Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge contains some of the most important wildlife habitat in the mid-Atlantic region. At near 113,000 acres, the refuge is the largest intact remnant of a vast swamp that once covered more than one million acres.

The Great Dismal Swamp Virginia’s most haunted natural feature. The Great Dismal Swamp is one of the largest wilderness areas on the Eastern Seaboard. It...

Four bald cypress trees in Lafayette Square, across from the White House, mark the southern edge of a 100,000 year old cypress swamp.

Rainbow swamps happen when the bald cypress trees drop their leaves in the Autumn they begin to decompose in the swamp. when hit at the right angle by...

Duckweed and swamp tupelo (Nyssa aquatica) Merchant's Millpond State Park from Flickr user bumeister1.

1600s- Native Americans, black people, & unruly whites begin using the Great Dismal Swamp as a refuge from British settlements. By the 1800s, thousands of mostly African-American "maroons" will inhabit the high & dry parts of the swamp, known as mesic islands. Self-sufficiency, barter with the outside world, & raids on nearby plantations will keep the maroons housed, fed, & moderately comfortable. Numerous attacks against the planter class will be conceived in the swamp * carried out from…

Lake Drummond and Great Dismal Swamp

On the border of Virginia and North Carolina stretches a great, dismal swamp. The Great Dismal Swamp, actually — that’s the name British colonists gave it centuries ago. The swamp covers about 190 square miles today, but at its peak, before parts of it were drained and developed, it was around ten times bigger, spanning