"Joe Jones."
I knew of an instance just before the late war where a gentleman by the name of Augustus Holly, Bertie county, N. C., had a slave to run away, who was known to be a desperate character. He knew that he had gone to the Dismal Swamp, and to get him, his master offered a reward of $1,000 for his apprehension, dead or alive. The person who caught him is still living. I saw the negro when he was brought to Suffolk and lodged in jail. He had been shot at several times, but was little hurt. He had on a coat that was impervious to shot, it being thickly wadded with turkey feathers. Small shot were the only kind used to shoot runaway slaves, and it was very seldom the case that any ever penetrated far enough to injure. I know three persons now living who were runaway slave catchers, but the late war stripped them of their occupation. They were courageous and men of nerve.
CHAPTER II.
TO GROW UP AGAIN IN A JUNGLE.
But little work is now done in the Dismal Swamp, and it will again soon become a howling wilderness, a hiding place for the bears, wild-cats, snakes and everything hideous. The bamboo and rattan will rule supreme, and, like the banyan tree, will form an impenetrable jungle. But a few years will be required for its accomplishment, and without an axe you could not move a foot.
G. P. R. James, the British Consul, who was stationed at Norfolk when he wrote his novel entitled "The Old Dominion," and which was a history of "Nat Turner's War," (as it is called) in Southampton county, states that a young mother, with her infant, fled to the Dismal Swamp for safety. Mr. James must have drawn heavily on his imagination for a figure, to make the situation more horrible. I do not think any mother with an infant would flee to such a wild and desolate place as the Dismal Swamp, but, on the contrary, would keep far away.
I could relate many interesting stories that I have heard about the Swamp, but as I am writing from my own observation, will discard all such from my task. It is true that some very mysterious things have been seen at various times. I will, digressing a little from my story, relate one circumstance that was told me by a gentlemen who lived in Suffolk and was stopping at Lake Drummond Hotel, situated near the lake shore, and which was visited at that time by many persons from New York and other places. This gentleman remarked to me that he was standing near the Lake one morning, and happening to look across the Lake, to his great astonishment, saw come out of the woods, at a point so thick with reeds, bamboo and rattan, that you could not get three feet from the shore, a beautiful, finely-dressed lady; she walked out on a log about twenty feet into the Lake, with a fishing pole in her hand. I saw her bait her hook and throw it out into the Lake. He said he could also tell the color of the ribbon on her bonnet. He watched the same place every day for several days, and at the same hour each day the lady appeared as before. I told my friend that he must have been laboring under an optical delusion at the time, as the Lake was five miles wide at that place, and that it was impossible for one to distinguish objects at so great a distance with the naked eye. He replied that every part of the story was true.
On another occasion, a gentleman, now living in Suffolk, told me that he was out hunting in the Swamp, and chancing to look to the front saw snakes coming from every direction, and quite near him he saw a lump of them that looked to be as large as a barrel. He supposed that there must have been as many as five hundred, all so interwoven that they looked like a ball of snakes. He said he was too close on them to shoot, so stepping back, he fired both barrels of his gun at the bunch. An untangling at once commenced, and he said, "consarned if he ever saw so many snakes before." Upon going to the place where he had shot, he found 150 snakes dead, and as many more wounded. He carried some of the largest of the dead out, procured a ten-foot rod, and on measuring found one that measured twenty-three feet. I have related this snake story several times, but was always very particular to know that the gentleman who told me was at some other place.