Julie,

The historian David S. Cecelski, in "The Shores of Freedom: The Marine Underground Railroad in North Carolina, 1800-1861, North Carolina Historical Review, 71(April 1994): 205-206, reports that a ship captain named Alfred Fountain used the Dismal Swamp Canal to travel to Albemarle Sound and sometime carried fugitives back with him. Fountain is also mentioned a few times in William Still's classic The Underground Railroad: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, etc. (1871).

See also Cecelski's book, The Waterman's Song: Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2001).

Another source is Hugo Prosper Leaming, Hidden Americans: Maroons of Virginia and the Carolinas (Garland Publishing, 1995), which has a lot on the Great Dismal Swamp. The book is a reprint of his 1979, and it lacks an index. The Library of Virginia has copies of both.

There may be information also in Tommy Bogger's Free Blacks in Norfolk, Virginia, 1790-1860: The Darker Side of Freedom (Univ. of Virginia Press, 1997).

John





-------Original Message-------
From: Julie Rowand <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 06/09/03 09:18 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Dismal Swamp Canal and the Underground Railroad

>
> Hi all:

I recently joined the list serve.  I am a Visitor Services Specialist at
Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.  I am working on a nomination
of the Great Dismal Swamp to the National Park Service's Underground
Railroad Network.  I have found lots of information regarding the swamp
and
some information referencing the canal.

Does anyone have any primary sources that would provide a link between the
Dismal Swamp Canal and the Underground Railroad?  I have heard that a
Union
officer was using the canal to transport escaped slaves to port cities or
a
camp, but I have no documentable source at this time.

The two I have so far are:
   Moses Grandy- a slave who, as a canal boatman, earned enough money to
   purchase his freedom.
   Frank- a slave owned by Joseph Banks, who ran away and was discovered
   working on a flatboat on the Dismal Swamp Canal.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Julie Rowand
Visitor Services Specialist
Great Dismal Swamp NWR
[log in to unmask]
757-986-3705

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>

John T. Kneebone
5107 Caledonia Road
Richmond, VA 23225
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804-231-1774

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