Turkey
, Bobwhite and marsh rabbits live in the areas along the trails. Blackberry
and blueberry
patches line the trails. These berries attract a large number of American Black Bear
s to the area. Other common animals include the Raccoon
, Opossum and Gray Fox
as well as the occasional Bobcat
.
Butterflies are plentiful at Dismal Swamp State Park. Forty-three species have been found in the park. Several varieties of warbler and vireo are common. Woodpeckers and hawks nest here as do Barred Owl
s.
is open to canoe
s and kayak
s. A boat ramp at the park provides access to the canal. There are 16.7 miles (26.9 km) of logging trails open to hiking
and mountain biking through swamp forests. Park rangers host environmental education and interpretive events. The visitor center is accessed from a floating bridge across the canal.
Camden County, North Carolina
-Schools:There are five schools in Camden County: Grandy Primary School, Camden Intermediate School, Camden Middle School, Camden County High School, and CamTech High School. However one other former school lies in Shiloh. It was a community school for the Shiloh area. The school is now home to a...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
in the United States. The park was created as a state natural area in 1974 with the help of The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy is a US charitable environmental organization that works to preserve the plants, animals, and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive....
, and on July 28, 2007 the NC General Assembly re-designated it as a state park. It opened to the public in 2008. This marked the first time that public access to Great Dismal Swamp
Great Dismal Swamp
The Great Dismal Swamp is a marshy area on the Coastal Plain Region of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina between Norfolk, Virginia, and Elizabeth City, North Carolina in the United States. It is located in parts of southern Chesapeake and Suffolk in Virginia, as well as northern...
was made possible in North Carolina. The park covers 14432 acres (58.4 km²) of protected land on the North Carolina/Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
border. Park offices are three miles (5 km) south of the border on U.S. Route 17
U.S. Route 17
U.S. Route 17 or U.S. Highway 17 is a north–south United States highway. The highway spans the southeastern United States and is close to the Atlantic Coast for much of its length. The highway's southern terminus is at Punta Gorda, Florida, at an intersection with U.S. Route 41...
near South Mills. Features of the park include the canal which is used regularly by boaters using the Intracoastal Waterway
Intracoastal Waterway
The Intracoastal Waterway is a 3,000-mile waterway along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States. Some lengths consist of natural inlets, salt-water rivers, bays, and sounds; others are artificial canals...
and several miles of hiking and biking trails.
History
By 1650, few American IndiansNative Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
remained in the Great Dismal Swamp
Great Dismal Swamp
The Great Dismal Swamp is a marshy area on the Coastal Plain Region of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina between Norfolk, Virginia, and Elizabeth City, North Carolina in the United States. It is located in parts of southern Chesapeake and Suffolk in Virginia, as well as northern...
area, and European settlers showed little interest in the swamp. In 1665, William Drummond
William Drummond (colonial governor)
William Drummond was the first colonial governor of Albemarle Sound settlement in the Province of Carolina and a participant in Bacon's Rebellion....
, future governor of North Carolina, was the first European to explore the lake which now bears his name. William Byrd II
William Byrd II
Colonel William Byrd II was a planter, slave-owner and author from Charles City County, Virginia. He is considered the founder of Richmond, Virginia.-Biography:...
led a surveying
Surveying
See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...
party into the swamp to draw a dividing line between Virginia and North Carolina in 1728. George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
visited the swamp and called it a "glorious paradise". He then formed the Dismal Swamp Land Company in 1763, which proceeded to drain and harvest timber
Lumber
Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....
from part of the area. A five-mile (8 km) ditch
Ditch
A ditch is usually defined as a small to moderate depression created to channel water.In Anglo-Saxon, the word dïc already existed and was pronounced 'deek' in northern England and 'deetch' in the south. The origins of the word lie in digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank...
on the west side of the current refuge still bears his name. In 1805, the Dismal Swamp Canal
Dismal Swamp Canal
The Dismal Swamp Canal is located along the eastern edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina in the United States. It is the oldest continually operating man-made canal in the United States, opened in 1805...
began serving as a commercial highway for timber coming out of the swamp.
Before and during the American Civil War, the Great Dismal Swamp was a hideout for runaway slaves
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
from the surrounding area. Some people believe there were at least a thousand slaves living in the swamp. This was the subject of Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp
Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp
Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp is the second novel from American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. It was first published in two volumes by Phillips, Sampson and Company in 1856. Although it enjoyed better initial sales than her previous, and more famous, novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, it was...
, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
.
While all efforts to drain the swamp failed, logging
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
of the swamp proved to be a successful commercial activity. Logging operations continued as late as 1976. The entire swamp has been logged at least once, and many areas have been burned by periodic wildfire
Wildfire
A wildfire is any uncontrolled fire in combustible vegetation that occurs in the countryside or a wilderness area. Other names such as brush fire, bushfire, forest fire, desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, squirrel fire, vegetation fire, veldfire, and wilkjjofire may be used to describe the same...
s. Agricultural, commercial, and residential development destroyed much of the swamp, so that the remaining portion within and around the refuge represents less than half of the original size of the swamp.
Before the refuge was established, over 140 miles (225.3 km) of road
Road
A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places, which typically has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by some conveyance, including a horse, cart, or motor vehicle. Roads consist of one, or sometimes two, roadways each with one or more lanes and also any...
s were constructed to provide access to the timber
Timber
Timber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...
. These roads disrupted the swamp's natural hydrology
Hydrology
Hydrology is the study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water on Earth and other planets, including the hydrologic cycle, water resources and environmental watershed sustainability...
, as the ditches which were dug to provide soil for the road beds drained water from the swamp. The roads also blocked the flow of water across the swamp's surface, flooding some areas of the swamp with stagnant water. The logging operations removed natural stands of bald cypress
Taxodium distichum
Taxodium distichum is a species of conifer native to the southeastern United States.-Characteristics:...
and Atlantic white cypress
Chamaecyparis thyoides
Chamaecyparis thyoides , is a species of Chamaecyparis, native to the Atlantic coast of North America from Maine south to Georgia, with a disjunct population on the Mexican Gulf coast from Florida to Mississippi...
that were replaced by other forest types, particularly red maple
Red Maple
Acer rubrum , is one of the most common and widespread deciduous trees of eastern North America. It ranges from the Lake of the Woods on the border between Ontario and Minnesota, east to Newfoundland, south to near Miami, Florida, and southwest to east Texas...
. A drier swamp and the suppression of wildfires, which once cleared the land for seed germination
Germination
Germination is the process in which a plant or fungus emerges from a seed or spore, respectively, and begins growth. The most common example of germination is the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm. However the growth of a sporeling from a spore, for example the...
, created ecological conditions that were less favorable to the survival of cypress stands. As a result, plant and animal variety decreased.
Dismal Swamp State Park opened in 2008. It is accessed via a floating bridge over the Dismal Swamp Canal
Dismal Swamp Canal
The Dismal Swamp Canal is located along the eastern edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina in the United States. It is the oldest continually operating man-made canal in the United States, opened in 1805...
. This is the only public access to the park's visitor's center, other than boat launches along the canal. Hiking and biking trails have opened and additional trails are under construction.
Ecology
Chamaecyparis thyoides
Chamaecyparis thyoides , is a species of Chamaecyparis, native to the Atlantic coast of North America from Maine south to Georgia, with a disjunct population on the Mexican Gulf coast from Florida to Mississippi...
.
The white cedar thrives in the peat
Peat
Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter or histosol. Peat forms in wetland bogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world...
that is common in the area. These trees provide a habitat for several rare species. Hessel's Hairstreak a species of butterfly
Butterfly
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...
that is dependent on the white cedar has been spotted at the park. Black-throated Green Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
The Black-throated Green Warbler, Setophaga virens, is a small songbird of the New World warbler family.It is 12 cm long and weighs 9 g, and has an olive-green crown, a yellow face with olive markings, a thin pointed bill, white wing bars, an olive-green back and pale underparts with...
s make their nests in the white cedars.
The drained swamp lands have converted to hardwood forests of red maple, Black Walnut
Black Walnut
Juglans nigra, the Eastern Black walnut, is a species of flowering tree in the hickory family, Juglandaceae, that is native to eastern North America. It grows mostly in riparian zones, from southern Ontario, west to southeast South Dakota, south to Georgia, northern Florida and southwest to central...
, Pawpaw
Asimina triloba
Asimina triloba, the pawpaw, paw paw, paw-paw, or common pawpaw, is a species of Asimina in the same plant family as the custard-apple, cherimoya, sweetsop, ylang-ylang and soursop...
and several species of oak. White-tailed Deer
White-tailed Deer
The white-tailed deer , also known as the Virginia deer or simply as the whitetail, is a medium-sized deer native to the United States , Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru...
, Wild Turkey
Wild Turkey
The Wild Turkey is native to North America and is the heaviest member of the Galliformes. It is the same species as the domestic turkey, which derives from the South Mexican subspecies of wild turkey .Adult wild turkeys have long reddish-yellow to grayish-green...
, Bobwhite and marsh rabbits live in the areas along the trails. Blackberry
Blackberry
The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by any of several species in the Rubus genus of the Rosaceae family. The fruit is not a true berry; botanically it is termed an aggregate fruit, composed of small drupelets. The plants typically have biennial canes and perennial roots. Blackberries and...
and blueberry
Blueberry
Blueberries are flowering plants of the genus Vaccinium with dark-blue berries and are perennial...
patches line the trails. These berries attract a large number of American Black Bear
American black bear
The American black bear is a medium-sized bear native to North America. It is the continent's smallest and most common bear species. Black bears are omnivores, with their diets varying greatly depending on season and location. They typically live in largely forested areas, but do leave forests in...
s to the area. Other common animals include the Raccoon
Raccoon
Procyon is a genus of nocturnal mammals, comprising three species commonly known as raccoons, in the family Procyonidae. The most familiar species, the common raccoon , is often known simply as "the" raccoon, as the two other raccoon species in the genus are native only to the tropics and are...
, Opossum and Gray Fox
Gray Fox
The gray fox is a mammal of the order Carnivora ranging throughout most of the southern half of North America from southern Canada to the northern part of South America...
as well as the occasional Bobcat
Bobcat
The bobcat is a North American mammal of the cat family Felidae, appearing during the Irvingtonian stage of around 1.8 million years ago . With twelve recognized subspecies, it ranges from southern Canada to northern Mexico, including most of the continental United States...
.
Butterflies are plentiful at Dismal Swamp State Park. Forty-three species have been found in the park. Several varieties of warbler and vireo are common. Woodpeckers and hawks nest here as do Barred Owl
Barred Owl
The Barred Owl is a large typical owl. It goes by many other names, including eight hooter, rain owl, wood owl, and striped owl, but is probably best known as the hoot owl.-Description:...
s.
Recreation
Dismal Swamp State Park is open for year-round recreation. Dismal Swamp CanalDismal Swamp Canal
The Dismal Swamp Canal is located along the eastern edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina in the United States. It is the oldest continually operating man-made canal in the United States, opened in 1805...
is open to canoe
Canoe
A canoe or Canadian canoe is a small narrow boat, typically human-powered, though it may also be powered by sails or small electric or gas motors. Canoes are usually pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be decked over A canoe (North American English) or Canadian...
s and kayak
Kayak
A kayak is a small, relatively narrow, human-powered boat primarily designed to be manually propelled by means of a double blade paddle.The traditional kayak has a covered deck and one or more cockpits, each seating one paddler...
s. A boat ramp at the park provides access to the canal. There are 16.7 miles (26.9 km) of logging trails open to hiking
Hiking
Hiking is an outdoor activity which consists of walking in natural environments, often in mountainous or other scenic terrain. People often hike on hiking trails. It is such a popular activity that there are numerous hiking organizations worldwide. The health benefits of different types of hiking...
and mountain biking through swamp forests. Park rangers host environmental education and interpretive events. The visitor center is accessed from a floating bridge across the canal.
External links
- Dismal Swamp State Park
- Session Law 2007-307 re-designated Dismal Swamp State Natural Area as a Dismal Swamp State Park.