| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : OCTOBER 25, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| BOOKS
Ye Olde Fiasco THE FABULOUS HISTORY OF THE DISMAL SWAMP COMPANY A Story of George Washington's Times By Charles Royster Knopf 622pp $35 Thick with white cedar and cypress, the Dismal Swamp appeared ''exceeding rich'' to a young George Washington. Located on the North Carolina-Virginia frontier, the virgin 900 square mile area seemed a profitable land grab for the 12 esteemed Virginians (including Washington) who in 1763 founded the Dismal Swamp Co. with hopes of converting it to farmland. The fate of that company is the subject of Charles Royster's The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company, an exhaustive tale of a pre-Revolutionary economy driven by speculation and deep personal indebtedness. Those expecting a full account of Washington as entrepreneur will be disappointed: His involvement with the company was minimal. Royster instead homes in on the company's other 11 partners, a collection of colonial bureaucrats and tobacco traders including Virginia patriarch William Byrd. With a just-the-facts style, Royster, Boyd Professor of History at Louisiana State University, shows how trading tobacco to England was less business venture than blind bet. But Fabulous History is strongest when it concentrates on the swamp company. Facing a maze of vegetation, the partners' slaves made little progress on the initial drainage scheme. A second plan to cultivate hemp never won support. Before long, the enterprise was reduced to felling timber for roofing shingles. As decades passed, the swamp remained fallow, with shares in the company scattered to surviving grandsons and great-grandsons. In 1810, 47 years after its founding, Dismal Swamp Co. paid its first dividends. Only one original partner had lived to collect a return. Likewise for readers, Fabulous History requires uncommon endurance. Its ultimate payoff is insight into a business culture that may seem all too familiar. By DENNIS BERMAN _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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