After William Byrd II and George Washington first planned the Dismal Swamp Canal, Virginia approved construction in 1787, and North Carolina in 1790. A North Carolina/Virginia private company, the Dismal Swamp Canal Company, began construction in 1793.

William Byrd II was one of the first Colonists to record the first sight of the Great Dismal Swamp on March 13, 1728. While marking the boundary between Virginia and North Carolina, Byrd noted: “Our work ended within a quarter of a mile of the Dismal, where the ground began to be already full of sunken holes and slashes… It is hardly credible how little the bordering inhabitants were acquainted with this mighty swamp, notwithstanding they had lived their whole lives within s