The river has stories to tell

 A few Sunday mornings ago, while navigating the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River in a small sailboat, we passed under a raised Gilmerton Bridge and recounted the story of its namesake, Thomas Gilmer, a short-lived, pre-Civil War governor who died in a shipboard explosion.

Now, about six miles later, we crept up on one of the most historic waterway sites in the country, the Great Bridge Lock and Great Bridge Bridge, a double dose of history that helped define who we are.

Even the intrepid boundary surveyor William Byrd recognized the need for a canal linking North Carolina and Virginia when he helped map the swampy border in 1728. A canal between the two still-British colonies was vital to commerce, he reasoned. But it wasn’t until almost 50 years later that surveys were made, and then a major disruption, war with England, intervened.

There was then a series of bridges across some 360 yards of marsh land, and the largest of these was called the Great Bridge. Thus the name for a  small village that sprang up nearby.

The British realized how important the lifeline was and in late 1775 set up a crude stockade – “hog pen,” some called it – from which they would stifle these upstart patriots and shut down their flow of goods. In the muddy swamp just off Battlefield Boulevard, archaeologists have found 18^th century stoneware, pipes and musket balls where the stockade existed.

Then, in early December, under the direction of Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, elite troops marched across the bridge into a waiting slaughter.

American militia from as far away as Culpepper and North Carolina had set up breastworks on the south side of the bridge. John Marshall, a young lieutenant who would one day become chief justice of the Supreme Court, was among them. They held their fire until the redcoats were almost upon them and then methodically cut them down. There’s an old churchyard nearby where many of the bodies were buried. On the north bank of the canal, just past the present bridge, the foundations for the planned Great Bridge Battlefield and Waterways Historic Park and Visitor Center can be found.

The battle of Great Bridge was the first land engagement of the Revolutionary War in Virginia. Dunmore fled to Norfolk and then, after shelling the city, set sail for Gwynn’s Island on the Chesapeake and, ultimately, England. The despised Brit had met his comeuppance.

Again, the idea of a canal surfaced. But instead of connecting the South Branch with the North Landing River – the present Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal – another route cutting through the Great Dismal Swamp to Elizabeth City was begun and finished in 1805.

This route was shallow and tortuously long, and everyone knew the Albemarle alternative had to happen. But it was not until 1859 that a true mover and shaker, Marshall Parks Jr. (his father had built the stupendous Hygeia Hotel at Old Point Comfort) employed powerful new steam dredges to cut through a tangle of petrified tree stumps.

At the same time a wooden drawbridge was built and a double-gated lock was added to raise boats from the Southern Branch to the new cut – salt water to fresh water. And finally, the A & C Canal was born. There’ve been many changes, including the present double lift Great Bridge Bridge.

And here we were, handing lines to the bridge tenders. In a few minutes, water at the far end of the huge chamber seemed to boil as valves were opened and maybe millions of gallons of water raised the water level several feet. The gates opened, ushering us into the lock park lined with bright red crape myrtles.

Soon, bells rang and bridge traffic came to a halt. We quietly apologized to all those Sunday morning church goers who now had to wait. It happened fast, though. The two spans of the bridge flew open, almost like a welcoming gesture, and we history travelers were in the canal.

By the way, a reader points out that the widowed and lonely President John Tyler was probably saved from death on the same shipboard explosion that killed Thomas Gilmer because he was chasing after an attractive New York heiress, below deck, I assume, when the gun blew up. See what stories the river reveals?