Great Dismal Swamp

An 1807 sketch of the Great Dismal Swamp by an unknown artist shows its location in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Lake Drummond, one of only two natural lakes in Virginia, is visible at the center of the marshy area. A canal built to connect the Chesapeake Bay in the north with the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina is delineated on the east side of the swampland. A twenty-two-mile section of the Dismal Swamp Canal opened in 1805. Enslaved laborers dug the canal by hand, a backbreaking feat that took about twelve years.