Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1883 — The Dismal Swamp. [ARTICLE]

The Dismal Swamp.

A recent visitor to the Dismal Swamp in Virginia found it much reduced in extent compared to what it was twenty vears ago. It now contains some of the best farming land in the State. A railroad runs across it, and it is on its way to final extinction. The drainage of Lake Drummond, a central body of water lying higher than the average level of the swamp, would make the whole area fertile. This is a project ©f Governor Benjamin F. Butler, who once had surveys made, but at length abandoned it. The great industry of the swamp is lumbering. It is penetrated by small ditches in connection with larger canals, and by rude-tram-roads, over which the logs are rolled to be sawed up into shingles, railroad ties and fencing/ The lake iteelf, however, with its almost impenetrable fringe of cypress and its protecting roots and broken stumps, is quite as dismal as ever,