GREEN
BRIAR SWAMP
BUCKTOWN
Due
to the Legend of Green Briar Swamp there were people of this area
who
feared to leave the safety of their homes after dark , so said Mrs
Ralph
Lewis , who runs the Bucktown country store with her husband who
have
lived many years in the Bucktown area between Blackwater and
the
Nanticoke. The area, thirty square miles of dense marsh grass
and
murky
waters, is a peaceful farming section, sunshine, with song
birds,
the steady drone of farm tractors cultivating the rich soil and
the
rustling of tall corn.
Come
evening a hush settles over the fields and forest lands, sort of
a
mist
droops over Green Briar Swamp and night swallows the swamp
and
the ghosts of Green Briar prowl undisturbed.
Yes,
outsiders are skeptics, cynics scoff and the tales are sometimes
called
downright
fibs. Yet, there are some who lived on the edges of the swamp
who
had their fears.
Green
Briar Swamp, pronounced “ gumm b ' rar “, is seven miles
north and south long and almost the same wide, the name is
ancient. It was
once
owned by governor John Henry of Vienna in the late 1700's.
It
is
flat full of wild huckleberry bushes. Maple Dam and Bucktown
roads
box
it in. The southern most of Green Briar is the source of our
hair
raising
tales.
The
legend , so old that it is lost in the cobwebs, has it
that there is
a
“ treasurer “ buried somewhere in the swamp in a grave
vault by
a
wealthy plantation owner of Bucktown who was assisted by a
female
slave
when it was buried. When she told him she though the treasure
would
be searched for, he cut her head off with his sword, then buried
her
deep
in the marsh. This is a story by Mary Picket of Cambridge.
The
Negro slave woman, Miz Big Liz, is said to be seen at
DeCoursey
Bridge.
To summon Big Liz one must visit the bridge in the dead of night,
sound
it's horn six times, blink it's lights three times. She
approaches
slowly,
shuffling, shoulder stooped as she carries her head in her hands,
with
it's eyes aglow like branding irons fired to a white heat.
Several
tails concern the legend are of an older man, name Charles
Jackson , a area native and knew the swamp well stayed a bit late
when
picking
huckleberries and night overtook him.. He came out of the swamp
running
so hard he had a heart attack that put him on his deathbed. What he
saw is not known but it was highly out of the usual.
Toby
Barris, who used Longfield road through Green Briar as a short cut
between
Bestpitch Ferry and Canes Ditch saw something and came out
in
a state of shock.
Harriet
Tubman also comes into play. After her escape from her
Bucktown
plantation she became a scout for a Union Army troop.
It
is told that her former master feared her so much, he too buried
treasure
in
the Green Briar Swamp for fear the Union troops would plunder his
plantation.
Searches have been made but always end with something
unusual
happening, ghost,, high winds, strange lights, so forth.
The
burial graves are unusual to find. There are two which location is
known,
one is the one that Big Liz and the treasure are in and another,
miles
apart, with the remains of another slave.
Another
Cambridge man, Ben Robinson, says he has seen the vault,
way
back in late 1930's. It is describes as a three foot high brick
vault
with
mossy cement to top it out. While picking huckelberries he even
rested
on the wall. Buckets full, he was on his way our, then heard a
shrill
voice,
looked around and saw a Negro woman, sitting on a log, staring a
him
with blazing eyes. As he was staring at her, she disappeared. A
recent
attempt to find that grave was unsuccessful. So, does a grave
vault
indeed exist in Green Briar Swamp ?
Corporal
John Bramble, Cambridge police officer, has said there is a vault
in
the place where Robinson, sat and rested . Herb North, of
Bestpich,
has
told of strange things happening in that swamp and that there is a
treasure
in there, someplace. .
Source:
Between The Blackwater And The Nanticoke, by Brice Neal
Stump..
1967
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