- Title
- State
-
-
- Date
- May 1985
-
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
State
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Can
We
Keep
The
Dismal
Swamp
Canal?
The end may be near for
the nation's oldest opera¬
tional eanal, but don't say
farewell yet.
By CARL CAHILL
Except for one slight bend, the na¬
tion's oldest operational canal runs
arrow-straight for 22 miles from Deep
Creek in Chesapeake. Virginia to the
village of South Mills in North Caro¬
lina.
It was gouged out of the muck over
a 12-year period by hundreds of hired
laborers and slaves wielding the most
basic tools — picks and shovels — and
whose bonus was a tot of whiskey
served up to them daily by their
employer, the Dismal Swamp Canal
Company.
The first vessels to use the waterway,
which connects the Southern branch of
the Elizabeth River in Virginia with the
Pasquotank River in the Tar Heel stale,
were flatboats 30 to 40 feet long loaded
with shingles and barrel staves made of
juniper and cypress, woods that are
decay and insect-resistant.
The boatmen paid the canal company
a toll of 50 cents per 1.000 shingles and
75 cents for 1.000 staves. A flatboat
could carry up to 8.000 shingles.
Later, when the canal was widened
and deepened, two-masted schooners
hauled logs, lumber, cotton, flour,
tobacco and hogs from North Carolina
to Norfolk. They returned laden with
fertilizer, coal and cement.
12
Use of the waterway rose and fell
with the growing nation's fortunes un¬
til the early 1900s when activity
reached a peak and hundreds of craft
moved through the swamp each week.
Among them were showboats and pass¬
enger steamers. A steam tug lowed 17
schooners through one day.
What About The Future?
Now the Norfolk District. U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, since 1929 charged
with operating and maintaining the ca¬
nal, wants to get rid of it because it is
not "economically justified." Commer¬
cial traffic has fallen to almost nothing.
Karl Kuhlman is project manager of
a Corps study to determine the best use
of the old water route if Congress fails
to provide money for its operation.
Funds run out in September, the end of
the federal fiscal year.
"There are only three things to do
with it," said Kuhlman. "Keep it as it
is. deepen it to its authorized nine feet
or shut it down."
Closing the canal to boats would re¬
quire the permanent setting of the gates
at the locks at an angle to permit water
to flow out without having a locks
keeper on duty. Otherwise. Kuhlman
said, during heavy rains the canal
would overflow- its banks at South
Mills.
What to do with the waterway
“comes up year after year” said
From Lake Drummond. In the middle ot the Great Dlamal Swamp, a feeder canal supplies water lor the
historic waterway. The south locka ol the canal at South Mills (lower photo) In Camden County, where
boats may be put Into the water. From here the canal parallels U.S. 17 for several miles.
THE STATE. MAY t985