GEORGE G.T.P. DYER
Neither white man nor negro, but a queer combination of both and something else, he is the king of the Great Dismal Swamp. In his clapboard castle on an elevation in the heart of that great morass he receives tourists and sightseers from all parts of the world. He has been the husband of 17 wives nearly and the father of so many children that he long ago ceased to keep count of them. He is to-day a sober, Industrious, kindly, dependable citizen, but he says he has been playing fool all his life. He says he started playing fool at the age of 13 when he turned black after having been born white and passing as a white child for 13 years. After that he says he played fool by trying to drink all the liquor in Northeastern North Carolina. But there is such a thing as learning much wisdom from playing the fool and George Dyer is full of wisdom. Photo by W.O. Saunders.
From the front page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., June 2, 1922
-=-
It Takes All Sorts of Folks to Make a World. . . And George Dyer Who “Feeds” The Dismal Swamp Canal Is One of Them
Way up in the heart of the Great Dismal Swamp, 30 miles from Elizabeth City, I discovered another one of those folks who are different and who help to make life less monotonous. His name is George Dyer and he is neither white man nor negro, but a strange combination of both plus the wit and cunning of an oriental.
There is a ditch about three miles long from the Dismal Swamp Canal at Wallaceton to Lake Drummonds in Dismal Swamp. This ditch is known as the feeder ditch and carries the waters of Lake Drummond to the Dismal Swamp Canal. It is from Lake Drummond that this lock canal gets its water. There is a dam in the feeder ditch controlling the flow of water to the canal. George Dyer has charge of this dam and his business is to watch the water in the canal and keep it at a prescribed height. He looks after the sluice gates at the dam and sees that just so much water passes thru those gates as needed.
Besides doing this service for the Lake Drummond Canal & Water Company, George is fire warden for Arbuckle Brothers, who have 3,000 acres of timber nearby from which they get the lumber incidental to the manufacture of their daily requirements of 5,000 sugar barrels.
On the side, George is the sole guide for tourists to the Great Dismal and runs a unique hotel there in the heart of the swamp on an elevation made from the excavations from the feeder ditch. It is as a guide and caterer to tourists that George excels and it is a queer collection of tourists he gets. They come from all parts of the world. Just last Sunday, May 28, they were registered from Washington, from New York, from Pittsburgh, from Norfolk, from Elizabeth City, from New London, Conn., and Peabody, Mass. Many of these tourists are scientists and naturalists who come to study the flora and fauna of the great swamp. George would tell you that “they just piddle around and look for bugs and birds and worms and snakes; some of ‘em go in for leaves and herbs and toad stools and things like that. They seem to know a lot abut such things but ain’t got much sense about anything else.”
To accommodate visitors and tourists George has a small shelter for picnic parties and two small shacks, neither of which is larger than the cook house of a log cabin. One of these has three bunks built to the wall and a cook stove. It is called the “Hotel de Gink.” The other is nameless. The two shanties do not begin to accommodate the overnight visitors and George turns the lower floor of his house over tohis white guests. When shanties and spare rooms in his houses are filled to overflowing, George sleeps the overflow up the trees, swinging hammocks between trees on the edge of his clearing. A tarpaulin goes over the hammock to keep out the rain. A dozen hammocks were occupied in this way last Saturday night following a rainfall that registered an inch and a half of water in an hour and a half. People who go to the Great Dismal swamp to behold the greatest morass in the world would hardly be content with accommodations that did not discommodate them. They brave the abode of the deadly Moccasin snake, the vicious black bear, the wild cat and malaria and would feel that they were cheated if they were not treated rough. And George lets ‘em rough it, charging only moderate rates for such accommodations as he provides, plus a dollar for the use of a skiff.
George Dyer is a native of Elizabeth City, or he reckons he is. He was found on the steps of the Pasquotank County jail 65 years ago and to all appearances was the abandoned child of white parents. There was much speculation as to who his parents were and several prominent citizens were gossiped about. George was adopted by James B. Dyer and wife who lived on the corner of Main and Dyer streets, on the very property now occupied by the residence of W.J. Woodley. James B. Dyer was a tailor. He named the foundling George Quinton Trotman Pappendick Dyer and George carried that name until he was old enough to register and vote. He registered the full name on the registration books in his precinct in 1878 and dropped all of it except the George and the Dyer after that.
George says he doesn’t know to this day who his parents were, but that he lived as a white child until 13 years old before ethe negro blood in him made itself so manifest that he had to take the negro classification. But this big interesting fact in his life doesn’t seem to have bothered him a bit and he has lived joyfully and on friendly terms with both races.
I asked the Postmaster at Wallaceton to tell me something about George Dyer. “He is a colored man, but he’s all right,” said the Postmaster. “He is what you might call a white nigger.”
I asked another prominent man at Wallaceton about him. “I don’t know just what to tell you,” he said, “except that George is one-half white man, one-half negro and one-half Indian. I think it takes just about three halves to classify him; he is more than a third of any one of the three.”
George is particularly interesting to his neighbors because of his remarkable marital record. He is said to have been married 17 times and to have been the father of 97 children. George himself can’t tell you how many times he ahs been married or how many children he has had. Several of his former wives are dead; some of them and their children are still living in Elizabeth City. Nine years ago, when he went to the heart of the Dismal Swamp, he married and took with him a bright and industrious little black woman who keeps his house in wonderful order and looks after tourists and visitors while George is about his other work. She has borne him five children and is happy with him there in the heart of the swamp where there are no other women to vamp her mate. And George declares that Janie, his present spouse, is the best woman he has married yet. She keeps his house, she keeps his books, she looks after the tourists, attends the sluice gates at the dam when George is away, works the garden and fishes the ditch. And in the winter when there is no garden to work, Janie takes her rifle and goes into the great swamp after game. “She has a tread like a panther and can travel thru the swamp all the way without cracking a twig,” declares George.
Some day I am going to take a day off and visit George and Janie; I’m sure they’ll keep me entertained and that I will bring back something of interest to readers of The Independent.
--W.O.S.
From page 2 of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., June 2, 1922
No comments:
Post a Comment