It all began when Sayers decided to research the history of the Great Dismal Swamp from the 1600s through 1860 for his doctoral dissertation. From the beginning, Sayers discovered that he had his ...

Dismal also meant evil association with Satan.” Col. William Byrd II, an 18th century planter, is credited with giving the swamp its name on maps during his 1728 expedition to survey the border ...

A conservation group is buying about 1,300 acres next to the Great Dismal Swamp in hopes of turning ... and Route 17 to land currently used to farm soybeans. A screenshot showing the general ...

A place called “Dismal Swamp” sounds like something ... were to drain the swamp, harvest its trees, and farm its land. Washington’s investment in the project began in 1763 and lasted until ...

Joining southeastern Virginia with northeastern North Carolina, the Great Dismal Swamp is a stretch of forested wetland that, in hindsight, doesn’t really live up to the “dismal” part of its ...

CHESAPEAKE, Va. -- A conservation group is buying about 1,300 acres of land that’s next to the Great Dismal Swamp in hopes of restoring it to the environmentally unique wetlands it once was.