John Cowper, a merchant in Portsmouth, Virginia, was made the manager at Portsmouth “for receiving and entering subscriptions” to a new Dismal Swamp Company, created in December 1787 by an act of the Virginia assembly. He purchased the North Carolina land that was jointly owned by GW and Fielding Lewis Sr. in May 1791. At this time Fielding Lewis Sr. had died and his son, John Lewis, was acting as executor of his estate.