American Folk Songs: A Regional Encyclopedia - 2 Volumes Set

American Folk Songs

American Folk Songs A Regional Encyclopedia

Norm Cohen

GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cohen, Norm, 1936– American folk songs : a regional encyclopedia / Norm Cohen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–313–34047–5 (set) ISBN 978–0–313–34048–2 (volume 1 : alk. paper) ISBN 978–0–313–34049–9 (volume 2 : alk. paper) 1. Folk songs, English—United States—History and criticism. I. Title. ML3551.C55 2008 782.42162'13—dc22 2008019924 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2008 by Norm Cohen All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008019924 ISBN: 978–0–313–34047–5 (set) 978–0–313–34048–2 (vol. 1) 978–0–313–34049–9 (vol. 2) First published in 2008 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10

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To my parents, of blessed memory; one in Iowa born, the other in the Ukraine; They brought together the traditions of the New World and the Old—and so do the songs in this collection.

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

xi

Political Chronology

1. New England 2. Midland ( North Atlantic)

xix

1 95

3. Upper South

185

4. Deep South and the Ozarks

292

5. Great Lakes

389

6. Midwest Plains

472

7.

508

Southwest

8. Mountain Region

559

9. Far West and Pacific

620

viii

CONTENTS

Appendix: Songs Excluded

699

Bibliography

711

Song Index

723

Index

737

Acknowledgments

The information revolution of recent decades has dramatically altered the conduct of library research, shortening by orders of magnitude the time required for processing loans and copying requests. The proliferation of specialized library catalogs online enable virtual visits to substitute physical ones—though with the concomitant loss of the pleasure of actually seeing and handling the physical artifacts. When I was able to visit the institutions, I was rewarded with the cooperation, understanding, patience, and knowledge of the respective staff members. I think in particular of my visits to the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University, Hay Library at Brown University, the Boston Athenaeum, the New York Historical Society and New York Public Library, the Randall Mills Archive at the University of Oregon, and the Ethnomusicology Archive at UCLA. Other staff members have greatly facilitated my research from a distance: the American Antiquarian Society, the Arizona State Library, the Beinicke Library at Yale University, the California State Library at Sacramento, the County of El Dorado Historical Museum at Placerville, California, the William Clements Library at the University of Michigan, the Duke University Library’s Special Collections, the Fife Archive at Utah State University, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Lilly Library at Indiana University, the Special Collections Department at Johns Hopkins University, Minnesota Historical Society, and the Rhode Island Historical Society. Curating rare and valuable printed materials or manuscripts can potentially inspire a degree of possessiveness that hinders accessibility, but invariably the staffs at these institutions displayed a heartwarming spirit of helpfulness and cooperation. I am grateful to them all. I have a special word of praise for the Interlibrary Loan staff of the Multnomah County Library. They have shown exemplary resourcefulness, efficiency, and speed in locating and securing obscure and scarce publications when called upon.

x

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A number of friends and colleagues have provided help and advice: Lew Becker, Paul Charosh, David Cohen, Ron Cohen, Ed Cray, Archie Green, Jim Griffith, Pekka Gronow, David Kemp, Jim Leary, Richard Lingenfelter, Guy Logsdon, Anne Dhu McLucas, Bill Murlin, Harry Stein, Saul Schniderman, and Bob Waltz. My thanks to all of you—and apologies to others whose names have slipped my mind. My gratitude also to Debra Adams at Greenwood, for initiating this project and supporting it enthusiastically. To the memories of D. K. Wilgus and Ed Kahn, who did much to start my path of inquiry that eventually led to this book, I pause to pay my respects. To my wife and best friend, whose patience and sympathies I have often taxed unreasonably, I offer love and thanks.

Introduction

“What did Delaware, boys, what did Delaware? I ask you again as a personal friend, what did Delaware?” “She wore a New Jersey, boys, she wore a New Jersey I tell you again as a personal friend, She wore a New Jersey.”

So begins a folk song of the early twentieth century, long sung at summer camps, community sings, and in children’s groups. Though it may be best remembered as a hit recording by Perry Como in the 1960s, it was traditional well before that, and still inspires homemade variations. (Successive stanzas invoke puns on other state names: “What did Tennessee? She saw what Arkansaw,” “What did Ida-hoe? She hoed her Maryland,” etc.) But—taking the opening question in a slightly different vein—we can ask, what did the early Delawareans wear? As recently emigrated settlers to a strange and mysterious continent, they surely wore whatever was the style among the British (or Dutch, or Swedish) towns and villages whence they came. Similarly for America’s other first-generation immigrants: they wore the clothing of late-seventeenth- or early-eighteenth-century Europe or Africa. The voluntary immigrants probably brought a few trunks with some additional clothing; one assumes the Africans were not offered such an opportunity. Once in America, these people would have worn out the clothing they brought and then, if they could have afforded, continued to import finished garments from their mother countries. By the late eighteenth century, as Americans developed a sense of their own identity, not only political but also social and cultural, they would have inclined more to make their own clothes or purchase from local tailors or dressmakers. Different circumstances of climate, occupation, and availability would necessarily have prompted changes in their clothing styles. However, the fact that clothing serves well-defined purposes, regardless of where and when the

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INTRODUCTION

wearers dwell, means the unessential features—color, decoration, frills, material—might change, but a sixteenth-century pilgrim would have no trouble recognizing a twenty-firstcentury pair of trousers for what they are. To a considerable extent, much the same can be said for other immigrant cultural baggage, whether worn, manipulated, read, or sung. Those brave souls brought some songs with them and continued to sing them in America. But changing conditions—occupation, climate, politics, mores, technology, interests—made some of their traditional songs lose their appeal, and occasioned their replacement with newer songs. Of course, we are presupposing that they sang something. To twenty-first-century urbanites, this may not be entirely obvious, in view of the extent to which we now, as a society, rely on electronic and mechanical devices to bathe us with what passes for music. For the past millennium (if not longer), Western societies have enjoyed entertainment by professional songwriters and music makers; that in itself is not a new phenomenon. It is safe to say, though, that as greater numbers of us could afford professional entertainment (in person or via electronic media), we have concurrently chosen to abdicate personal music making in their favor. Today, public music making is not a uniformly distributed vocation or avocation. Young children sing in school yards; teens put together rock bands; elders sing in churches and temples; parents and schoolteachers croon to youngsters; and we can all chime in on “Star Spangled Banner” at a baseball game or “Happy Birthday to You” when the table next to us at the restaurant fetes one of its participants. Yet outside of these brief experiences, for many of us, public music making is a rare event. The transformation did not come suddenly. Nor can we lay the blame at television’s door, much as some critics would like. Musical self-entertainment has declined as a result of a succession of innovations of the last century and a half that have offered enticing alternatives, starting with the minstrel stage and vaudeville, then the player piano and gramophone/phonograph, then the recreational automobile and the motion pictures, then radio and television, and finally, the newer electronic media so compact that we can hide them away in our pockets, purses, and ears. So let it be acknowledged that folk music is not driven out by education or urbanization, but it certainly is a delicate and precious bloom that is easily crowded out by vigorous and hardy commercial competitors. There are various ways to define a folk or traditional song. I take the perspective that these are songs that survive in a community without the need for commercial media. In other words, it matters not who made the song, or how it was first disseminated; if, at some time in its existence, it was perpetuated by transmission from person to person or community to community by noncommercial means (generally orally, but some other media can serve), then during that period, it was a folk song. A song can start out as a popular or concert song and be transmitted mainly or exclusively in sheet music, song sheets (broadsides), cheap print, recordings, or public concerts. It can then lose general popularity (the sheet music and books and CDs fall out of print; the copyrights expire), but still enjoy some currency in particular groups or communities. In that phase it is a folk song, and can so endure for decades, or even centuries. Quite possibly, at some later date, some professional singer, performer, or songwriter might take a fancy to the piece and resurrect it—republish it, rearrange it, perform it—and suddenly, it again becomes a pop(ular) song. This is not a completely hypothetical life cycle; many American songs have traversed just such a trajectory: imported ballads, such as “Barbara Allen,” and native products, such as “Casey Jones”—and perhaps even “What Did Delaware?” These two volumes constitute a collection of songs associated with individual states (or, in some cases, regions) of the United States. To the best of our knowledge (but see subsequent discussion), they were all folk songs at one time or other; some have been long

INTRODUCTION

xiii

forgotten but are still of interest to historians, folklorists, musicologists, and sociologists concerned with the various turns of American culture and style. In the same way, we long to know what the first Delawareans wore, not necessarily so we can don such garments ourselves, but so we will appreciate all the better their lives and experiences. I have hedged a bit by asserting that “to the best of our knowledge,” they were all folk songs. While there is by no means universal agreement on what is a folk song (compare the contents of bins labeled “folk” in music stores today with the songs in a published scholarly collection of folk songs), most individuals who have studied the subject in depth concur that persistence in oral tradition for some (unspecified) duration is a sine qua non for identification as a folk song. It isn’t difficult to verify that characteristic for songs that have been recorded by folk song collectors in the last century. But what about songs of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? If oral tradition is a hallmark, are we left helpless when all the echoes of that tradition have died away? If we have no direct evidence—no recordings, no incontrovertible documentation that such items were sung and perpetuated through oral tradition—what, then, is our basis for asserting that such and such a song is or was a folk song? There are several possible kinds. In the first place, there are manuscript collections: songs written down by folks who wanted to remember texts that they liked. Many singers in the United States and England have made such ballad books (often called “ballet” or “ballit” books), some of which have found their way into libraries, archives, and personal collections. There are the logs of whaling ships. In the nineteenth century, many sailors and whalers kept journals at sea and would write down songs to while away the hours. Similarly, there are diaries of land-bound individuals, including travelers (such as westward-bound pioneers) who noted down the songs that were sung around campfires or at other social gatherings—or, better yet, wrote down the song texts themselves. There are notebooks of prisoners with little to do and lots of time to do it. There are numerous nineteenth- (and also twentieth-) century newspapers that featured regular song /poem columns, in which readers would ask for the words to a particular favorite and some other reader would supply same. When such a text does not exist in a published version, or where it differs significantly from the published version, we can be confident that the writer was reporting from memory, rather than from print. Then there is a commercial means of dissemination that is practically extinct today: the cheap print media of broadsides (also called “songsheets”), songsters, chapbooks, and almanacs—all publications that were sold by itinerant peddlers in local fairs, on street corners, or even (toward the end of their heyday) by mail from a publisher. Broadsides are single sheets of paper printed on one side and cheaply sold by the means indicated. They could have announcements, news items, religious texts, or—more pertinent to our interest—the lyrics to songs. Songsters and chapbooks were booklets, usually pocket-sized and in paper covers, ranging from 4 to 64 pages (though some songsters were 256 pages in hard cover), primarily filled with song texts, but occasionally supplemented by jokes, anecdotes, advertisements, recipes, and other matters. They rarely included printed music—generally too costly for such cheap products. The song texts were in some cases purchased or leased from legitimate music publishers, but more often, they were cribbed from other, undesignated, sources. We speculate that the printers may have written some themselves, or hired songwriters to write for them; in other cases they printed up old songs that they themselves knew, or that other folks brought them to have printed. Knowledgeable readers perusing this collection will note that (and perhaps wonder why) I have frequently selected examples from cheap print of the nineteenth century, even when traditional versions are available in folk song collections. My reasons are three: (1) most

xiv

INTRODUCTION

important, these cheap print versions are often hard to find today, and by providing them I hope to restore them to the discourse of interested parties; (2) the printed versions are almost always older and more complete texts, thus bringing us closer to the song as it was originally disseminated; and (3) the problem of copyrights is avoided (see subsequent discussion)—and incidentally, the validity of some copyrights attached to versions in folk song collections is weakened. Since Father Time marched westward with the pioneers, there are parallel shifts in the dissemination media that accompany migrations in longitude. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in New England, the broadside was the preeminent medium of cheap publication—apparently even more so than in coeval southern seaboard colonies such as the Carolinas and Virginia. By the late nineteenth century, out West, songs and poems were to be found in local newspapers and trade journals of cattlemen and farmers. By the early twentieth century, the number of phonographic recordings of local ballads and songs began to spin out of control. The appearance of a song in just one of these media is insufficient grounds for concluding that the song was a folk or traditional song, but multiple sightings in different media may cumulatively constitute a convincing case. The experienced eye of the knowledgeable song historian is essential in sorting out the reliable from the questionable evidence—and no one is error-free in making such judgments. Some songs taken from early printed sources are included mainly on the basis of textual style (they are similar to other songs of verifiable oral tradition) or tune (they are set to a traditional tune, rather than an original one). Some may pass stylistic criteria yet lack proof that they were actually sung. It is, to be sure, an imperfect process, but it is more likely to exclude traditional songs than it is to include nontraditional ones. I have resorted to plucking the fruits from these borderline trees only where the center of the orchard is too barren to yield sufficient delectables. Readers will find, as they sift through the song lore of the states, that a different aspect of history is often presented from what is encountered in our formal histories and textbooks. Folk songs and popular songs lean more toward attitudes and opinions than toward so-called historical facts. Even ballads that purport to present factual accounts may rely on second- or thirdhand sources, sometimes years old. And when the ballads present verifiable historical accounts, we are likely to find that they probe history at a level beneath that of the so-called official version. The events that singers and songwriters tend to create and remember are not necessarily the ones that deserved the newspaper headlines—nor, more to the point, careful treatments in history books an age later. If a folk song commemorates a major war battle, it is more likely to deal with the heroics or tragic death of a favorite son than with the political or tactical implications of the conflict. We should no more incline to accept the old broadsides as reliable chroniclers of past events than we would today’s supermarket tabloids. Over the years, historians have shifted from a position of ignoring popular culture documents to parading them as valuable chips of the fragmentary historical record. But the question whether songs reflect public attitudes is often not easily answered. We need more information: who wrote the song, and for what purpose and what audience? Some songs were intended as propaganda; some were wishful thinking on the part of the writers; some were written merely because the author/publisher thought they would turn a quick dollar (or shilling). Even in the past few decades, one can find pairs of songs that present diametrically opposing attitudes toward a particular social issue: divorce, fidelity, workplace, immigration, war, abortion. Songs—even the very popular or widely selling ones—are

INTRODUCTION

xv

not polls or surveys of public sentiment. Occasionally, social historians have been eager to infer preponderance of one faction or another over some social issue on the basis of a handful of published songs. Such conclusions are not always justified: the lyrics of a song surely represent somebody’s opinion, but almost certainly not nearly everybody’s. I have tried to select songs that—in their day—reflected important moments or movements in their respective states’ histories, rather than only songs that are still remembered and sung. There will thus be a systematic trend in the ages of the songs that reflects geography: the original colonies are epitomized by some songs as old as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whereas states of the far Northwest offer little song lore from before the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. This is not so say that songs originating or popular in Vermont and Massachusetts were completely unknown west of the Mississippi; songs, like other cultural artifacts, migrate with the people, and good songs (like “Barbara Allen” and “Froggie Went a Courtin’ ”) have crossed many national boundaries and state lines and have endured for three or four centuries. But popularity and endurance are not our primary criteria in this discussion, so such songs, unless they earn special consideration on account of the way a particular community has adapted them, may be passed over. While the associations between most of the songs and their designated states are unimpeachable, readers may be inclined to quibble with a few assignments. Does the fact that a song concerns a disaster that occurred off the coast of New Jersey make it a New Jersey song? Is a song about an event that took place in a city that was, at the time, part of Virginia, but is now part of West Virginia, to be considered a Virginia song or a West Virginia song? In which state do we place a ballad about a badman born in Kentucky and hanged in West Virginia, with a life of crime unselfishly divided between the two? Readers will encounter all of these and several others where the placements can be questioned. Folklore’s respect for state lines is less consistent than the decisions of a court of arbitration. There are also instances of songs that have served the good folk of more than one state with little more than the alteration of a handful of words. “Come All You Virginia Gals” and its kin is a good example; it shows up in a dozen different states, and several variants are included here. In most states, English-language songs will predominate—we may swim in a melting pot, but most of the ingredients were dug out of fertile British soil. Nevertheless, the pot has been seasoned from thyme to thyme with extraction from many other cultural gardens. Hence there are songs reflecting the particular circumstances of Hispanic American, Franco American, and other communities as well. In some locations—Albuquerque, New Orleans, or Honolulu, for example—non-English songs will remind us that not all our nonAnglo neighbors are recent arrivals but may descend from immigrants who have been in the New World for centuries. Living at a time when too many citizens exhibit little patience for immigrant groups, we had best be well informed on the matter of who are the newcomers. And as for those Americans to whom all European Americans are newcomers: sadly, few Native American songs are textually of the sort that we are seeking in this survey. Nevertheless, to ignore them completely would perpetuate an injustice that has already continued longer than forgivable. The collection emphasizes the songs as texts since this is their aspect that informs us most readily, though it cannot be denied that a folk song without its tune is considerably disadvantaged. Where the music is not well-known abundant references are provided to books, recordings, and online sources where the music (and more examples) can be found. So what kinds of songs do we find in this survey of state-specific songs? A handful of categories stand out:

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INTRODUCTION

War songs. A few from the colonial period ( French and Indian War), but mostly from the wars with Britain ( Revolutionary War and War of 1812) and the Civil War. Songs about local historical events (other than war) or institutions. These include labor disputes and mine closures, local festivals and celebrations, and noteworthy incidents, mostly the kind that do not get noticed far from the place of occurrence. Songs about local crimes and criminals. Some about prominent badmen (Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde), others about less widely known local ne’er-do-wells. Songs about local tragedies and disasters, including occupational accidents. Train wrecks, shipwrecks, logging accidents, mining disasters, floods, fires, earthquakes, and so on. Songs in praise of, or describing, the state or its inhabitants. These include so-called booster songs— designed to lure prospective settlers to a particular town, region, or state—and also the songs of folks just puffing their chests out in a little self-congratulation. Ethnic songs (in a language other than English and /or about a minority ethnic community). These represent the Native Americans, the Spanish Americans, the Chinese and Japanese, the Franco Americans, and others—their experiences as immigrants, special events within their communities, and so on.

This classification scheme is not flawless, inasmuch as some of the songs could easily fit more than one category, and it fails to account for a sizeable number of songs that fit none of these categories. Nevertheless, the distribution of songs is as follows: CHAPTER

TYPE War Historical Crime Tragedies

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

New England Midland Upper South Deep South Great Lakes Midwest Southwest Mountain Region Far West

Total

Descriptive

Ethnic Other Total

11 13 12 13 4 1 0 2 0

2 3 14 8 7 7 5 15 10

8 9 25 18 13 2 3 3 5

11 10 13 9 12 3 0 0 2

4 3 3 3 4 5 0 3 2

0 4 0 5 3 1 6 0 9

13 8 8 18 16 13 19 32 32

49 50 75 74 59 32 33 55 60

56

71

86

60

27

28

159

487

The distribution is much less even than one might like, but the preserved record has not treated all regions of the country equally, nor is it unreasonable to conclude that some regions have just been more fecund in the generation of folk songs and ballads. There are very few copyright notices affixed to the song texts presented: this is as it should be. Only a few of the more recent songs deserve copyright protection by virtue of being the original product of one (or a few) person’s creativity within the legally prescribed time interval. Many songs in modern folk song collections have accumulated questionable copyright notices. These are defended by their presenters on the grounds that: 1. The editor “collected” the song and deserves remuneration for preserving it for posterity. 2. The arranger has artfully added some accompaniment that entitles him or her to claim compensation via copyright. 3. The song is undeniably “p.d.” (in the public domain), but no one will notice or contest a copyright claim.

INTRODUCTION

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In the first two cases, the editor or arranger who has thus contributed something worthwhile to the community justly deserves financial reward, but the current mechanism of copyright protection may not be the best means for according it. Anglo American copyright laws were developed centuries ago to protect personal intellectual property rights and stimulate creativity. They were not conceived with material such as folk songs—originating in the remote past and then modified by a succession of anonymous tinkers—in mind, and the efforts to subsume traditional lore under the copyright umbrella have brought a hard rain down on many legal minds, to say nothing of those of the folk song scholars. The claim to a copyright (whether formally filed or not—a requirement deleted from the latest copyright law revisions) is no more than a claim; it is not evidence that anyone has researched the song’s history and determined (as is supposed to be done in the case of a patent claim) that good grounds exist for the claimant’s declaration. Otherwise, the more than 100 current copyrights on “Barbara Allen” (demonstrably as old as the seventeenth century) or the more than 250 on “John Henry” (from the late 1800s) would have been subject to considerable litigation. Songs in this collection without individual copyright statements are believed to be in the public domain, regardless of any assertions elsewhere to the contrary.

Political Chronology

1607 1609 1620 1633 1635 1636 1653 1664 1670 1680 1682 1689–1697 1701 1701 1702–1713 1733 1741 1744–1748 1754–1763 1763 1775–1783 1778 1781

Jamestown, Virginia, settled Santa Fe, New Mexico, founded Pilgrims land at Plymouth, Massachusetts Maryland colony settled Hartford, Connecticut, established by Puritans Providence, Rhode Island, founded by Roger Williams North Carolina settled New Netherlands seized from Dutch and renamed New York Charleston, South Carolina, founded New Hampshire made a separate colony Pennsylvania settled by William Penn King William’s War (also called the first of the four wars of the French and Indian War) Military post of Detroit, Michigan, founded Delaware chartered as separate colony Queen Anne’s War (second French and Indian War) Colony of Georgia established by Oglethorpe and others Alaska discovered by Russian explorer Vitus Bering King George’s War (third French and Indian War) French and Indian War ( part of European Seven Years’ War) Great Britain gains New France ( Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, part of Minnesota east of Mississippi River) and Spanish Florida American Revolutionary War Oregon, Alaska, and Hawaii visited by English explorer James Cook General Cornwallis surrenders to American and French forces at Yorktown, effectively ending the Revolutionary War

xx

1783

1787 1787 1790 1792 1798 1800 1803 1804–1806 1805 1805 1809 1812 1812–1815 1817 1819 1819 1819 1820 1820 1821 1822 1825 1836 1836 1838 1844 1844 1845 1846 1846 1848

1848 1849 1850 1850

POLITICAL CHRONOLOGY

Treaty of Paris formally concludes Revolutionary War: Britain recognizes American independence and cedes Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and parts of Minnesota east of Mississippi River to United States; Florida is returned to Spain Northwest Territory acquired Ohio Territory established Tennessee Territory established Columbia River ( Washington and Oregon) discovered by Captain Robert Gray Mississippi becomes a territory Indiana Territory established, including Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota Louisiana Territory purchased from France President Jefferson requests Lewis and Clark to explore the Northwest Michigan Territory organized Louisiana becomes a territory Illinois organized as separate territory, including eastern part of Minnesota Missouri becomes a territory War of 1812 Alabama becomes a territory U.S. claim to Texas relinquished by treaty with Spain; Texas becomes a province of Mexico; Spain withdraws claims from Oregon Arkansas becomes a territory United States acquires Spanish Florida Missouri Compromise determines limits of slavery in new territories and states Hawaii first visited by American Christian missionaries New Mexico becomes part of Mexico Florida becomes a territory Russia withdraws claims from Oregon Wisconsin Territory organized (including part of Iowa) Republic of Texas established Iowa Territory organized, including parts of Minnesota and Dakotas Hawaiian independence recognized by United States, Great Britain, and France Anti-Irish riots in Philadelphia Texas (including part of New Mexico) admitted to Union Mexican province of California conquered by United States Oregon Treaty with Great Britain establishes 49th parallel as border between U.S. and Canada Mexican War concluded by Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; Texas-Mexico boundary fixed along Rio Grande; New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, and parts of Colorado ceded to United States Gold discovered at Sutter’s Fort, California Minnesota Territory organized New Mexico (including Arizona and part of Colorado) organized as a territory Texas transfers its claim on Wyoming to United States

POLITICAL CHRONOLOGY

1850 1853 1853 1854 1855–1856 1858 1859 1860 1860 1861 1861 1861 1863 1863 1864 1865 1867 1868 1870 1874 1889 1889 1890 1894 1896 1898 1900 1903 1907 1912

xxi

Utah Territory (including Nevada) organized Gadsden purchase from Mexico expands Arizona and New Mexico Washington (including portion of Idaho north of the 46th parallel) organized as Washington Territory Kansas-Nebraska Act creates separate Kansas and Nebraska territories; repeals Missouri Compromise of 1820 Indian War in Washington Territory Gold discovered at Cherry Creek, Colorado Silver discovered at Nevada’s Comstock Lode Gold discovered in Idaho South Carolina becomes first state to secede from Union Dakota (including much of Wyoming and Montana) organized as Dakota Territory Colorado and Nevada organized as separate territories Confederate forces attack Fort Sumter, South Carolina, beginning Civil War Arizona and Idaho both organized as separate territories West Virginia secedes from Virginia and is granted statehood Montana organized as Montana Territory General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox ends Civil War Alaska ceded by Russia to United States Wyoming Territory organized Texas readmitted to Union Gold discovered in North Dakota’s Black Hills Dakota divided into North and South Dakota; each is granted statehood Part of Oklahoma opened to white settlement Western part of Oklahoma organized as Oklahoma Territory Hawaii becomes a republic Gold discovered in Alaska War fought with Spain (Spanish-American War); Hawaii annexed by United States Hawaii established as U.S. territory Disputed Alaska–British Columbia boundary arbitrated in favor of United States Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory merge, making state of Oklahoma Alaska given territorial status

1 New England

New England was named by Captain John Smith, who explored its shores in 1614 on behalf of a group of London merchants. It was early settled by industrious English Puritans, whose work ethic was well suited to the new country, where the work was long and life too short. During the seventeenth century the population’s high esteem for education led to the development of now-honored institutions of higher learning, including Harvard (1636), Yale (1701), Brown (1764), and Dartmouth (1769). Isolated from the mother country, New England colonies evolved representative governments, stressing town meetings, an expanded franchise, and civil liberties. The area was initially distinguished by the selfsufficient farm, but its abundant forests, streams, and harbors soon promoted the growth of a vigorous shipbuilding industry as well as maritime commerce. Parts of the region were claimed by both the French and English crowns, resulting in intermittent battles between the English, the Indians, and the French from 1613 until 1763, when the British conquered the French in eastern Canada. Phases of this conflict in America were separately designated King William’s War (1689–1697), Queen Anne’s War (1702– 1713), King George’s War (1744–1748), and then the French and Indian War (1754–1763)— the American phase of the Seven Years’ War. New England’s settlement occurred mainly in 1629–1640, during which approximately 21,000 souls emigrated from East Anglia. More than half of them were artisans, and a third were farmers. Some 90 percent came in families—a much larger percentage than characterized immigration to other regions. New England remained the most “English” American region for over a century: at the time of the first national census in 1790, between 76 and 91 percent of the white population claimed English (as distinct from Scots, Irish, or European) ancestry.1

2

AMERICAN FOLK SONGS

MAINE Coastal Maine is the traditional home of the “Down East Yankees”—originally English and Scotch Irish Protestant immigrants who founded the most substantial and persistent early European settlements in Maine. They set the style of dour and taciturn industry and dry wit that is characteristic of Maine legends and stories. From the 1650s until 1820, what is now Maine was virtually an annex to Massachusetts. The northeast boundary of the territory long remained a matter of serious controversy between the United States and Britain. The Treaty of Paris (1783) identified the boundary in part as extending along the middle of the St. Croix River to its source and from there north to highlands running northwest to the “head of the Connecticut river.” Identifying these highlands proved to be difficult. Efforts at arbitration failed in 1831, and the disputed area was the scene of the so-called Aroostook War of 1838–1839. In March 1839, General Winfield Scott arranged a truce calling for joint occupancy of the disputed territory. This remained in effect until 1842, when a settlement was reached that divided the territory virtually in half. Two groups of French descent make up the second largest ethnic bloc in the state. The Acadians, originally from Brittany and Normandy, were driven out of Nova Scotia in 1763 by the British; many of them settled in the St. John valley, which now forms the northern border of Maine, while others made the long trip to Louisiana. The second French Canadian migration from Quebec province began with the growth of the lumber and textile industries following the American Civil War. French is the primary language in much of the St. John Valley, and it is the second language in Maine’s industrial cities. Irish immigration to the state began in the eighteenth century, and the Irish and the French make up the bulk of Maine’s Roman Catholic population. French Huguenot and German settlements were established early near the coast. During the 1870s the state encouraged the building of a Swedish settlement in Aroostook County as part of a program for agricultural development and population growth.2 By 1790, more than three-fourths of the population of the region that was to become the state of Maine originated in England, with half of the remainder coming from Ireland (either Ulster or Irish Free State). Maine was separated from Massachusetts and admitted to the Union as the 23rd state in 1820. Lovewell’s Fight Of worthy Captain Lovewell I purpose now to sing, How valiantly he fought for his country and his king; He and his valiant soldiers did range the woods full wide, And hardships they endured to quell the Indians’ pride. ’Twas night unto Pigwacket upon the eighth of May, They spied a rebel Indian soon after break of day; He on a bank was standing, upon a neck of land, That leads into a pond as we’re made to understand. Our men resolv’d to have him, and travell’d two miles round, Until they met the Indian, who boldly stood his ground; Then up spoke Captain Lovewell, “Take you good heed,” said he. “This rogue is to decoy us I very plainly see. “The Indians lie in ambush, in some place nigh at hand, In order to surround us upon this neck of land;

NEW ENGLAND

Therefore we’ll march in order, and each man leave his pack, That we might better fight them when they make their attack.” They came unto this Indian, who did them thus defy, As soon as they came nigh him, two guns he did let fly, Which wounded Captain Lovewell, and likewise one man more, But when this rogue was running, they laid him in his gore. Then having scalp’d this Indian, they went back to the spot here they had left their packs, but there they found them not; For the Indians having spy’d them when they them down did lay, Did seize them for their plunder and carry them away. These rebels lay in ambush, this very place hard by, So that an English soldier did one of them espy, And cried out, “Here’s an Indian,” With that they started out; As fiercely as old lions, and hideously did shout. Then spake up Captain Lovewell, when first the fight began, “Fight on, my gallant heroes! you see they fall like rain.” For as we are inform’d, the Indians were so thick A man could scarcely fire a gun and not some of them hit. .... ’Twas ten o’clock in the morning when first the fight begun, And fiercely did continue until the setting sun; Excepting that the Indians, some hours before ’twas night, Drew off into the bushes and ceas’d a while to fight. But soon again returned, in fierce and furious mood, Shouting as in the morning, but yet not half so loud; For as we are informed, so thick and fast they fell, Scarce twenty of their number, at night did get home well. And that our valiant English, ’til midnight there did stay, To see whether the rebels would have another fray; But they no more returning, they made off towards their home, And brought away their wounded as far as they could come. Of all our valiant English, there were but thirty-four, And of the rebel Indians, there were about fourscore, And sixteen of our English did safely home return, The rest were kill’d and wounded, for which we all must mourn. Our worthy Captain Lovewell among them there did die; They killed Lieutenant Robbins and wounded good young Frye, Who was our English Chaplain, he many Indians slew, And some of them he scalp’d when bullets round him flew. Young Fullam too I’ll mention because he fought so well; Endeavouring to save a man a sacrifice he fell. But yet our valiant English in fight were ne’er dismayed, But still they kept their motion, and Wyman’s Captain made. Who shot the old chief Paugus, which did the foe defeat, Then set his men in order, and brought off the retreat; And braving many dangers and hardships in the way, They safe arriv’d at Dunstable the thirteenth day of May.3

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The above ballad was written to commemorate the deaths of several brave British soldiers (they would not yet be calling themselves American) killed by Indians in a skirmish in May 1725. The worthy Captain Lovewell had left from Dunstable, Massachusetts, in April, on an Indian raid. The Indian village of Pigwacket was located near the present-day village of Fryeburg, Maine. There, Lovewell and his patrol of some 40 men saw a lone Indian, whom they attacked and scalped. A careful reading reveals that there was probably a tactical blunder on the part of Captain Lovewell: he walked into an ambush that could have been avoided. In fact, folklorist Fannie Hardy Eckstorm concluded that there was some scandal associated with this battle, and certain details were covered up and some so-called facts altered. In the twenty-first century we are certainly familiar with reports of brave battles in wars fought on foreign soil, which we later learn were distorted to cover up errors on the part of our own troops. Evidence discussed by Eckstorm suggests that the ballad must have been written between May 24 and 27, just a few weeks after the events described. It is probably the ballad advertised by James Franklin’s print shop in the New-England Courant on May 31, “The Voluntier’s March; being a full and true Account of the bloody Fight which happen’d between Capt. Lovewell’s Company and the Indians at Pigwoket.” James Franklin was Benjamin Franklin’s brother, and Ben worked in James’s shop for several years. It was suspected that the ballad was authored by one of these Franklins, but Eckstorm argues that it was more likely the product of another Ben Franklin, our Ben’s uncle, who died in Boston in 1726. The Aroostook War Ye soldiers of Maine, Your bright weapons prepare; On your frontier’s arising The clouds of grim war. Your country’s invaded, Invaded the soil That your fathers have purchased With life blood and toil. Then “Hail the British!” Does anyone cry? “Move not the old landmarks,” The settlers reply. “Move not the old landmarks,” The scriptures enjoin, For our sons of Columbia Are west of the line.4

Folk song collector Roland Gray recovered three songs stemming from the border dispute between Maine and New Brunswick in 1839. Gray wrote, Rufus McIntire, the Maine land agent, was seized by armed New Brunswickers in the night of February 12, 1839, and taken to Frederickton jail. On the 13th, Sir John Harvey, Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick, issued a proclamation stating that the province had been invaded and calling for a draft of soldiers. This was regarded as a declaration of war, and within a week a large number of Maine men had taken up arms, acting under orders from Governor Fairfield. On the 17th, McLaughlin,

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warden of public lands in New Brunswick, and Captain Tibbets of the Tibique settlement, were brought as prisoners to Bangor. Negotiations, however, led to the withdrawal of the Maine troops in March and April, and no blood was shed. The question was settled by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. . . . These verses were found among the papers of the late Colonel Charles Jarvis of Ellsworth, Maine, who, in 1839, was appointed by Governor Fairfield to take charge of affairs on the Aroostok River after McIntire had been kidnapped. One of the men wrote these lines while sitting by the campfire one winter night. These facts are supplied by Mary A. Greely of Ellsworth, 1916.5 Canada-I-O Come all ye jolly lumbermen, and listen to my song, But do not get discouraged, the length it is not long, Concerning of some lumbermen, who did agree to go To spend one pleasant winter up in Canada I O. It happened late one season in the fall of fifty-three, A preacher of the gospel one morning came to me; Said he, “My jolly fellow, how would you like to go To spend one pleasant winter up in Canada I O?” To him I quickly made reply, and unto him did say: “In going out to Canada depends upon the pay. If you will pay good wages, my passage to and fro, I think I’ll go along with you to Canada I O.” “Yes, we will pay good wages, and will pay your passage out, Provided you sign papers that you will stay the route; But if you do get homesick, and swear that home you’ll go, We never can your passage pay from Canada I O. “And if you get dissatisfied, and do not wish to stay, We do not wish to bind you, no, not one single day; You just refund the money we had to pay, you know, Then you can leave that bonny place called Canada I O.” It was by his gift of flattery he enlisted quite a train, Some twenty-five or thirty, both well and able men; We had a pleasant journey o’er the road we had to go, Till we landed at Three Rivers, up in Canada I O. But there our joys were ended, and our sorrows did begin; Fields, Phillips and Norcross they then came marching in; They sent us all directions, some where I do not know, Among those jabbering Frenchmen up in Canada I O. After we had suffered there some eight or ten long weeks, We arrived at headquarters, up among the lakes; We thought we’d find a paradise, at least they told us so— God grant there may be no worse hell than Canada I O. To describe what we have suffered is past the art of man, But to give a fair description, I will do the best I can; Our food the dogs would snarl at, our beds were on the snow; We suffered worse than murderers up in Canada I O. Our hearts were made of iron and our souls were cased with steel, The hardships of that winter could never make us yield;

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Fields, Phillips and Norcross they found their match, I know, Among the boys that went from Maine to Canada I O. But now our lumbering is over and we are returning home, To greet our wives and sweethearts and never more to roam, To greet our friends and neighbors; we’ll tell them not to go Unto that God-forsaken place called Canada I O.6

This song depicting the harsher side of the lumberman’s experiences was written by Ephraim Braley, a lumberman who lived in Hudson, Maine, in about 1856. In 1853 Braley and others hired out to Fields, Phillips and Norcross, lumbermen, to go to Three Rivers, Quebec, to work in the woods. Braley used an older song, “Canada I O,” printed in the 1840s in the Forget Me Not Songster, as his model. That song was in turn a recomposition of a British love song, “Caledonia,” first printed before 1800. Several other folk poets have recomposed “Canada I O” to fit other conditions: “Michigan-I-O” (see chapter 5) describes the experiences of lumbermen in Saginaw, Michigan; “Buffalo Skinners” (chapter 7) moves the song to the southwest in the 1870s; and “Way Out in Idaho” (chapter 8) is a derivative railroading song from 1882–1884. It is characteristic of folk songs that the names of persons involved are introduced without a thought of explanation: in songs intended only for local consumption, any elaboration is unnecessary. Henry K. Sawyer It was on last Sunday morning, of June the eighth day, When Henry K. Sawyer from home went away; When Henry K. Sawyer, a man of renown, Took a seat on the tender to ride to Oldtown. ’Twas down near Stillwater, they ran off the track; The wood on the tender struck him on the back; The engine capsized and sad to relate, Which placed this poor man in a horrible state. The weight of the engine confin-ed him down, While steam and hot water gave him his death wound; In this situation thirty minutes he lay, Till at length they released him by digging away. And when they survived him, brought tears to their eyes; His shrieks met the air, his poor groans met the skies; He cries, “God have mercy and suffer my life, And suffer me once more to see my dear wife.” A car then was taken from the rear of the train, And on this same car the poor sufferer was lain. Six men took the car and they ran it for their life, And he did once more work and converse with his wife. They ran it six miles in three-fourths of an hour, Until they were released by the strength of horse power; But when they arrived at the depot they saw His poor distressed wife standing in agony. There was many there collected to see his sad face, Which pain would have relieved but it was then too late;

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He was taken from the car, carried into a room, And in a short time this poor man met his doom. This happened at seven; he expired at noon. In the morning no one thought of his dying so soon; He turned to his wife, saying, “Jane, I must die.” With a calm resignation he bade her good-bye. ’Twas twelve years or better he had worked on this track; He never was known once a duty to lack. Now think on this widow, and on her distress, And make her a present and God will you bless.7

Henry K. Sawyer was a superintendent of repairs on the Bangor and Piscataquis Canal and Railroad Company, later often called the “General Veazie Railroad.” On June 8, 1848, while he was riding the train headed for Oldtown, the train jumped the track near Stillwater, pinning him to the ground. He was brought back to Bangor but died shortly after.8 The ballad was well known after the accident occurred, but by the 1930s, when the editors of the New Green Mountain Songster (NGMS ) were collecting songs in New England, they found only three individuals who could recall any part of it. This rendition shows possible signs of memory loss: in the sixth stanza, the third line, “see” rather than “saw” would preserve the rhyme scheme, as would, in the first line of the seventh stanza, “fate” rather than “face.” The final stanza suggests that the ballad was written in part to encourage donations to help Sawyer’s widow, Mary J. Sawyer, who eventually was buried alongside her husband in the Stillwater Cemetery. Away Down East There’s a famous fabled country never seen by mortal eyes, Where the pumpkins they are growing, and the sun is said to rise, Which man doth not inhabit, neither reptile, bird, nor beast. And this fabled, famous country is away down east. It is called a land of notions, of apple-sauce and greens, A paradise of pumpkin pies, a land of pork and beans. But where it is who knoweth? neither mortal, man, nor beast. But one thing we’re assured of, ’tis away down east. Once a man in Indiana took his bundle in his hand, And came to New York city, to seek this fabled land; But how he stared on learning what is new to him at least: That this famous fabled land is further Down East. They away he puts to Boston, with all his main and might, And puts up at the Tremont House, quite sure that he was right, But they tell him in the morning, a curious fact at least, That he hadn’t yet began to get away Down East. Then he hurried off to Portland, with his bundle in his hand, And sees Mount Joy, great joy for him, for this must be the land; Poh, man, you’re crazy! for doubt not in the least, You go a long chalk further e’er you find Down East. Then away through mud to Bangor, by which he soiled his drabs, And the first that greets his vision is a pyramid of slabs;

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Why, this, says he is Egypt, here’s a pyramid, at least, And he thought that with a vengeance, he had found Down East. Goodness, gracious! yes, he’s found it! see how he cuts his pranks, He’s sure he can’t get further, for the piles of boards and planks; So pompously he questions, a Pat of humble caste, Who tells him he was never yate away Down Aste. But soon he spied a Native, who was up to snuff, I ween, Who pointing at a precipice says, don’t you see something green? Then off he jumped to rise no more, except he lives on yeast, And this I think should be his drink away Down East. And now has anxious mother whose tears will ever run, Is ever on the lookout to see her rising son, But she will strain her eyes in vain I calculate at least, Her son has set in regions yet away Down East.9

The expression “down east” refers to Maine and the maritime provinces of Canada. A “down-easter” is either a person or a vessel from that region. The term has been used at least since the 1820s. “Away Down East” was a favorite song of the Hutchinson Family, a singing troupe that concertized through New England and the eastern states in the 1840s and 1850s, often supporting such social causes as temperance and abolition. “The pyramid of slabs” refers to the piles of waste boards near the sawmills, which, with the advent of steam, replaced water as power for the vast lumber operations. “Drabs” was colloquial for clothes made of yellowish brown homespun. This can be sung to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Large sailing and whaling ships required tall, straight timbers for masts, and so Maine woodsmen began to harvest the state’s abundant virgin forests. Ballads and songs of lumberjacks were widespread, as expected considering the importance of this occupation in the nineteenth century, at first, especially in Maine, then gradually moving westward as forests were depleted from extensive timber cutting. The Logger’s Boast Come, all ye sons of freedom throughout the State of Maine, Come, all ye gallant lumberman, and listen to my strain; On the banks of the Penobscot, where the rapid waters flow, O! we’ll range the wild woods over, and a lumbering will go; Refrain: And a lumbering we’ll go, so a lumbering will go, O! we’ll range the wild woods over, and a lumbering will go. When the white frost gilds the valley, the cold congeals the flood; When many men have naught to do to earn their families bread; When the swollen streams are frozen, and the hills are clad with snow, O! we’ll range the wild woods over, and a lumbering will go. Refrain. When you pass through the dense city, and pity all you meet, To hear their teeth chattering as they hurry down the street; In the red frost-proof flannel we’re incased from top to toe, O! we’ll range the wild woods over, and a lumbering will go. Refrain. You may boast of your gay parties, your pleasures, and your plays, And pity us poor lumbermen while dashing in your sleighs;

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We want no better pastime than to chase the buck and doe; O! we’ll range the wild woods over, and a lumbering will go. Refrain. The music of our burnished ax shall make the woods resound, And many a lofty ancient pine will tumble to the ground; At night, ho! round our good camp-fire we will sing while the rude winds blow, O! we’ll range the wild woods over, and a lumbering will go. Refrain. When winter’s snows are melted, and the ice-bound streams are free, We’ll run our logs to market, then haste our friends to see; How kindly true hearts welcome us, our wives and children too, We will spend with these the summer, and once more a lumbering go. Refrain. And when upon the long-hid soil the white pines disappear, We will cut the other forest trees, and sow whereon we clear; Our grain shall wave o’er valleys rich, our herds bedot the hills, When our feet no more are hurried on to tend the driving mills; Then no more a lumbering go, so no more a lumbering go, When our feet no more are hurried on to tend the driving mills. When our youthful days are ended, we will cease from winter toils, And each one through the summer warm will till the virgin soil; We’ve enough to eat, to drink, to wear, content through life to go, Then we’ll tell our wild adventures o’er, and no more a lumbering go; And no more a lumbering go, so no more a lumbering go, O! we’ll tell our wild adventures o’er, and no more a lumbering go.10

The author(s) of this sentimental piece from the mid-nineteenth century capsulize the life and times of the Maine lumberjack in a handful of picturesque stanzas. Lumbering is described as a wintertime occupation, when farming men could not work their soil; then with the melting of the snows, home they trudged to farms and families for the next seasons. While depicting the harsh conditions of the woods, the authors clearly show that the lumbermen loved their work, their recreation, and their camaraderie. In the Tunnel Riding up from Bangor, on the Pullman train, From a six weeks’ shooting in the woods of Maine; Quite extensive whiskers, beard, moustache as well, Sat a “student feller,” tall and fine and swell. Empty seat behind him, no one at his side, To a pleasant station now the train doth glide; Enter aged couple, take the hinder seat, Enter gentle maiden, beautiful, petite. Blushing she falters, “Is the seat engaged?” (See the aged couple properly enraged.) Student, quite ecstatic, sees her ticket’s “through”; Thinks of the long tunnel,—knows what he will do. So they sit and chatter, while the cinders fly, Till that “student feller” gets one in his eye; And the gentle maiden quickly turns about, “May I, if you please, sir, try to get it out?”

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Happy “student feller” feels a dainty touch, Hears a gentle whisper,—“Does it hurt you much?” Fizz! ding, dong! a moment in the tunnel quite, And a glorious darkness black as Egypt’s night. Out into the daylight darts the Pullman train, Student’s beaver ruffled just the merest grain; Maiden’s hair is tumbled, and there soon appeared, Cunning little ear-ring caught in student’s beard.11

This skillfully written poem is composed almost as a series of stage directions. Immensely popular during the 1890s, it has been variously titled “The Eastern Train,” “Riding Down from Bangor” (clearly “up” would make more sense than “down,” as given here), “On the Pullman Train,” “The Harvard Student,” and as titled here. Its first appearance was in an 1871 issue of the Harvard Advocate, where it was credited (somewhat unhelpfully) to “S.O.L.” It has also been attributed to Louis Shreve Osborne, a poet at Harvard and later a minister and public speaker. The Burning of Henry K. Robinson’s Camp in 1873 Come all you rambling young men and listen unto me, While I relate a story that happened in seventy-three; We hired with Henry K. Robinson into the woods to go, For to pass away the winter, through stormy sleet and snow. It was early in December, on Wednesday the third day, That myself and Jimmy Grady we started on our way; We hoped that night, if all was right, the Iron Works to gain, And the next day to Roach River go, through stormy sleet and rain. And early the next morning, before it was quite light, We started for the Grant Farm unto Weymouth’s camp that night; Our legs being tired and weary, the fourth day on the road, It was our delight when we hove in sight of the place of our abode. The next day being Sunday, which God has given to us, That we might love and worship him and in his mercy trust; All things he has prepared for us, no doubt as he thought best, When he gave us six days to labor and the seventh we might rest. And early the next morning, before it was quite light, Mr. Robinson looked around the camp to see if all was right; He called the boss up to him and unto him did say: “Come, George, you are my leading man, come show the boys the way.” There was Grady and Deplissey and likewise George and Al, They were chosen out of our number the timber for to fall; They started for the forest to find the trees that’s sound, And soon they brought their lofty tops all tumbling to the ground. All the names I will not mention, as you may understand, There were twenty-five or thirty, all good and able men; All working with good courage while scattered to and fro, And it was their delight, coming home at night, to see the landings grow.

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But soon misfortune came to us, as you will all soon hear, It was in the month of January, just twelve days from New Year; When Charlie came and told us that our camp had burned down, That our clothing and our bedding laid in ashes on the ground. And when the boys all heard the news, they all looked very sad, Saying, “We’ve lost our place of shelter and all the clothes we had.” A cold night coming on and nowhere for to go, The sky it was our covering and our bed was in the snow. But all that night by good moonlight, for cold we did not fear, We hovered there, with watchful care, till daylight did appear; And when the daylight came at last, like ravens we were fed, When Georgie stepped out in the yard and unto us he said: “Come, boys, at last this night is past, with many a chill and pain, Let us all take hold like heroes bold, and build our camp again.” Three days of hard labor, each man he done his best, For to have his camp built up again and have a chance to rest; And the third night, by good moonlight, we moved into our camp once more, We settled down, both safe and sound, as we were once before. And now that camp is finished and we have settled down again, I will give you the initials that you may guess my name; There is “H” for “hard,” and “N” for “none,” and “R” for “royal” role, Just add “YE” and you will see my Christian name is told. Then there is “T” to take each letter and place it where it belongs, And then proceed to “OMP” for “H” will not go wrong; Then spell the sun that rules the day, gives forth its silvery light— Those letters told, my name unfold, if you will just place them right. And to conclude and finish, this winter’s nearly gone, And springtime is a-coming when we will all return home; For to greet our wives and sweethearts—how happy it will seem, And we’ll go no more on the rapid shore of Rapogenus Stream.12

Fires may not have been a frequent problem in the wintry lumber camps of the Northeast, but they did occur, as this factual account relates. The ballad’s author, Henry K. Thompson, makes only a feeble pretense at concealing his identity from his readers. Though the language is not eloquent, Thompson has made an effort to maintain the internal rhyme, which may have been partly lost—along with two lines—in the five decades between his composition and its subsequent recollection. Ripogenus now designates a gorge, a lake, and a dam in northern Maine.

NEW HAMPSHIRE The New Hampshire region was included in a series of grants made by the English crown to John Mason and others during the 1620s. A fishing and trading settlement was established in 1623, and in 1629 the name “New Hampshire,” after the English county of Hampshire, was applied to a grant for a region between the Merrimack and Piscataqua rivers.

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From 1641 to 1679 the region was administered by the colonial government of Massachusetts. Following territorial and religious disputes between Massachusetts and Mason’s heirs, New Hampshire became a separate royal province in 1679. Boundary feuds with Massachusetts and New York over that part of the New Hampshire grant that became Vermont continued almost until the American Revolution. As antagonisms festered between the colonials and the British motherland, citizens of New Hampshire were overwhelmingly in sympathy with the aims of the revolutionary leaders. New Hampshire officially became a state in 1776 and, in June, issued its own declaration of independence from Great Britain three weeks before the national Declaration of July 4. New Hampshire was the ninth colony to ratify the proposed Constitution of the United States in 1788, thus providing the requisite number for the document to take effect.13 Joel Baker Come all young lovers far and near, A dismal story you shall hear, A young man did in Alstead dwell, Who lov’d a fair maid passing well. To her he went with tears ’tis said, And many solemn vows they made; She false girl, fill’d his heart with wo, Which sent him to the shades below. And when so cruel she did prove, And thus her true love did abuse, By choosing of another one, He cried I’m utterly undone. To her he went and thus he cried, Dear Sally, will you be my bride? For sure our vows must end the strife Or cut the brittle thread of life. No answer from her could he gain To ease him from his bitter pain; He said you’ve pierc’d my tender heart, Alas, this world and I must part! Now when her parents this did hear, They said we fear his death draws near With scornfulness the damsel spoke— I soon will send him to a rope. ’Twas on July, the second day, Oh, when the sun had roll’d away; Then by a musket’s dismal sound, His body by some friends was found. His body did lay on the floor, And from it ran the purple gore; Three deadly groans he gave, ’tis true, Then bid this sinful world adieu. ’Tis said the young man he was poor, ’Tis true, he had no great in store;

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I think I hear that fame does say, What the other gains is by the way. Now her new will I shall not name, Although he said there’s none to blame; Oh, from my heart I wish them well, For none but God alone can tell. Scarce had a month then pass’d away, When she with her new love did stay; Much would they dread and greatly fear, Then should his frightful ghost appear. Now lovers all, I pray be true, Don’t break your vows, what ere you do; The God above rules all below, May punish you with nameless wo. Some passed by his grave, ’tis said, And there cast slurs upon the dead; The time will come and soon will be, They must lie there as well as he. Now to conclude and make an end; I sat me down—these lines I’ve pen’d— God grant it may a warning be, To all who do these verses see.14

The Green Mountain Songster, from which this text was copied, is a hand-written song compilation made by a Vermont Revolutionary War veteran in 1823, of which only one copy is known. It is thus one of the earliest surviving American collections—and a unique one—of traditional songs, and of great interest on those counts alone. The events are placed in Alstead, New Hampshire, across the state border from Bellows Falls, Vermont, in the town of Rockingham. The story of unrequited love is not uncommon in ballad lore— compare, for example, the widely known “Barbara Allen,” in which Barbara spurns her lover because of a perceived slight on his part, and he dies of a broken heart as a result. At first, she laughs over his death, but soon suffers a turnabout of heart and dies of grief also. “Joel Baker” is a more unusual combination of elements: Baker’s unnamed sweetheart falls in love with another, and he, with characteristic despondency, threatens to take his own life. Far from repentant, she offers him a rope to hang himself. The announcement that she and her new love fear the return of Joel’s ghost is an unfulfilled teaser; whether the spirit materialized we are not told, but instead are warned with the customary farewell moral to be true to our vows. The tune has not survived, but, as the editors of the NGMS observed, any common tune such as “The Butcher Boy” would fit the text quite well. (The spelling “wo” for what we now usually spell “woe” was common in former times.) The Old Granite State (As sung with rapturous applause, by the Hutchinson Family) We have come from the mountains, (2) Of the old Granite State, We’re a band of brothers, (2) And we live among the hills;

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With a band of music, (2) We are passing ’round the world. We have left our aged parents, (2) In the old Granite State; We obtained their blessing, (2) And we blessed them in return; Good old fashioned singers, (2) They can make the air resound. We have eight other brothers, And of sisters just another, Besides our father and mother, In the old Granite State; With our present number, (2) There are fifteen in the tribe, Thirteen sons and daughters, (2) And their history we bring. Yes, while the air is ringing, With the wild mountain singing, We the news to you are bringing, From the old Granite State; ’Tis the tribe of Jesse, (2) And their several names we sing, ’Tis the tribe of Jesse, And their several names we sing. David, Noah, Andrew, Zeppy, Caleb, Joshua, Jess, and Benny, Judson, Rhoda, John, and Asa, And Abbey are our names; We’re the sons of Mary, Of the tribe of Jesse, And we now address ye, With our native mountain song; We’re the sons of Mary, Of the tribe of Jesse, And we now address ye, With our native mountain song; We are all real Yankees, (2) From the old Granite State, And by prudent guessing, (2) We shall whittle through the world; And by prudent guessing, We shall whittle through the world. We are all Washingtonians, Yes, we’re all Washingtonians, Heaven bless the Washingtonians, Of the old Granite State; We are all teetotalers. (2) And have signed the temperance pledge.

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We are all teetotalers. (2) And have signed the temperance pledge. Now three cheers altogether, Shout Columbia’s people ever, Yankee hearts none can sever, In the old Granite State. Like our sires before us, We will swell the chorus, Till the heavens o’er us, Shall rebound the loud hurrah. Like our sires before us, We will swell the chorus, Till the heavens o’er us, Shall rebound the loud hurrah. Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!15

Born and reared in Milford, New Hampshire, three brothers—Judson Hutchinson, tenor (1817–1859); John, a baritone who could sing falsetto (1821–1908); Asa, bass (1823– 1884)—and their youngest sister, Abby, contralto (1829–1892), formed a quartet and began concertizing in New England in 1841. Initially, their repertoire centered around conventional melodramatic songs, but the Hutchinsons’ contacts with Frederick Douglass and with the Washingtonian movement of reformed alcoholics led a fourth brother, Jesse, to invent original lyrics with abolitionist and temperance themes to familiar hymns and folk songs. The quartet sang at antislavery rallies, including a Boston rally that drew 20,000 people, as well as in concerts in the eastern and midwestern United States and spent much of 1845–1846 touring the British Isles. Despite a decline in popularity after the departure of Abby in 1849, the trio of brothers continued to tour together, sometimes attracting controversy, even violence, until 1855. In subsequent years the families of each brother formed several Hutchinson Family groups. They supported Abraham Lincoln’s presidential campaigns, backed the North in the Civil War, performed slave songs to call attention to the predicament of black Americans during the postwar period, and sang in support of women’s rights. Although several of the Hutchinsons wrote songs, most of the songs were based upon existing tunes; Abby, after leaving the quartet, was noted for writing songs and for her arrangements of spirituals. In their day, however, the Hutchinsons were best known for performing material composed by other songwriters, such as “John Brown’s Body” and “Tenting on the Old Camp Ground.”16 According to popular music historian Sigmund Spaeth, they wrote “The Old Granite State” in 1843. Other once-popular songs of theirs were “Get Off the Track,” “The Slave Mother,” “Excelsior” (with Longfellow), “Go Call the Doctor (or Anti-Calomel),” “Good Old Days of Yore,” “The Spider and the Fly,” “The Cottage of My Mother,” “The Bachelor’s Lament,” “Bingen on the Rhine,” “Cape Ann,” “Eight Dollars a Day,” “Go Call the Doctor and Be Quick,” “If I Were a Voice,” “My Mother’s Bible,” “Recollections of Home,” “Zeekel and Hully,” and “Mrs. Lofty and I.” The Factory Girl When I set out for Manchester, Some factory for to find,

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I left my native country, And all my friends behind. Refrain: Sing ter re a re I re O. But now I am in Manchester And summoned by the bell, I think more of the factory girls Than of my native dell. The factory bell begins to ring, And we must all obey, And to our old employment go, Or else be turned away. My overseer has cut my wages down To ten-and-six a week, And before I’ll work for that My true love’s heart I’ll seek. I do not like my overseer, I do not mean to stay, I mean to hire some depot cab To carry me away. No more I’ll oil my picker rod, No more I’ll brush my loom, No more I’ll scour my nasty floor, All in the weaving-room. No more I’ll draw the thread All through the harness eye, No more I’ll say, “My work goes so, O dear me, I shall die.” No more they’ll come to me and say, “Your ends they are all down, While I am up in the middle of the room, Or acting out the clown.” No more I’ll go to my overseer To come and fix my loom; No more I’ll go to him and say, “May I stay out til noon?” No more they’ll see me read, No more they’ll see me sew, No more they’ll come to me and say, “This work I sha’n’t allow.” No more I’ll hear the factory bell, That calls me from my bed; No more I’ll wash those dusty drums As they roll o’er my head. The factory life is a harass’d life, As I suppose you know, Do only think in the winter How much we undergo.

One of several broadsides from various New England towns in the 1840s complaining about the life of the factory girls. From the Kenneth S. Goldstein collection, Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University.

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No more will I tread the snow To get into the mill; No longer will I work so hard To get one dollar bill. No more I’ll put my bonnet on And hasten to the mill, While other girls are working hard, And I am sitting still. Come all ye pretty factory girls, I’ll have you understand, I’m going to leave the factory And return to my native land. By and by you’ll see me settle down With a pretty little man, They I will say to the factory girls, Come and see me when you can.17

American colonists mostly spun and wove their own textile materials; their few machinemade fabrics were imported from Great Britain. After the Revolutionary War, English immigrant Samuel Slater established the first water-powered cotton spinning and carding mill in America in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1790. (They were called “mills” because they required water power to turn the machinery and therefore were always located on rivers, preferably near waterfalls, where hydropower was abundant.) Incentives to further development of a domestic textile industry were the British Embargo Act of 1807 and the War of 1812, both of which interrupted commerce between England or Europe and the new nation. In 1814 Bostonian Francis Cabot Lowell, having returned from England with the details of English mill machinery fixed in his photographic memory, established a mill at Waltham, just west of Boston, on the Charles River—the first to integrate all textile operations in a single building. Lowell and his partners, the Boston Manufacturing Company (or Waltham Co.), concentrated on the production of coarse but durable cotton cloth—a fabric that perfectly suited frontier Americans—and found a ready and profitable market. Because the mills soon outgrew the limited water power of the Charles, in about 1822, after Lowell’s death, his partners broke ground on another mill near Chelmsford, on the Merrimack River north of Boston. The new site was named “Lowell” in honor of the recently deceased textile pioneer and was turning out cloth by 1823. By 1840, the same group of investors had established eight major mills in Lowell. Children lacking the skills to handle the complicated machinery and young men being needed for work on the family farm, Lowell’s mill owners conceived a novel plan to recruit young New England women, offering them better wages than they could obtain in other occupations open to them (such as seamstress, house maid, or schoolteacher). To avoid the inhumane circumstances of labor in English and European mills, the entrepreneurs envisioned a system whereby young middle-class women could work for a few years in the mills and then return to their homes, thus circumventing the establishment of a permanent working class. Knowing that potential employees and their families would be concerned with working and living conditions, the owners instituted company-run boarding houses adjacent to the mills, managed by upstanding women (often widows), to ensure their

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operatives’ security and propriety. Rooming and boarding expenses were deducted from the employees’ weekly pay. These acts were not entirely altruistic because going wages for women were considerably less than men expected, so overhead costs could be reduced substantially. Also, owners anticipated that in case of serious illness, their workers would return to their New England homes and not become a burden on the corporation. Thanks to this vision, textiles soon became a major industry of the region. Whatever the corporations’ motives, the result was that in the early years, the women workers were young, bright, literate, and from sturdy New England stock, living under conditions that, if not the most conducive to good health, were certainly morally flawless. In stark contrast, female factory workers in England were poor and uneducated, often harassed by unscrupulous and immoral men. Many English songs about factory girls slaving in the “dark Satanic mills” portrayed them as the unwilling objects of amorous or lustful attention from the opposite sex. In spite of the original intentions, early mills workers labored under difficult conditions: long hours, noisy factory environment, inadequate ventilation (windows were nailed shut and the rooms periodically sprayed with water to keep the threads from drying out and breaking), cotton fibers and dust in the air, crowding and lack of privacy in the boarding houses, and insufficient time “for manners” at meals, as one operative complained. Nevertheless, there were advantages: they were paid regularly and reliably—and in cash, unlike other mills, which often paid in company scrip, redeemable only at companyowned stores—they put their money in savings, and there were many educational opportunities (such as libraries and lectures) of which the women were eager to take advantage. As for the long hours, intolerable by today’s standards, they were no more than was expected of a typical domestic servant or farmworker. The average mill workweek in the 1830s and 1840s was 73 hours; a Lowell factory time table for 1853 declared the workweek to consist of 66 hours. In reality, the Lowell women were not inclined to complain about long hours because they were eager to earn as much money as possible; when they were exhausted by the conditions, they had pleasant country homes awaiting them. Many, in fact, protested about organized movements to shorten hours; it was reductions in pay, not long hours, that riled them. Women operatives in the late 1830s earned less than $2.00 a week; men earned almost twice as much. Young children were paid considerably less.18 Three-quarters of the typical antebellum workforce consisted of women, most of whom were 15–25 years of age and averaged three to four years of work in the mill before they returned home, married, or moved to other employment. Many of the women labored to help their economically challenged farming families; others sought to earn some spending money for themselves or to put aside money for a dowry. Probably a greater number worked to enable a brother or sweetheart to obtain a higher education. While conditions in the 1820s and early 1830s were generally tolerable, they steadily deteriorated in later years—partly in response to periodic economic downturns, but also owing to corporate greed. Working hours steadily lengthened, wages were occasionally cut, and workers were put in charge of greater numbers of spindles (“the stretch-out”) that were operated at great rates (the “speed-up”). Starting in the mid-1840s, a so-called premium system was inaugurated, by which overseers were paid extra for any production exceeding the normal. One means to overproduction consisted in turning back the clock in the evening to delay the ringing of the quitting bell. One positive result of the Lowell system was that overseers learned that the better-educated women generally learned faster and were more productive; hence it was to their advantage to encourage educational

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opportunities and to prefer middle-class New England women to uneducated foreigners. While different overseers had different attitudes toward reading during work, one universal proscription regarded complaints about hours or wages; these were immediate cause for dismissal. Songs complaining about textile factory life (titled “The Factory Girl/Maid” or something similar) were widespread in the 1840s, and several broadsides have survived that are set in Lowell, Massachusetts, or Manchester or Great Falls, New Hampshire. Versions have also been collected from oral tradition set in Lewiston and Winchendon, Maine. The song clearly belongs to all of New England. New Hampshire’s Manchester was named in 1810 in hopes that the booming mill town would emulate England’s Manchester. The Amoskeag Mill Cotton and Woolen Mfg. Co. contributed to the city’s growth by the 1810s. In the early 1830s, a larger mill was built modeled after the Lowell complex, with nearby accommodations for workers in both tenements and boarding houses. Soon, the city was served by the new Concord Railroad, which opened in 1842. By the following decade, the company was relying less on local labor than on imported skilled weavers from Scotland, Sweden, and Germany. The Brookfield Murder The Brookfield murder has come to light, By a young man rather short of sight; Joe Buzzell he hired and drove young Cook, To shoot the girl, so it seems to look. She sued for damage which if he’d paid Would have saved the time while in jail he laid. But he with murder born in his heart Soon caused young Susan to depart. On Monday evening as we tell, Miss Susan Hanson was known full well, Sat at her table doing some work, She little thought death so near did lurk. The thief and murderer with gun in hand Beside the house outside did stand. Discharged his gun through windowpane, And thus the promised bride was slain. It was a dreadful shock to the aged mother, The lamp was lit by the son and brother, There lay the daughter once so fair In death cold arms and bloodstained hair. No farewell words to her friends could say, But shot dead on the floor did lay. So young and fair and in life’s bloom, To be hurried away so soon to the tomb. Come, all young ladies, a warning take, And shun such reptiles for Susan’s sake. For he who shot this lady gay, Would burn your home while in bed you lay.19

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According to folk song collector Linscott, this murder took place in 1847. Joseph Buzzell, upon being sued by his former sweetheart, Susan Hanson, after he jilted her, hired Charles Cook to kill her. But shortly afterward he had a change of heart, leaped on his horse, and galloped off to Miss Hanson’s home in Brookfield to avert the murder. Alas, he arrived too late. After some five years, Buzzell was hanged and his accomplice imprisoned for life. In spite of preserving many factual details, the ballad is rather undistinguished. It is the kind of song that we would expect to be remembered only in the vicinity of the crime by those familiar with the characters involved. The final stanza, containing the obligatory moral, makes little sense: it would make no difference to the deceased Susan whether or not such “reptiles” are shunned. The Suncook Town Tragedy Come all young people, now draw near; Attend awhile and you shall hear, How a young person of renown Was murdered in fair Suncook Town. It was in the morning very cool When Josie started for her school, And many the time that road she passed But little thought she it would be her last. It was at the foot of Pembrook Street La Page lay ambushed with a stick; Long time ago his plans were laid To take the life of the fair maid. The mother watched with eager air, Hoping her daughter would appear, But when the shades of night drew near Her darling child did not appear. The weeping father and the son All thro’ the woods their search begun, And found at last to their surprise The murdered child before their eyes. Her head was from her body tore, Her clothes were all a crimson gore, And on her body marks did show Some skillful hand had dealt the blow. This monster now so deep in crime, He thought the peoples’ eyes to blind, But found at last to his mistake, They had him fast behind the grate. It was at Concord he was tried. Unto the last his crime denied, But he was found to guilty be, And the judge said, “Death is your plea. “And now, La Page, your work is done And you like Eveuse must be hung,

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For we must all examples make Till crime shall cease in the Granite State.”20

In 1728 the Honorable House of Representatives of His Majesty’s Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England granted six square miles of land to the survivors and heirs of nonsurvivors of Captain John Lovewell’s band of Indian fighters. Shortly afterward, the town took the name Suncook, the Indian name of the river flowing through the area. When the town was incorporated in 1759, it was given the name Pembroke in honor of Henry Herbert, ninth Earl of Pembroke in southern Wales.21 Miss Josie A. Langmaid, a 17-year-old student at Pembroke Academy in Pembroke, New Hampshire, failed to appear at school on the morning of October 4, 1875. When her whereabouts could not be accounted for in the evening, a search was conducted. Her headless, battered, bloody, and ravished body was found in the woods. Her head was found the next day, some distance away, concealed by her cloak. William Drew was arrested soon after on flimsy evidence and nearly lynched, so certain was the community of his guilt, but he was found to have a credible alibi. Some days later, the town elders of nearby St. Albans, Vermont, informed Pembroke authorities that a 42-year-old French Canadian named Joseph Lapage (or LePage or LaPagette) had been suspected of a similar murder of a young girl, Marietta Ball, a year previously but was released for want of sufficient evidence; Lapage had moved to Pembroke. Lapage’s trial commenced in Concord on January 4, 1876, and, in spite of scant evidence (and what later proved purjured testimony), was found guilty. The conviction was overturned two years later by the New Hampshire supreme court (insufficient evidence), and a retrial was held—with the same results. On March 14, 1878, the night preceding his hanging, Lapage broke down and confessed to both crimes. Pembroke was horror-struck by the murder and its aftermath. A broadside ballad was published soon afterward.22 A typical murdered girl ballad, from the “come-all-ye” incipit to the moralizing conclusion, this local ballad was certainly not distinguished enough to take root outside the locale of the events described and has not been collected outside of Vermont. Between 1875 and 1889, three books were published about the murder.23 In 2002 New Hampshire Public Television produced a 75-minute documentary on the murder, calling it “the most notorious New Hampshire crime of the 19th century.” In 2004 the recording from which this text was transcribed was added to the National Recording Registry. Ben Deane Good people all both great and small, read these lines penned by me; These lines were written by a man deprived of liberty, Who is serving out a sentence for a deed that I have done, And it’s here I fear I will remain ’til my race on earth is run. My name is Benjamin Deane and my age is forty-one, I was born in New Brunswick in the city of St. John, Nearly the Bay of Fundy where the seagulls loudly call, As they rock with pride on the silvery tide as the billows rise and fall. My parents reared me tenderly, brought me up in the fear of God, But long have they been slumbering beneath their native sod; Side by side they slumber in a quiet cemetery, Where the willows bow before the breeze from off the deep blue sea.

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Farewell unto my happy home, I ne’er shall see it more, No more I’ll watch the billows break upon its rock-bound shore; No more I’ll watch those ships go by with sails as white as snow, Bound for some port far o’er the sea, before the winds that blow. When I arrived in Berlin Falls some twenty years ago, The town was then about one-half as large as it is now; And laboring men of every nationality were there, For work was plenty, wages good, each man could get a share. The businessmen of Berlin then were making money fast, I thought that I too would invest before the boom had passed; A building leased on Mason Street and into business went, I kept a fruit and candy shop, likewise a restaurant. My business proved successful for I was beloved by all, I gained the favor of the great, the rich, the poor, and small; To my surprise, before a year had fully rolled around, In glittering gold I did possess more than a thousand pound. The coming year I wed with one, the fairest of the fair, Her eyes were of the heavenly blue and light brown was her hair; Her cheeks were like the dawn of morn, her form graceful and fair, Her smile as bright as morning light, her step as light as air. She was born of good parents and they reared her tenderly, ’Twas little did they ever think she would be slain by me; The night I gained her promise and her hand to me she gave, It would have been better far for her if she lay in her grave. I own I loved my fair young bride, which proved a prudent wife, ’Tis little did I think that I one day would take her life; But as the years rolled swiftly by upon the wings of time, I found the paths of pleasure had led to the fields of crime. I soon began a wild career caused by the thirst for gold, My property on Mason Street for a goodly sum I sold; I bought a building on Main Street, which cost a handsome sum, I ran a free-and-easy house and went to selling rum. My fair young wife would often beg me my steps to retrace, She told me that the path I trod led to death and disgrace; Had I but heeded her warning, I wouldn’t be here now, And she might still be living with no brand upon her brow. I soon began to associate with men of low degree, And my business kept me constantly in their base company; I quickly went from bad to worse, did many a deed of crime That never will be brought to light in future years of time. My fair young wife then fled with one whose name I will not write, Whose character was blacker than the darkest hour of night; To persuade her to return to me, it was my whole intent, So to the house where she then dwelt my steps I quickly bent. I cautiously approached the house and opened the hall door, I found the way to my wife’s room upon an upper floor;

23

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The sight that fell upon my gaze is stamped upon my mind, For on the bosom of a man my fair wife’s head reclined. The very fiends of hell, it seemed, my being did possess, I drew a loaded pistol and I aimed it at her breast; And when she saw the weapon, ’twas loudly she did cry, “For God’s sake, do not shoot me, Ben, for I’m not fit to die!” The bullet pierced her snowy breast, in a moment she was dead, “For God’s sake, you have shot me!” were the last words that she said; The trigger of that weapon either moved too fast or slow, Or else another would have passed with her to weal or woe. The last time that I saw my wife she lay upon the floor, Her long and light brown wavy hair was stained with crimson gore; The sun shone through the window on her cold and lifeless face, As the officers led me away from that polluted place. I have two daughters living, they’re orphans in a way, And should you chance to meet them, treat them kindly, I pray; Don’t charge them with their father’s sin, for on them there will rest A crimson stain long after I am mouldering back to dust.24

The events recalled in this ballad occurred in Berlin Falls (now Berlin), New Hampshire, at the end of the nineteenth century. Benjamin F. Deane was born in St. John, New Brunswick, in 1854, and moved to Berlin Falls in about 1880. As the ballad tells, he married a respectable local girl and went into business. In 1898, his wife left him. On May 4, Deane accosted his wife in a neighbor’s sitting room with another man, John Darling. Deane asked her to come home with him and she refused. He pulled a revolver; Darling grappled with him, the gun went off, and Mrs. Deane was shot, crying, “Oh, my God, you’ve killed me.” She fell over and died within minutes. Deane was tried, pled guilty, was convicted of second-degree murder, and was sentenced to 25 years in the state prison. He was released in less than 10; he remarried, settled down, and continued to live a respectable life until his death in 1924.25 Folklorist Edward “Sandy” Ives, who researched the matter fully, had concluded that the ballad was written by well-known poet and woodsman Joe Scott, and later, in corroboration, found a broadside on which Scott published his poem at some unknown date. Ives has also collected more than two dozen versions, most from retired woodsmen, in Maine, New York, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. Scott was born in New Brunswick in 1867 and worked in the Maine woods in the late 1880s. Ives encountered many older northeastern woodsmen who remembered Scott as a great singer and songwriter; he died in 1918.26 It is apparent from a comparison of the ballad with the facts of the events that Scott was familiar with Berlin Falls and either knew the Deane family or gathered information from other locals; whether he deliberately chose to change the details of the crime or was misled by hearsay accounts is uncertain, but the former seems more likely. What he produced is a romanticized account, much more in keeping with the tradition of the young man properly brought up who goes astray, turns to a life of crime, and ultimately dies for his misdeeds. The balladist portrays Deane as the one who strayed from the righteous path; there is no indication that the wife had any guilt. And moving the murder scene from a neighbor’s sitting room to the bed of an adulteress’s paramour certainly makes for a more dramatic

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story. Though the ballad doesn’t conclude with the typical gallows scene, there is a strong implication that the penitent narrator is about to be executed for his crime.

VERMONT European exploration of the area of Vermont began early in the seventeenth century. In 1609 the French explorer Samuel de Champlain discovered a lake there, to which he gave his name. The first permanent European settlement was established by the French in 1666 on Isle La Motte, an island in northern Lake Champlain. The name “Vermont” is derived from the French vert and mont (“green mountains”—hence the name of the Green Mountain Boys), reflecting the heavy coniferous forests that kept Vermont’s mountains green year-round. Unlike the original 13 colonies, Vermont’s early development began not as a chartered royal colony, but as a territory, the possession of which was disputed by New Hampshire and New York. In the decades before the Revolution, disputes arose when land grants by New Hampshire conflicted with similar grants issued by New York. Between 1770 and 1775, many early settlers joined Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys and fought off the Yorkers who tried to control Vermont. Later, when the American Revolution began, the same Green Mountain Boys were an important element in the fight for independence from England. Their successful assault on Fort Ticonderoga, on the New York side of Lake Champlain in May 1775, was perhaps the first offensive action of the Revolution. In 1777 the Vermonters created an independent republic—first as New Connecticut, then as Vermont—and they remained independent until they joined the Union on March 4, 1791, as the 14th state.27 Riflemen’s Song at Bennington Why come ye hither, Redcoats? Your mind what madness fills? In our valleys there is danger, and there’s danger in our hills! Oh, hear ye not the singing of the bugle wild and free? Full soon ye’ll know the ringing of the rifle from the tree! Chorus: For the rifle (clap, clap)— The rifle (clap, clap) In our hands will prove no trifle! Ye ride a goodly steed; ye may know another master. Ye forward come with speed, but ye’ll learn to back much faster, When ye meet our mountain boys and their leader, Johnny Stark, Lads who make but little noise, lads who always hit the mark! Chorus. Had ye no graves at home across the briny water, That hither ye must come like bullocks to the slaughter? If we the work must do, why, the sooner ’tis begun, If flint and trigger hold but true, the quicker ’twill be done. Chorus.28

The battle of Bennington took place on August 16, 1777, several miles west of Bennington, Vermont (actually in the state of New York). The objective of the Americans was to defend colonial military stores in Bennington. Brigadier General John Stark’s 1,600 militiamen (gathered together by Ethan Allen and Seth Warner) ambushed the enemy force of 800 British, Hessians, loyalists, and Indians, taking more than 700 prisoner. The battle is

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commemorated by an historic park near Walloomsac[k], New York, where the battle took place, and by a 306-foot obelisk in Old Bennington, Vermont.29 Maple Sweet, or, Vermont Sugar-Maker’s Song When you see the vapor pillars link the forest and the sky, You may know the days of sugar-making then are drawing nigh. Frosty night and thawy day make the maple pulses play Till congested with their sweetness, they delight to bleed away. Chorus: Then, bubble, bubble, bubble goes the pan. Furnish better music for the season if you can! See the golden billows! Watch their ebb and flow! Sweetest joys indeed we sugar-makers know! When the farmer comes a-trudging with his dripping buckets home You may know the days of sugar-making then have fully come; As the fragrant odors pour through the open kitchen door, How the eager children rally, ever loudly calling “more!” Chorus. You may wax it, you may grain it, fix it anyhow to eat, You will always smack your lips and say, “This very, sweet!” O, had David tasted some, ’neath his cedar palace dome, Maple sweet had got the praises of the honey and the comb. Do you say you don’t believe it? Take your saucer and a spoon; Though you’re sourer than a lemon, you’ll be sweeter very soon. Why! the greenest leaves you see on the spreading maple tree, Let they sip and sip all summer—will the autumn beauties be. Chorus.30

Few natural products are more strongly associated with the Northeast than maple syrup, maple sugar, and related products, and Vermont is still the state leading in maple syrup production. The preceding delightful song was written by Reverend Perrin B. Fiske, in Peacham, Vermont, in 1858. The circumstances of its composition are not known, but one can well imagine that it was written for some local festival or pageant and somehow managed to survive beyond its expected useful lifetime. The Song of the Vermonters —1779 Ho—all to the borders! Vermonters, come down, With your breeches of deerskin and jackets of brown; With your red woolen caps, and your moccasins, come, To the gathering summons of trumpet and drum. Come down with your rifles! Let grey wolf and fox Howl on in the shade of their primitive rocks; Let the bear feed securely from pig-pen and stall; Here’s two-legged game for your powder and ball. On our south came the Dutchmen, enveloped in grease; And arming for battle while canting of peace; On our east crafty Meshech has gathered his band To hang up our leaders and eat up our land.

This broadside printing of Whittier’s “Song of the Vermonters” is unusual in the extensive accompanying annotations. It probably dates from the mid-nineteenth century. William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.

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Ho—all to the rescue! For Satan shall work No gain for his legions of Hampshire and York! They claim our possessions—the pitiful knaves— The tribute we pay shall be prisons and graves! Let Clinton and Ten Broek, with bribes in their hands, Still seek to divide and parcel our lands; We’ve coats for our traitors, whoever they are; The warp is of feathers—the filling of tar. Does the “old Bay State” threaten? Does Congress complain? Swarms Hampshire in arms on our borders again? Bark the war-dogs of Britain aloud on the lake— Let ’em come; what they can they are welcome to take. What seek they among us? The pride of our wealth Is comfort, contentment, and labor, and health, And lands which, as Freemen, we only have trod, Independent of all, save the mercies of God. Yet we owe no allegiance, we bow to no throne, Our ruler is law, and the law is our own; Our leaders themselves are our own fellow-men, Who can handle the sword, or the scythe, or the pen. Our wives are all true, and our daughters are fair, With their blue eyes of smiles and their light flowing hair, All brisk at their wheels till the dark even-fall, Then blithe at the sleigh-ride, the husking, and ball! We’ve sheep on the hillsides, we’ve cows on the plain, And gay-tasselled corn-fields and rank growing grain; There are deer on the mountains, and wood-pigeons fly From the crack of our muskets, like clouds in the sky. And there’s fish in our streamlets and rivers which take Their course from the hills to our broad-bosomed lake; Through rock-arched Winooski and salmon leaps free, And the portly shad follows all fresh from the sea. Like a sunbeam the pickerel glides through the pool, And the spotted trout sleeps where the water is cool, Or darts from his shelter of rock and of root At the beaver’s quick plunge, or the angler’s pursuit. And ours are the mountains, which awfully rise, Till they rest their green heads on the blue of the skies; And ours are the forests unwasted, unshorn, Save where the wild path of the tempest is torn. And though savage and wild be this climate of ours, And brief be our season of fruits and of flowers, Far dearer the blast round our mountains which raves, Than the sweet summer zephyr which breathes over slaves! Hurrah for Vermont! For the land which we till Must have sons to defend her from valley and hill;

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Leave the harvest to rot on the fields where it grows, And the reaping of wheat for the reaping of foes. From far Michiscom’s wild valley, to where Poosoonsuck steals down from his wood-circled lair, From Shocticook River to Lutterlock town— Ho—all to the rescue! Vermonters, come down! Come York or come Hampshire, come traitors or knaves, If ye rule o’er our land, ye shall rule o’er our graves; Our vow is recorded—our banner unfurled, In the name of Vermont we defy all the world!31

The original text of this song is a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892), born near Haverhill, Massachusetts, and one of America’s most popular poets in the early nineteenth century. Like his parents, Whittier was a Quaker, and he devoted more than three decades to the abolition of slavery in the United States. Because of his opposition to war, he never acknowledged authorship of this poem until late in life. The Green Mountain Boys It was on one Monday morning in eighteen hundred and seventy-five, I thought myself quite happy to find myself alive. I harnessed up my horses, my business to pursue, And I went to hauling cordwood as I always used to do. The taverns being opened and the whisky running free, As soon as one glass was empty another was filled for me. Instead of hauling eight loads I didn’t haul but four, For I got so very drunk that I couldn’t haul no more. It was there I met my old companion—her name I will not tell. She told me that night where the dance was to be held. ’Twas hard to be persuaded, but with her I did agree For to meet her there that night where the fiddler was to be. I took my saddle on my arm and I traveled to the barn. I saddled up old Gray, not thinking of any harm. I saddled up old Gray and I rode away so quick That I hadn’t scarcely thought before I reached Greenlandville. My father followed after me as I heard the people say. He must have had a pile of tail, he never found the way. He peeked through every keyhole where he could spy a light ’Til his old grey locks were wet by the dew of the night. Fourteen of the Green Mountain boys were up on the floor to dance, As many of the prettiest girls that ever sailed from France. The fiddler, being Irish, and his elbow being strong, He played the grounds of Ireland for five hours long. “It’s past five o’clock, boys, we’ve all danced enough. Our pockets are empty making change those old cuffs. We’ll go home to our plows, boys, we’ll whistle, dance and sing, And we never shall be caught in such a drunken scrape again.

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“Come all ye good old women who tattle-tale about, Don’t add anything to this, for it’s bad enough without. Don’t add anything to this, or try to raise a fuss, For you’re guilt of the same, and perhaps a great deal worse.”32

The singer from whom the above song was recorded said that three or four men in the Chaffee Lumber Camp, Rutland-Chittenden, made up this song. It has also been collected in North Dakota, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. The Pennsylvania source said the song was sung in lumber camps there in the 1850s and 1860s, and in some versions, the date is 1805, rather than 1875. Possibly this version is a recomposition of an older piece. The Woodstock Bridge Disaster (The Hartford Wreck) In our country far or near, each day we read and hear, Of shocking accidents on land and sea; Your attention now I’ll call to the latest of them all, The Central Vermont railroad tragedy. As the Montreal Express was speeding at its best, Near Woodstock bridge it struck a broken rail; And with a fearful crash, down the dark abyss was dashed, New few survive to tell that awful tale. Chorus: ’Twas in the dead of night, and no words can paint that sight; The sleeping cars were filled with living freight; This ill-fated train was dashed to the river bed with a crash, And a hundred souls went down to meet their fate. Soon the wreck was in a blaze, horror met the victims’ gaze, Their frantic cries for help were sad to hear; None responded to their call, they must perish, one and all, Alas, kind friends no help for them was near. ’Tis shocking to relate, and sad to contemplate; No words can paint a picture of that sight; Little thought they death so nigh, when they bid their friends good-bye, Ere leaving home upon that fatal night. There’s one who’ll ne’er forget, that’s little Joe Maigret, He was with his father on the fatal train; Although wounded by the fall, when he heard his father’s call, To free him from the wreck he tried in vain. “ ’Tis no use, my boy,” said he, “There is no help for me!” Just then, the burning flames around him curled; Little Joe began to cry, as his father said “good-bye, We’ll meet again up in the other world!”33 The Montreal Express left Springfield, Massachusetts, at 8.15, February 4, 1887. The accident, due to a broken rail, occurred while the train was crossing the White River Bridge, at Hartford, Vermont, four miles beyond White River Junction. The engine, baggage and mail cars crossed the bridge safely; the passenger cars ran off the abutment of the bridge and down a fifty-foot chasm. Just as the cars left the rails, someone gave the emergency stop signal. Engineer Charles H. Pierce set the brakes and looked out of the cab window in time to witness the disaster, and with his fireman was the first to go to the rescue of the victims. Conductor Smith Sturtevant was pinned under the burning wreckage: Pierce saved him from burning to death on the spot, but the conductor died later of his injuries. Of the

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eighty-five persons on the train, including the crew, thirty-two were killed outright, thirty-six injured, and seventeen escaped unhurt.34

One of the passengers, Dieu Donne Maigret, of Shawinigan, Quebec, was pinned in the wreck; his son Joseph tried in vain to drag him from the advancing smoke and flames. The Boston Transcript quoted Joseph as saying that his father’s last words were, “Tell your mother good-bye.” The White Captive The moon had gone down o’er the hills of the West; Its last beam had faded on Moosilauk crest. ’Twas a midnight of horror! the red meteor flashed, And hoarse down the mountain, and hoarse down the mountain the cataract dashed. At intervals came, ’mid the hollow wind’s sigh, The hoot of the owl, and the catamount’s cry; The howl of the wolf from its lone granite cell, And the crash of the dead (2) forest tree as it fell. Amanda, the pride of her village and home, Far, far up the Merrimac waters had come; In war, led a captive, unfriended, forlorn, Her feet bathed in blood, and her garments all torn. At the foot of a hemlock the wild game was flung; Above, from its branches, the rude armor hung; From battle and plunder the warriors reposed— The toils of the day, which the evening had closed. Ere blushes of morning again should return, In torture Amanda was destined to burn! She courted the vengeance and wrath of her foes, And sighed for the hour when her sufferings should close. The watch fire was lighted, and fanned by the breeze, Its light shone around on the evergreen trees; And fiercer the look of the plumed savage seemed, As the light on his features of bronze dimly gleamed. The pile was constructed—its red embers glared; Amanda was bound, and her white bosom bared; Around her stood waiting the merciless throng, Impatient to join in the war-dance and song. Young Albin, the chief of the warriors, drew near, With the eye of the eagle, the foot of the deer; And a soul that would scorn from a foeman to crave, A sigh for his suffering—a tear o’er his grave. One moment he hung on the charms of the fair, Her bright hazel eye now uplifted in prayer; Her dark raven locks, which in ringlets below, Half hid from the gazer her bosom of snow. “Forbear!” cried the chieftain, “Your torture forbear! Amanda shall live! By my wampum I swear!

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Tonight, if a victim must burn at the tree, Young Albin, your leader, your victim shall be.” To rescue Amanda, as forward he rushed, The revelry ceased, and all tumult was hushed; And mute stood the circle of warriors around, As Albin, the cords of Amanda unbound. On Pemigewasset, at dawning of day, Their birchen canoe was seen gliding away; As swift as the wild duck that swam by its side, In silence their bark down the river did glide. At dusk of the evening a white cot was seen, The smoke curling blue o’er the willowy green; A moment of parting was seen on the shore, And Albin, the warrior, was heard of no more. Amanda returned to her village and home, And Albin once more to his warriors has gone; And long may the banner of peace o’er them wave— Amanda the captive, and Albin the brave!35

Phillips Barry, one of America’s most distinguished folklore scholars, concluded that this poem (in the original, the warrior’s name was Olban, not Albin) was written in his youth by the Reverend Thomas C. Upham, afterward minister of the Congregational Church in Rochester, New Hampshire, and professor of moral philosophy and metaphysics at Bowdoin College from 1825 to 1867. It was first printed for the author in the Columbian Sentinel (Boston) on September 19, 1818. The final stanza is not in the original, but was added by someone borrowing (claimed Barry, though not convincingly) from Matthew Lewis’s ballad “Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogine” (included in his gothic novel The Monk [1796]). The collected text shows some other differences from the original 1818 text: the “bright hazel eye” and “dark raven locks” were originally a “dark hazel eye” and “bright sunny locks.” It should be noted that Barry’s conclusions regarding authorship were based on internal evidence only; the poem as originally printed bore only a pseudonymous attribution. Barry also noted that the reference in the first stanza to a meteor may have been the only factual part of the account: such a spectacular object was indeed seen in Middlebury, Vermont, on the night of July 17, 1818. Truth or not, the poem-song captured the fancy of singers across the country and was collected as far away as Texas and Oklahoma in the early 1900s. Barry further remarked that the ballad’s author unfairly denigrates northeastern Indians, who may have tortured enemy warriors, but not women.36 The Pemigewasset is a river, wilderness area, and mountain in New Hampshire. Moosilauk is not a real place name, but is a reasonable derivation (according to Barry and his coauthor, Fanny Hardy Eckstorm) from Maine Indian moos (moose) and aukee (place). The Stratton Mountain Tragedy Cold swept the mountain’s high, Dreary was the pathless wild; Amid the cheerless hours of night A mother wandered with her child; As through the drifts of snow she pressed, The babe was sleeping ’neath her breast.

Cover to the original sheet music for “The Snow Storm” (1843), the source for the ballad, “The Stratton Mountain Tragedy.” The lithographed illustration is by F. F. Oakley of Boston. Author’s collection.

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Bitter blew the chilly winds, Darker hours of night came on; Deeper grew the drifts of snow, Her limbs were chilled, her strength was gone; “Oh God,” she cried in accents wild “If I must perish, save my child.” She took the mantle from her breast And bared her bosom to the storm; As round the babe she wrapped her vest She smiled to think that it was warm. One cold kiss, one tear she shed, And sank upon the snowy bed. A stranger passing by next morn, Saw her ’neath the snowy veil; The frost of death was in her eye, Her cheek was hard and cold and pale. He took the robe from off the child, The babe looked up and sweetly smiled.37

The preceding song is derived from a poem by Seba Smith originally titled “The Snow Storm,” set to music by Lyman Heath and performed in concerts by the celebrated Hutchinson Family. The sheet music cover bears the following inscription: In the month of December, 1821, a Mr. Blake, with his wife and an infant, was passing over the Green Mountain, in a sleigh. The drifting snow rendered it impossible for the horse to proceed. Mr. B. set off on foot in search of assistance, and perished in the storm. The mother, alarmed (as is supposed) at his long absence, went in quest of him with the infant in her arms. She was found in the morning, dead, a short distance from the sleigh. The child was wrapped in her cloak, and survived the perils of the storm.38

According to Flanders and Brown, who printed the above text, the tragedy described in this ballad occurred at Kelly Stand near the town of Arlington, Vermont. Smith’s original text is given for comparison: Seba Smith: The Snowstorm (1843) The cold wind swept the mountain’s height, And pathless was the dreary wild, And mid the cheerless hours of night A mother wandered with her child. As through the drifted snows she pressed, The babe was sleeping on her breast, The babe was sleeping on her breast. And colder still the winds did blow, And darker hours of night came on, And deeper grew the drifts of snow— Her limbs were chilled, her strength was gone. “O God!” she cried, in accents wild, “If I must perish, save my child, “If I must perish save my child.”

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She stript her mantle from her breast, And bared her bosom to the storm; As round the child she wrapped the vest, She smiled to think that it was warm. With one cold kiss, one tear she shed, And sunk upon a snowy bed, And sunk upon a snowy bed. At dawn, a traveller passed by, And saw her ’neath a snowy veil— The frost of death was in her eye, Her cheek was cold, and hard, and pale— He moved the robe from off the child; The babe looked up, and sweetly smiled, The babe looked up, and sweetly smiled.39

Seba Smith was born in Buckfield, Maine, on September 14, 1792, and died in Patchogue, Long Island, on July 29, 1868. He was graduated at Bowdoin in 1818 and subsequently settled in Portland, Maine, as a journalist, where he edited the Eastern Argus, the Family Recorder, and the Portland Daily Courier. During the administration of President Jackson, he wrote a series of humorous and satirical letters under the pen name “Major Jack Downing” that attained wide celebrity and were subsequently collected and published. His other publications include Powhatan, a metrical romance (New York, 1841) and Way Down East, or Portraitures of Yankee Life (1855).40 The Vermont Farmer’s Song Did you ever hear tell of the farmers that live among the hills, Where ev’ry man’s a “Sov’reign” and owns the land he tills; Where all the girls are beautiful and all the boys are strong? ’Tis my delight on a summer’s night to sing the Farmer’s song. ’Tis here the tall and manly “Green Mountain Boys” are seen— So call’d because the Mountains and not the Boys are green, They always fight to win the right or to resist the wrong, ’Tis my delight on a summer’s night to sing the Farmer’s song. ’Tis here the best and fairest of Yankee Girls are caught, With ev’ry grace and form of face that e’er a lover sought, With ev’ry art to win his heart and hold it long and strong. ’Tis my delight on a summer’s night to sing the Farmer’s song. ’Tis here the Morgan horses and Black Hawk steeds abound, For grace and beauty, strength and speed, their equals can’t be found; They will always “go it fleetly” and always “come it strong.” ’Tis my delight on a summer’s night to sing the Farmer’s song. ’Tis here the true “Merinos” of pure imported stock Are often seen to range the green in many a noble flock; Their forms are large and beautiful, their wool is fine and long. ’Tis my delight on a summer’s night to sing the Farmer’s song. And now a health to the shearers, and many joyous years, Who with a will and ready skill propel the busy shears,

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With hearts sincere and conscience clear, and voices loud and strong They take delight, from morn till night, to sing the shearer’s song.41

Vermont was the first state to raise merino sheep, which originated in Spain and were first imported from there in 1809 and 1810. The Morgan horse, first bred in about 1820, was once the most widespread breed in the United States. The American Morgan Horse Register was published in Middlebury, Vermont, starting in 1894. John Godfrey Saxe was born in Highgate, Vermont, on June 2, 1816, and died in Albany, New York, on March 31, 1887. During the four years following his graduation from Middlebury, he studied law in Lockport, New York, and then in St. Albans, Vermont, where, in 1843, he was admitted to the bar. He practiced with success in Franklin County for several years, becoming, in 1850–1851, state’s attorney for Chittenden County, and in 1847– 1848 he was superintendent of common schools. In 1850 he purchased the Burlington Sentinel, which he edited until 1856. Saxe served as attorney-general of Vermont in 1856 and, for a time, was deputy collector of customs. In 1859, and again in 1860, he was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for governor. Settling in New York, he devoted himself to literature and lectured until 1872, when he moved to Albany and became an editor of the Evening Journal. Saxe achieved his greatest reputation by his poetry. His most widely known piece (though his name isn’t always associated with it) is his versification of the widely known Hindu tale of the six men and the elephant. His “Rhyme of the Rail,” “The Briefless Barrister,” “The Proud Miss McBride,” and similar humorous poems, as well as his more serious “Jerry, the Miller,” “I’m growing Old,” “The Old Church-Bell,” and “Treasures in Heaven,” were very popular.42 Wilkes Lovell ’Twas on the fourteenth day of March, as you will plainly see, We broke the locks of Springfield jail our liberty to get. We broke them, yes, we broke them, swung open wide the door, Resolved to leave old Springfield town and get in jail no more. Wilkes Lovell’s wife she heard the locks as they fell upon the floor; She hastened to the courthouse to let Wilkes Lovell know. She hastened to the courthouse to let the sheriff know, Young Lot and I then hadn’t been gone but an hour and one half ago. Wilkes Lovell mounted his white horse and through the streets did fly, Shouting, “I’ll bring those prisoners back with me or in the chase I’ll die.” He followed us and he captured us, which made our hearts grow cold. He shackled us both together, my boys, and marched us off to jail. Come all of you young greedy lads and take advice from me, But I hope that you will never do the deed young Lot and I have done, For if you do, ’twill ruin you, you’ll be as bad as we, For six long years to serve your time, in a cottage by the sea, And six long months to serve your time in old Rutland on the hill.43

The editors of NGMS record that Lovell was sheriff of Windsor County, Vermont, in the 1890s and that the two miscreants described in the ballad were gypsy horse traders, in jail for the theft of a harness. The irregular rhyme scheme suggests a text that has deteriorated somewhat through imperfect memory. The last couplet is particularly puzzling since the

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fifth line in the stanza is unprecedented. Was their sentence for six months or six years? Furthermore, “In a cottage by the sea” makes little sense in the present context, but it is the title of a popular song from the mid-nineteenth century and must have replaced some other phrase in the singer’s mind. Sheriff Lovell’s white horse may be a subconscious recollection from the old British ballad of Lord Lovel, who also rode a milk-white steed as he passed along the highway. Rutland is the county seat of Rutland County, in south central Vermont. From 1784 to 1804, it was the state capital. Margaret Gray—A Legend of Vermont Fair the cabin walls was gleaming On that sunbeam golden glow, On that lovely April morning, It was a hundred years ago, As upon that humble threshold Stood the young wife, Margaret Gray, With her fearless blue eyes glancing Down the lonely forest way. In her arms her laughing baby With its father’s dark hair played, As he lingered there beside them, Leaning on his trusty spade, “I am going to the wheat lot,” With a smile says Robert Gray, “Will you be too lonely Margaret, If I leave you all the day?” Then she smiled a cheerful answer Ere she spoke a single word, And the tones of her replying Were as sweet as songs of birds. “No,” she says, “I’ll take the baby And go stay with Anna Brown, You must meet me there, dear Robert, Ere the sun has quite gone down.” Then they parted, strong and stidy [sic] All the day he labored on, Spading up the fertile acres, From the stubborn forest won. Till when length the shadows warned him That the sun was in the west, Down the woodland aisle he hastened Whispering, “Now for home and rest.” But when he reached the clearing From his friend a mile away, Neither wife nor child was waiting There to welcome Robert Gray. “She is safe at home,” says Anna “For she went an hour ago.”

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“It is strange I did not meet her,” Came his answer quick and low. Back he turned, for night was falling, And the path he scarce could see; Here and there his feet was guided Onward by some deep-gashed tree. Til when length he reached the cabin, Black and desolate it stood, Cold the hearth, the windows raylist [i.e., rayless], In their stillest solitude. With a murmur, prayer, and shudder And a sob of anguish wild, Back he hastened to the forest, Calling on his wife and child. Soon the scattered settlers gathered From their clearing far and near, And their solemn words resounded With their voices ringing clear. Torches blazed, and fires were kindled And the horn, long pealed, rang out, Til the startled echoes answered To the hardy woodmen’s shout. Til in vain their sad endeavors, Night by night and day by day, But no sign or token found they Of the child or Margaret Gray. Woe! ah, woe! to pretty Margaret! With her baby on her arm, On her homeward way she started, Fearing nothing that could harm. With a lip and brow untroubled, And a heart at utter rest, Through the dim woods she went singing To the baby at her breast. But when sudden terror, pausing, Gazed she round in blank dismay. Where was all the white scarred hemlock Pointing out the lonely way? God had mercy! She had wandered From the pathway. Not a tree Giving mute but kindly warning Could her straining vision see. Twilight deepened into darkness, And the stars came out on high. All was silent in the forest Except the owl’s low brooding cry. All about her in the midnight, Steadily the shadows crept And the babe upon her bosom Closed its timid eyes and slept.

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Hark! a shout! and in the distance She could see a torches gleam. But alas! She could not reach them, And they vanished like a dream. With another shout, another, And she screamed and sobbed in vain, Rushing wildly towards the spot She could never, never gain. Morning came and with the sunbeams Hope and courage rose once more, Thinking sure another nightfall Her long wanderings would be o’er, So she soothed her wailing baby Which went faint for want of food. She could gather nuts and acorns That she found within the wood. Ah, the days so long and dreary! And the nights more dreary still! More than once she heard the sounding Of the horns from hill to hill. More than once a smoldering fire In some sheltered nook she found, And she knew her husband’s footprints Close beside it on the ground. Dawned the fourth relentless morning, And the sun’s out-peeping eye Rose upon the haggard mother, Looked to see her baby die. All night long in plaintive mourning Wrang the heart of Margaret Gray. All night long her bosom cradled A pallid thing of clay. Three days more she bore it with her, On her rough and toilsome way, Till acrost its marble beauty Stole the plague spots of decay. Then she knew that she must leave it In the wilderness asleep While the prowling wild beast only Watch above its grave could keep. Down with grief she set beside it Ah, how long she never knew! With the tales her mother taught her, Which her all-dear Father drew; Till the skies were brass above her, And the earth was cold and dim, But with all her prayer and pleading Brought no answer down from Him. But when length turned life the tyrant Bade her take her burden up.

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To her lips, so pale and shrunken, Press again the bitter cup. Up she rose, still tramping onward Through the forest large and wild, Till the Mayflowers bloomed and perished, And the sweet June roses died. Till July and August brought her Fruit and berries by the store; Until the goldenrod and aster Said the summer was no more; Til the maples and the birches Donned their robes, from green to gold; And the birds were hastening southward And the days were growing cold. Was she doomed to roam forever O’er this desolated earth? She was the last and only being In the wilds of human birth. Sometimes from her dreary pathway Wolf or black bear turned away, But not once did human faces Bless the sight of Margaret Gray. One chill morning in October When the woods were brown and bare, Through the streets of ancient Charlestown, With a strange bewildered air, Walked a gaunt and pallid woman, Whose disheveled locks of brown O’er her naked breast and shoulders In the wind were streaming down. Wondering glances fell upon her, Women veiled their modest eyes As they slowly ventured near her, Drawn by pitying surprise. “It’s some crazy one,” they whispered. Back her tangled locks she tossed “O kind friends, take pity on me, For I am not mad but lost.” Then she told her piteous story In a strange desponded way, And with cold, white lips she murmurs “Take me home to Robert Gray.” “But the river,” says they, pondering “How crossed you to its eastern side. How crossed you its rapid waters— Deep its channel is, and wide!” But she said she had not crossed it. In a strange erratic course She had wandered so far northward,

Till she reached its fountain source Down the dark Canadian forest, And then blindly roaming on Through the steep New Hampshire valley, Her bewildered feet had gone. Ah, the joy bells, sweet were ringing On that frosty autumn air! How the boats across the waters, How they leaped—the tale to bear. Oh, that wondrous golden sunset Of that blest October day, When the weary wife was folded In the arms of Robert Gray.44

The song originally appeared as a poem by Julia C. R. Dorr titled “Margery Grey— A Legend of Vermont,” based on a true story.45 Although the singer’s text, as given above, has several apparent mistakes, it may seem remarkable to today’s readers that so much could be preserved orally. We should recall that in times long past, oral transmission of poetry was no more surprising than our being able to relate a long joke. The secret of oral tradition is that the essence of the song or story is remembered, not the exact words, just as we would not memorize a joke word for word. In the twentieth century, folklorists collected texts of epic stories from singers of central Europe and the Balkans, who were able to commits thousands of lines of poetry to memory after only one or two hearings. Margaret MacArthur has recorded the song, with some emendations that make sense out of the distorted passages.

MASSACHUSETTS Present-day Massachusetts is the site of two separate seventeenth-century settlements. Pilgrims established Plymouth colony, or the Old Colony, in 1620. The Pilgrims were never granted a royal charter; their government was based on the Mayflower Compact, a document signed by 41 male passengers on the ship Mayflower five weeks before their arrival in the New World. To the north was the much larger Massachusetts Bay Company, settled by English Puritans in the 1630s. By the mid-1640s, the colony numbered more than 20,000 people, and it began absorbing settlements in Maine and New Hampshire. The city of Boston was established in 1630 and was an independent, self-governing entity for half a century. The Puritan government operated as an independent state until King Charles II abrogated the colony’s charter in 1684 for repeatedly overstepping its authority. In 1691 a new charter was granted to the Province of Massachusetts Bay that united Plymouth, Maine, and the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard with Massachusetts. Not until 1820 was Maine established as a separate state. When England began to enact laws and practices to gain revenue from the Boston trade at the expense of the colonies, the aggrieved inhabitants resisted. After passage of the Stamp Act by Parliament in 1765, angry citizens stormed and destroyed the governor’s house. The Boston Massacre of 1770, in which British troops fired on a crowd of civilian hecklers and killed several persons, and the Boston Tea Party of 1773, in which colonists disguised as Indians dumped three shiploads of tea into Boston Harbor, demonstrated that

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the Americans were not about to give in to the British demands. The armed skirmishes at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, were further steps along the irreversible path toward all-out war. When George Washington’s army besieged the British in Boston during the following winter, normal life in the town was suspended. On March 17, 1776, threatened by Washington’s artillery positioned on Dorchester Heights, British troops, officials, and many American loyalists to the crown left the city.46 All told, no colony was more involved in the events leading up to the war than Massachusetts, and many of these actions were memorialized in poems and songs. Since Boston was also one of the printing centers of the colonies, it was natural that it should become the wellspring for many revolutionary pamphlets, broadsides, and other publications. The War of 1812 aroused a great deal of anti-British fervor, and many ballads from the 1770s were reprinted and distributed anew. New England’s Annoyances New England’s annoyances you that would know them, Pray ponder these verses which briefly doth show them; The place where we live is a wilderness wood, Where grass is much wanting that’s fruitful and good: Our mountains and hills and valleys below Being commonly cover’d with ice and with snow, And when the north-wester with violence blows Then every man pulls his cap over his nose; But if any are so hardy and will it withstand, He forfeits a finger, a foot, or a hand. When the spring opens we then take the hoe And make the ground ready to plant and to sow; Our corn being planted and seed being sown, The worms destroy much before it is grown; And when it is growing some spoil there is made, By birds and by squirrels that pluck up the blade; Even when it is grown to full corn in the ear, It is often destroyed by racoons and deer. And now our garments begin to grow thin, And wool is much wanted to card and to spin; If we can get a garment to cover without, Our other in-garments are clout upon clout; Our clothes we brought with us are often much torn, They need to be clouted before they are worn; But clouting our garments they hinder us nothing, Clouts double, are warmer than single whole clothing. If flesh meat be wanting to fill up our dish, We have carrots and pumkins and turnips and fish; And when we have a mind for a delicate dish, We repair to the clam-bank and there we catch fish. Instead of pottage and puddings and custards and pies, Our pumkins and parsnips are common supplies; We have pumkin at morning, and pumkin at noon, If it was not for pumkins we should be undoon.

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If barley be wanting to make into malt, We must be contented, and think it no fault, For we can make liquor to sweeten our lips, Of pumkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips. Now while some are going let others be coming, For while liquor is boiling it must have a scumming, But we will not blame them, for birds of a feather, By seeking their fellows are flocking together. But you who the Lord intends hither to bring, Forsake not the honey for fear of the sting, But bring both a quiet and contented mind And all needful blessings you surely will find.47

We have here what is arguably the oldest American folk song—that is to say, the first song written on American soil that survived (for a century or more) by oral tradition. Lemay, who uncovered the above version, argues that the original was probably written in ca. 1643 by Edward Johnson (1598–1672), author of A History of New England and the preeminent town father of Woburn, Massachusetts, serving as legislator, captain of the militia, surveyor, selectman, and magistrate. Though the song belongs to all of New England, it is placed here as a Massachusetts song, inasmuch as its author was a native of Massachusetts and its early publications were all in Massachusetts. In any case, the song is a catalog of the hardships of life in the early New England colonies, but an optimistic one nonetheless. The Boston Burglar I was born in Boston city, a city you all know well, Brought up by honest parents, the truth to you I’ll tell; Brought up by honest parents, and raised most tenderly, Till I became a roving man at the age of twenty-three. My character then was taken, and I was sent to jail, My friends they found it was in vain to get me out on bail; The jury found me guilty, the clerk he wrote it down; The judge then passed me sentence, and I was sent to Charleston town. They put me aboard an east bound train one cold December day, And every station that we passed I’d hear the people say, “There goes the noted burglar, in strong chains he’ll be bound, For doing some crime or other he’s sent to Charleston town.” Now you who have your liberty, pray keep it if you can, And don’t go round the streets at night to break the laws of man, For if you do you’ll surely pay, and find yourself like me, A serving out my twenty one years in the penitentiary.48

“The Boston Burglar” is generally regarded as a fictional American recomposition of a British broadside ballad about a criminal being transported to the Australian penal colony of Botany Bay. An early broadside version of the latter is an imprint by W. Armstrong of Liverpool, dating from 1820–1824. The stanza closest to one of “The Boston Burglar” is And as we rode through London, the Cockneys they did say, It’s a pity that such clever lads should go to Botany Bay;

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But when we do get there some letters we will write, Unto our native land, to our sweethearts and our wives.49

An American broadside, published by Henry J. Wehman in 1881, credits Michael J. Fitzpatrick with the words. Fitzpatrick may have been an Irish immigrant who rewrote a text he knew from tradition. The ballad became immensely popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and was often recorded commercially or collected in the field. It even found its way back to the motherland and has been collected in Ireland and Scotland (as early as 1908).50 Though occasionally, other city names replace Boston (for example, Louisville), it is almost certain that Boston was the original setting. Note also the reference to Charleston town (more correctly, Charlestown), now part of Boston. Battle of Bunker Hill Composed by a British officer after the engagement It was on the seventeenth, by break of day The Yankees did surprise us; With their strong works they had thrown up To burn the town and drive us. But soon we had an order come, An order to defeat them Like rebels stout, they stood it out, And thought we ne’er could beat them. About the hour of twelve that day An order came for marching, With three good flints, and sixty rounds, Each man hop’d to discharge them. We marched down to the Long wharf, Where boats were ready waiting, With expedition we embark’d, Our ships kept cannonading. And when our boats all filled were, With officers and soldiers, With as good troops as England had To oppose, who dare controul us. And when our boats all filled were, We row’d in line of battle, The showers of ball, like hail did fly, Our cannon loud did rattle. There was Copp’s Hill battery near Charlestown, Our twenty-fours they played, And the three frigates in the stream, That very well behaved. The Glasgow frigate clear’d the shore, All at the time of landing, With her grape shot and cannon balls, No yankees e’er could stand them. And when we landed on the shore, We draw’d up all together, The Yankees they’d all man’d their works, And thought we’d ne’er come thither.

Henry Wehman’s 1899 obituary proclaimed him the “original publisher in this country of the penny ballads,” and his publishing house issued nearly 1,500 different titles. This print of “Boston Burglar” was produced in 1881. From the Kenneth S. Goldstein collection, Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University.

Broadside, “Battle of Bunker Hill.” Even if it was written the day after the battle, this sheet from the shop of the prolific Boston broadside printer, Leonard Deming, was not published until around 1829–1831. Despite the attribution to “a British Officer,” the tone of the text suggests American authorship. From the Library of Congress.

NEW ENGLAND

But soon they did perceive brave Howe, Brave Howe, our bold commander, With grenadiers and infantry We made them to surrender. Brave William Howe on our right wing, Cry’d boys fight on like thunder, You soon will see the rebels flee With great amaze and wonder. Now some lay bleeding on the ground, And some full fast a running. O’er hills and dales and mountains high, Crying, zounds brave Howe’s a coming. They began to play on our left wing, Where Pigot he commanded, But we return’d it back again, With courage most undaunted. To our grape shot and musquet balls, To which they were but strangers, They thought to come with sword in hand, But soon they found their danger. And when the works we got into, And put them to the flight, sirs, Some of them did hide themselves, And others died of fright, sirs, And when their works we got into, Without great fear or danger, The works they’d made was firm and strong, The Yankees are great strangers. But as for our artillery, They all behaved dinty, For while our ammunition held, We gave it to them plenty. But our conductor he got broke, For his misconduct sure, sir, The shot he sent for twelve pound guns Were made for twenty-fours, sir. There’s some in Boston pleas’d to say, As we the field were taking, We went to kill their countrymen, While they their hay were making. But such stout whigs I never saw, To hang them all I’d rather, For making hay with musket balls, And buck-shot mix’t together. Brave Howe is so considerate, As to prevent all danger, He allows us half a pint a day— To rum we are no strangers. Long may he live by land and sea,

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For he’s belov’d by many, The name of Howe the Yankees dread, We see it very plainly, And now my song is at an end, And to conclude my ditty, ’Tis the poor and ignorant And only them I pity. As for their king JOHN HANCOCK, And ADAMS, if they’re taken, Their heads for signs shall hang up high, Upon that hill call’d Beacon.51

The Battle of Bunker Hill was the first large-scale engagement of the American Revolution, fought on June 17, 1775, in Charlestown (now part of Boston), Massachusetts. The British goal was the possession of two adjacent peaks, Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill, overlooking Boston Harbor. Some 1,200 American troops, led by Colonel William Prescott, occupied and fortified Breed’s Hill during the night of June 16 as part of a strategic plan to force the British evacuation of Boston. After daybreak on June 17, the British commander in chief Thomas Gage began preparations for an attack. Naval units were brought within shelling range of Breed’s Hill, and about 2,200 troops under the command of General William Howe were dispatched from Boston. Meanwhile, about 300 additional volunteers, including General Joseph Warren, had joined the American force. Supported by naval cannonades, the British troops launched their initial assault on the American earthworks on Breed’s Hill at about 3:00 P.M. Colonel Prescott allegedly issued the now-famous (and oft-misattributed) order, “Don’t one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” The Americans allowed the British to advance almost to the base of the earthworks and then opened fire. Sustaining severe losses, the British retreated in confusion. A second charge was similarly repulsed. During the third British assault, the Americans, their ammunition exhausted, were forced to withdraw. The British then attacked and captured both hills. American losses in the battle totaled about 400 dead (including Warren), wounded, or taken prisoner. The British suffered about 1,000 killed and wounded, many of them officers. Although victory went to the British, the Americans demonstrated that their militiamen could not be dismissed out of hand, thereby strengthening the spirit of rebellion throughout the colonies. One of the most noteworthy casualties of the encounter was Joseph Warren (1741– 1775). Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and Harvard educated, he became a leader of the anti-British party after passage of the Stamp Act in 1765. He became a major general three days before he was killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill.52 The broadside from which the above text is copied bears no publication data. It probably was printed in the early 1800s—perhaps during the War of 1812—rather than during the Revolutionary period, though it was undoubtedly first written and published at that time. The caption “Composed by a British officer after the engagement” should not necessarily be taken at face value: there is much in the text that betrays a Yankee perspective and sensibility. Leonard Deming of Boston twice printed the ballad, once in 1829–1831 and again in 1832–1837, but the two texts are different from the above version. The most significant difference is in the last six lines, which Deming gives as Tis only Britons ignorant, That I most sincerely pity. As for our King and William Howe,

NEW ENGLAND

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And General Gage if they’re taken The Yankees will hang their heads up high On that fine hill call’d Beacon.53

If there is any doubt whether an American or Englishman wrote the original text, the nationality of the author of this variant is unmistakable. Several other songs commemorating the battle have circulated.54 Another broadside ballad, more of a paeon to the fallen Joseph Warren, is “General Warren: or the Battle of Bunker Hill,” published by Nathaniel Coverly of Boston.55 Yet another, “Battle of Bunker Hill,” was written a half-century later, according to its first stanza: Come, usher in the early dawn, With the thundering canon’s rattle; ’Tis fifty years this glorious morn, Since our fathers fought the battle.56 A Song on the Nantucket Ladies Young damsels all where ever you may be, I pray attention give to me; Some braken hints I will lay down About the girls in Sherbourn town. When eve comes on they dress up neat, And go a-cruising through the streets; To see if they some beaus can find To suit their fancy and their minds. Skein laces long and frills so neat And bunnets worked so complete; With their painted cheeks and curled hair, They think to make the young men stare. Their long silk gowns and sleeves so big You’d think that they had run the rig; With their white kid shoes and silken hose They look like the devil in their clothes. They get the beaus all for to make A corset board to make them straight; They’ll bind it to their waist so tight And through the streets about from morn till night. Then a few false teeth they’re sure to wear And foretop curls and false hair; And a false heart that’ll ne’er prove true, We find it’s so it’s nothing new. They go to the factory every day And work twelve months without their pay; And then all for to crown the joke Why Daniel Dusten is broke. Then Henry Gardner and Peleg West Then they will do their best, They say that they do what is right And pay the girls every Saturday night.

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The girls being few with such ideas, Thinking their master for to please, For six pense [sic] a day to work they go And then they cut a dreadful show. When round Cape Horn their sweethearts go Then they must have another beau; To wait two years they say they can’t, To wait two years they say they shan’t. And when their beaus they do come back, Such lamentations they will make; Saying, “No one has courted me but you dear, So come along and never fear.” “Oh,” says the beaus, “That never do, I’ll never be taken in by you, If you keep on you’ll make me laugh, You can not catch old birds with chaff.” But always give the devil his due, There’s some will wait, ’tis very true; The reason it doth plainly show, They cannot catch another beau. This song was made around Cape Horn, Where most of the young men are gone. Haul down your flag, cut down your staff, It is all true, you need not laugh. Now, to conclude and end my song, There’s women tells me I am rong [sic], But if by chance they find it’s right, They may sing it from morn till night.57

When the Northeast was first settled by Europeans, the first occupations that developed (apart from local farming) were what the geography suggested: fishing (later, whaling) and timbering. Northeast folk song collections abound in maritime songs and sea shanties, especially in the neighborhoods of such seaports as New Bedford, Nantucket, Salem, Plymouth, and Boston. Charles Murphy, a seaman from Nantucket, wrote the following song in his journal while on the ship Diana in 1819. It gives a remarkably detailed view of town life at the time—and in particular, of the young women who cruised the streets of Sherbourn, the old name for Nantucket village. Murphy says his ship went around Cape Horn; that means it was sailed into the Pacific after sperm whales, a voyage that could easily last three years. In that long time, one can well imagine how restless the sweethearts left in Nantucket became. Cape Cod Girls Cape Cod girls they have no combs, Heave away! Heave away! They comb their hair with codfish bones, We’re bound for Californiay!

NEW ENGLAND

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Heave away, my bully, bully boys, Heave away, and don’t you make a noise. Cape Cod boys they have no sleds, They slide down dunes on codfish heads. Cape Cod doctors they have no pills, They give their patients codfish gills. Cape Cod cats they have no tails, They lost them all in sou’east gales.58

Cape Cod was named by Bartholomew Gosnold, an English explorer who visited its shores in 1602 and took aboard a “great store of codfish.” In 1620 the Pilgrims landed at the site of Provincetown, on the tip of Cape Cod, before proceeding to Plymouth. Cape Cod has prospered as both a fishing community and vacation destination.59 Frank Shay, who printed the above song, claimed it was well known on Australia-bound whaling ships but unknown among old-time Cape Cod mariners. Massachusetts’s woods and vales still echo with the “shot heard ’round the world” that started the War for Independence, and some wonderful songs were composed between military skirmishes. One of the iconic acts precipitating the war between the colonies and the crown, probably the one most American schoolchildren still remember, is the Boston Tea Party. What they may not remember (or learn) is that the strongest impetus for independence was not a philosophical or political one, but rather economic. As all colonial powers have done for centuries, England used the colonies to its own economic advantage, regardless of the inconvenience to the colonists. In 1767 Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, imposing duties on various products imported into the American colonies. The action raised such a storm of colonial protest that all taxes were repealed in 1770, except that on tea, a duty that Boston merchants circumvented by accepting tea smuggled in by Dutch traders. In 1773 Parliament passed a Tea Act designed to aid the financially troubled (English) East India Company by granting it a monopoly on all tea exported to the colonies and other financial favors, which allowed the company to undersell anyone else. The perception of monopoly drove the normally conservative colonial merchants into an alliance with the political firebrand Samuel Adams and his radical Sons of Liberty. On December 16, 1773, a gang of some 60 men, disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded English ships docked in Boston Harbor and threw overboard 342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company. The tea was valued at £18,000. Parliament retaliated by passing a series of punitive measures known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts, which succeeded only in uniting the colonies and driving them closer to revolt. Many wonderful songs were written about the escapade and enjoyed great popularity for many years. The event was such a defining moment in colonial history that it deserves remembrance in more than one song here, and four follow. In 1812–1815, during the next war with Britain, many of these song hits of the 1770s were dusted off, reprinted, and enjoyed another round of popularity. The first, collected in Martha’s Vineyard, is a version of “Gunpowder Tea,” sung to the tune of the English nursery song “Polly Put the Kettle On.” The reference to Saratoga, where General Burgoyne was humiliatingly defeated by American troops in October 1777, suggests that the song was not written until a few years after the party in Boston Harbor. This song is followed by three other musical commentaries on the Boston Tea Party episode.

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Gunpowder Tea Johnny Bull and many more, Soon they say are coming o’er, And as soon as they’re on shore They must have tea. Chorus: So Polly, put the kettle on, Blow the bellows good and strong, Polly put the kettle on, We’ll give them tea. They’ll want it strong, you need not dread, Sweetened well with sugar of lead; Perhaps it will go to their head And spoil their taste for tea. As soon as they put foot on shore, Their cups we’ll fill them o’er and o’er, With such as John Bull drank before, Nice Saratoga Tea. So let them come as soon’s they can, They’ll find us at our post each man, Their hides we will completely tan Before they get their tea.60 [Boston] Tea Tax I snum I am a yankee lad, and I guess I’ll sing a ditty, And if you do not relish it, the more will be the pitty; That is I think, I should have been a plaguy sight more finish’d man, If I’d been born in Boston town, but I warn’t cause I’m a Countryman. Tol lol de ra. Ri tol de rid dle id dle ri tol de da. And t’other day the yankee folks were mad about the taxes And so we went like Indians dress’d, to spilt tea chests with axes; I mean ’twas done in seventy-three, an’ we were real gritty The Mayor he would lead the gang, but Boston warn’t a city. Tol lol de ra, &c. Ye see we yankees didn’t care a pin for wealth or booty, And so in State Street we agreed we’d never pay the duty; That is, in State Street ’twould have been, but ’twas King Street they call’d it then, And the tax on tea, it was so bad, the women would not scal’d it then. Tol lol de ra, &c. To Charlestown Bridge we all went down to see the thing corrected That is, we would have gone there, but the bridge it warn’t erected; The tea perhaps was very good, Bohea, Shouchong or Hyson But drinking tea it warn’t the rage, the duty made it poison Tol lol de ra, &c. And then we went aboard the ships, our vengeance to administer; And didn’t care a tarnal curse, for any King or Minister; We made a plaguy mess o’tea, in one of the biggest dishes,

NEW ENGLAND

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Mean, we steep’d it in the sea, and treated all the fishes. Tol lol de ra, &c. And then you see we were all found out, a thing we hadn’t dreaded, The leaders were to London sent and instantly beheaded, That is, I mean, they would have been if ever they’d been taken, But the leaders they were never cotch’d, and so they sav’d their bacon. Tol lol de ra, &c. Now heaven bless the President, and all this goodly nation And doubly bless our Boston Mayor, & and all the Corporation; And may all those who are our foes, or at our praise have falter’d, Soon have a change, that is, I mean, may all of them get halter’d. Tol lol de ra, &c.61

Based on his address, the publisher, Leonard Deming, issued this broadside in 1829– 1831. Details in the text indicate that the song was written considerably after the events it describes; probably it was written at the time of the War of 1812 as one more piece of anti-British puffery. Revolutionary Tea There was an old lady lived over the sea, And she was an Island Queen, Her daughter lived off in a new countrie, With an ocean of water between. The old lady’s pockets were full of gold, But never contented was she, So she called on her daughter to pay her a tax Of three pence a pound on her tea, Of three pence a pound on her tea. “Now mother, dear mother,” the daughter replied, “I sha’n’t do the thing you ax, I’m willing to pay a fair price for the tea, But never the three penny tax”; “You shall,” quoth the mother, and redden’d with rage, “For you’re my own daughter, you see, And sure, ’tis quite proper the daughter should pay Her mother a tax on her tea.” (2) And so the old lady her servant called up, And packed off a budget of tea; And eager for three pence a pound, She put in enough for a large familie, She order’d her servants to bring home the tax, Declaring her child should obey, Or old as she was, and almost woman grown, She’d half whip her life away. (2) The tea was conveyed to the daughter’s door, All down by the ocean’s side; And the bouncing girl pour’d out every pound In the dark and boiling tide;

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And then she called out to the Island Queen, “O mother, dear mother,” quoth she, “Your tea you may have when ’tis steep’d enough, But never a tax from me.” (2)62

“Revolutionary Tea” is one of the most lighthearted of the Boston Tea Party tributes, affording the colonists a chance to thumb their noses merrily at the motherland. The following song is in quite a different mood. Ballad of the Tea Party As near beauteuous BOSTON lying, On the gently swelling Flood, Without Jack or Pendant flying Three ill fated Tea Ships rode. Just as glorious Sol was setting, On the Wharf a numerous Crew, Sons of Freedom, Fear forgetting, Suddenly appear’d in View. Arm’d with Hammer, Axe, and Chisels, Weapons new for warlike Deed, Toward the Herbage-freighted Vessels They approach’d with dreadful Speed. O’er their Heads, aloft in Midsky, Three bright Angel Forms were seen; This was Hampden, that was Sidney, With fair Liberty between. “Soon, they cry’d, your foes you’ll banish, “Soon the Triumph shall be won, “Scarce shall setting Phebus vanish, “Ere the deathless Deed be done.” Quick as Thought the Ships were boarded, Hatches burst, and Chests display’d; Axes, Hammers, Help afforded; What a glorious Crash they made! Squash into the deep descended Cursed Weed of China’s Coast, Thus at once our Fears were ended; British Rights shall ne’er be lost. Captains! once more hoist your Streamers, Spread your Sails, and plow the Wave! Tell your Masters they were Dreamers When they thought to cheat the BRAVE.63

Reluctantly we leave the frivolous songs of Boston’s memorable tea party to turn to a tragic event following New England’s early industrialization. Mr. Pierce’s Experience On the twenty-fifth of September, I always shall it remember,

NEW ENGLAND

On that bright and sunny morn, The spot I always shall it scorn; In the town of Cambridge I did dwell, With my companion whom I lov’d well; I had not been wedded scarce half a year, When on the railroad I chance chear [sic, meaning unclear]; I was a driving cars as you shall know, Which caused me this fate to undergo; As I was riding and driving as you shall hear, The horse from the path did shear. I was at my work as you have heard When off I jumpt to stear my nag, But by my unfortunate lot It proved to me a bloody spot; It was by the rope that was made fast, That I chanced to get entangled; The cars that run so true and go so fast, That my legs were crushed at last. Soon on a board I was laid, To my house I was conveyed, For doctors in haste they went And for me some pains they spent. The doctors came in haste, To lend their surgical aid, In blood they found me laid, Upon the table I was conveyed. With the saw and lance that cut so slick, And the surgeons that handle them so quick; Whilst on my bed looking aloft, They quickly had my right leg off: Then the other they did it view, The bone it was so badly shattered, To me the surgeon softly said, That off must come my other leg. When both legs were amputated, And softly on the bed was laid; Tho not a bed of down or hay, It was of straw and on it I did lay. I thought my fortune very hard, For off the bed I could not get, And as for a morsel of bread, I could not have a bit. It was with salts and gruel so thin, By chance I did the battle win. While on the bed upon my back, For surgical aid I did not lack.

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For two months or more on my bed, And scarce could raise my head; To you my pains I cannot tell, But my maker doth know them well. Fate steals along with silent tread, Found oft’nest in what least we dread; But an earthquake may be bid to spare, That man that is strangled by a hair. But Providence alone secures, In every change both mine and yours; For safety consists not in escape, From dangers of a frightful shape. Remember the universal cause, Act not by partial but by general laws; And make what happiness we justly call, Subsists not in the good of one, but all. On the gay bosom of some fragrant flower, The idle, fluttering live their little hour; Their life all pleasure, and their task all play, All spring their age, sunshine all their day. Not so with the child or sorrow or man, His course with toil concludes with pain begun. That his high destiny he might discern, And in misfortunes school this lesson learn: Pleasure is the portion of the inferior kind, But glory, virtue and heaven for man’s design’d; From this may you a lesson con, And all dangers try and shun.64

This account of Mr. Pierce’s dreadful experience offers more details than most readers will care to know about. Pierce was the son of Nathaniel Pierce (1784 –1840) of Springfield, Vermont, but his birth date or age at the time of the accident were not known by the editors of the NGMS, whence the above text is taken. The first railroad in New England, the Boston and Lowell Railroad, was opened to the public in 1835. In its first few years, both steam and horse power were in use, and this account presumably comes from that period. The 19 stanzas divide into two parts: the first 13 recount the accident itself and Pierce’s surgery. When one recalls that so-called modern anesthetics (nitrous oxide and ether) did not come into use until the 1840s, one concludes that the unfortunate Mr. Pierce must have received nothing more than a few stiff shots of whiskey to dull his pain during his dismemberment. Nevertheless, the operation could be “quick” indeed, as Pierce recounts: according to one nineteenth-century report of a leg amputation from this era, the saw-wielding surgeon removed not only the patient’s leg in less than half a minute, but some of his own fingers as well. The last stanzas are of a more reflective, homiletic nature: the reader is assured that our destinies lie not in our own hands, nor is pleasure itself a goal worth pursuing. Interestingly, there is not a whit of pity for poor Mr. Pierce himself. The penultimate stanza’s final line makes more sense if the word “misfortunes” is a possessive: “misfortune’s.”

A. W. Harmon’s broadside, “The Granite Mill Fire at Fall River, Mass.,” was undated but probably appeared soon after the tragedy of 1874. From the Kenneth S. Goldstein collection, Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University.

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The Burning of the Granite Mill In this world with care and trouble, many accidents occur; I am going to sing about one, the saddest you ever heard. ’Twas in Fall River City, where the people were burned up and killed, Imprisoned in a factory known as the Granite Mills. At seven o’clock the fire bell rung; the alarm it was too late. The fire it was a-raging, it was at a fearful rate. Men and women were in it, children I suppose as well. They all might have been saved had the truth been known from the flames of the burning mill. The first scene was a cruel one; a girl so young in years, She was standing at the window, and her eyes were bathed in tears. She was standing at the window, and she called her mother’s name; “O mother, mother, save me,” and she fell back in the flames. The next scene was a horrid one, and as she passed my eyes, She was leaping out of a window, and from the roof so high. There was a poor creature who tried to escape by sliding down a rope, And when she got about halfway down, those burning strands, they broke. Crash, crash, she came upon the ground; she was bruised, burned and killed. Three hundred people lost their lives in the flames of the burning mill; And now I am going to conclude me song, and if you will all agree, I will try and please you one and all and all this company. It was my opinion, it is my opinion still, They all might have been saved had the truth been known from the flames of the burning mill. I hope her soul has gone to rest, in a place that is dearer still, Above, above in heaven above, and away from the burning mill.65

The Granite Mill of Fall River, Massachusetts, was built in 1863 and burned on September 19, 1874. The fire alarm was not sounded for 20 minutes, in which time over 50 persons were trapped in the attic. Twenty were finally reported dead. The ballad was collected also in Maine and Nova Scotia as well as in Vermont. Two other songs were written about the event: “The Burning Granite Mill,” published in songsters of the period, and “The Granite Mill Fire at Fall River, Mass.,” credited to A. W. Harmon and published on a broadside.

RHODE ISLAND The name “Rhode Island” owes its origin to the sixteenth-century Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, who compared the size of Block Island (some 10 miles south of the mainland) to the Mediterranean island of Rhodes. The first settlement was made by the minister Roger Williams and a few followers at Providence, in 1636; they had left the Massachusetts Bay colony because of disagreements with the authorities there. In 1638 a group of Bostonians, in similar difficulties, purchased the island of Aquidneck, now Rhode Island, from Indians and settled Portsmouth. Factional strife split this settlement, and it took more than two decades before a united colony was formed, as implied by the state’s official name, the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

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Though Rhode Islanders supported the revolutionary war with distinction—at the Battle of Rhode Island, a battalion of freed slaves distinguished itself, and a Rhode Islander, General Nathanael Greene, earned praise as Washington’s second in command—after the war, the colony was reluctant to ratify the Constitution until the Bill of Rights was proposed in the form of 10 amendments. Though the largely agricultural population opposed joining the Union, the merchants of Providence and Newport worked hard for ratification and eventually won out. In 1842 a movement for widening the franchise, limited under the 1663 charter to freeholders and their eldest sons, resulted in a conflict known as the Dorr Rebellion (see subsequent discussion). Led by Thomas Wilson Dorr, the son of an aristocratic family, the faction favoring universal suffrage held a convention in 1841 and adopted a constitution embodying this principle. At an election held under this constitution, Dorr was elected governor in 1842, but the election was not accepted as legal by the legislature or the state supreme court. When his forces were repulsed in an attempt to seize the arsenal in Providence, Dorr fled the state. Upon his return, he was tried on a charge of high treason, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment; he served only one year, however, and was released in 1845. By that time, the state had adopted a revised constitution considerably broadening the basis of the franchise, but it was not until the mid-twentieth century that full rights to vote in all elections were extended to all citizens at the age of 21 (later, 18).66 A New Song, Called the Gaspée ’Twas in the reign of George the third Our public peace was much disturb’d By ships of war, that came and laid Within our ports, to stop the trade. In seventeen hundred and seventy-two In Newport harbour lay a crew, That play’d the parts of pirates there; The sons of freedom could not bear. Sometimes they’d weigh and give them chace [sic] Such actions sure was very base; No honest coasters cou’d pass by, But what they would let some shot fly; And did provoke to high degree, Those true born sons of liberty; So that they cou’d no longer bear Those sons of Belial staying there. But ’twas not long ’fore it fell out, That William Duddingston, so stout, Commander of the Gaspée tender, Which he has reason to remember; Because as people do insert [sic], He almost had his just desert [sic] Here on the tenth day of last June, Betwixt the hours of twelve and one. Did chance the sloop call’d the Hannah, Of whom one Linsey was commander;

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They dog’d her up Providence sound, And there the rascal got a-ground. The news of it flew that very day That they on Nanquit point did lay; That night about half after ten Some Narragansett Indianmen, Being sixty-four if I remember, Which made this stout coxcomb surrender; And what was best of all their tricks They in his britch a ball did fix. Then set the men upon the land And burnt her up we understand; Which thing provokes the King so high He said those men shall surely die. So if he could but find them out, The hangman he’ll employ no doubt; Forhe’s declared in his passion, He’ll have them tri’d, a new fashion. Now for to find these people out, King George has offer’d very stout; One thousand pounds to find out one That wounded William Duddingston. One thousand more he says he’ll spare For those who say they sheriffs were; One thousand more there doth remain, For to find out the leaders name. Likewise five hundred pound per man Of any one of all the clan, But let him try his utmost skill, I’m apt to think he never will Find out any of those hearts of gold, Though he should offer fifty-fold.67

The burning of the vessel Gaspée took place on June 8, 1772, a result of the resentment aroused in Rhode Island over the British attempt to enforce the revenue laws so distasteful to the colonists. The American schooner Hannah, commanded by Captain Lindsey, was proceeding up the river from Newport to Providence, when the Gaspée, commanded by William Duddingston, gave chase. The Hannah crossed the shallow water at Namquit Point, but the Gaspée ran aground trying to follow. That evening, Providence citizens boarded the Gaspée, removed the crew, and torched the vessel. Duddingston fired shots at them and was wounded by return fire—the first shots (some say) fired in the Revolution. The eighth stanza alludes to the fact that the Americans were disguised as Indians.68 The broadside was published in Providence, probably within months of the affair. It is of great historical interest, marking as it does one of the first aggressive encounters between the colonists and their would-be masters, but as a song or a poem, there is little to be said in its praise. There is no authorial attribution: the colophon reads “Providence: Printed for the Purchasers”—that is, the author(s). Evidently neither authors nor printers were eager to

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affix their names to the sheet. Was it ever a folk song? Alas, there is no evidence of oral circulation, and we can only conjecture that our revolutionary ancestors would have relished both the outcome of the event and the opportunity to gloat over it. Charles Gibbs Oh, all that now stand round me, Take warning by my fate, Avoid the paths of sin and death Before it is too late. I once had tender parents Who dearly loved their son; But I proved disobedient And in follies [sic] path did run. My father oft recalled me, But I would not refrain, ’Till firmly Satan bound me In his infernal chain. My father thought to change my life By sending me to sea, But that had no effect at all, Though I seen brave Lawrence Die. In Halifax more vice I learnt Than here I can relate; And soon I took a horrid oath Which seal’d my dismal fate. In vain my parents plead with me To quit the paths of sin; Alas, my heart was harden’d And all was black within. A wealthy uncle left me cash, Which I did then abuse, For money I counted but as trash, That I might freely use. At length when all my cash was gone, I resolved to go to sea— And entered myself with Capt. Brown, Which sealed my destiny. I then encountered the Maria, Privateer, Commanded by Capt. Bell, And soon we took her from him, The truth to you I tell. We hoisted up the Black Flag, And a Pirate I became; I then committed cruelties Too dreadful for to name. No sex nor age we spared, But all we took was slain;

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No mercy did we ever show, For dead men tell no tales. My bloody knife was ever ready, For be it understood, No God nor man I ever feared Upon the briny flood. I after visited the land And made a great display, For I had cash at full command, And that I dashed away. Full forty gallant vessels, I robb’d of gold in store, And full four hundred souls Of life, they welter’d in their gore. No pity have I ever shown, Then who can pity me; Though here I die without a sigh, Upon the gallows tree. My tender mother’s heart will ache, My father dear will groan; But none I see recognized me, I die here all alone. May God have mercy on my soul, Is all my wretched prayer; His holy grace can save me yet, Though lost in dark despair. Fur cursed gold my life I sold, And murdered without fear! But at the last I fear I’ve lost, My soul’s in deep despair. Now all who see my shameful end, Take warning here by me, And don’t neglect your souls in life, Lest you die on the gallows tree. My hardened heart it will not bend, It still clings on to life; Ah! must I leave this world behind, For one of endless strife. Will furies drag my spirit home? Will fiends torment my soul? All this, and more I must endure, For love of cursed gold. Farewell, farewell, my only child, May heaven in mercy spare Thee from the shame thy father feels, His crimes and dark despair.

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Farewell, my parents ever kind, We ne’er can meet again, For I must suffer for my crimes, Ah! where, I dare not say.69

Charles Gibbs was born in Rhode Island and hanged on Bedloe Island, site of the Statue of Liberty, in 1831 (or 1832?); he was the last pirate hanged in the United States. A 36-page pamphlet published in Providence by Israel Smith in 1831 is titled “Mutiny and murder confession of Charles Gibbs, a native of Rhode Island who, with Thomas J. Wansley, was doomed to be hung in New York on 22d of April last, for the murder of the captain and mate of the brig Vineyard on her passage from New Orleans to Philadelphia, in November 1830 . . . Annexed is a solemn address to youth.” This ballad is a classic example of what is called “the criminal’s last goodnight”— purportedly the words spoken as the doomed villain mounts the steps to the scaffold. It was not uncommon in eighteenth-century England for such hangings (and there were many) to be attended by vast throngs of spectators, among whom strolled vendors with foods and other goods, and probably also pickpockets, who earned their living in the shadow of the gallows pole. In some cases, a hack writer would have penned a fictitious song with the prisoner’s supposed final words; it would have been hastily printed on broadsides and sold for a ha’penny or penny to the “audience.” The ballad is probably from the year of the execution, if not very soon thereafter, but it is not mentioned in contemporary accounts, such as the aforementioned. The ballad has turned up twice in field collections.70 Rhode Islanders may protest the attribution of this ballad of nefarious piracy to their diminutive state, inasmuch as the events described did not take place on Rhode Island soil. In truth, it is only Gibbs’s nativity that justifies the placement of the song in this section. Sarah Maria Cornell Kind Christians all I pray attend, To these few lines that I have penn’d; While I relate the murdered fate, That did awaite poor Cornell’s end. Miss Sarah Cornell was her name, Whose [i.e., whom] base deceit has brought to shame, Your hearts in sympathy must bleed, When shepherds murder lambs indeed. A Rev. Mr. Avery sure, A teacher of the Gospel pure, Stands charged with murder to the test— Seduction too, in part confessed. First inquest he was set at large, From circumstances there’s further charge; Soon after that the deed was done, He ran away the law to shun. But blood for blood aloud doth cry, All murderer’s [sic] too, must surely die; Three hundred dollars of reward, To bring this Avery to the charge.

This broadside from the 1830s includes two different songs commemorating the death of Sarah Mariah Cornell, the second of which is discussed in the text. Misspellings (“Cornel” in the second title) were not uncommon on hastily typeset and printed broadsides of the era; images of coffins were commonly used for songs or poems concerned with death. From the Library of Congress.

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Cover of the booklet, “Life and Trial of the Rev. Ephraim K. Avery, for the Murder of The Young and Beautiful Miss Sarah M. Cornell, a Factory Girl of Fall River, Mass. . . . ,” 1876. Author’s collection.

He soon was taken, and with speed, Must answer for the fatal deed; Now in Rhode Island, bound is he, In May, to wait his destiny. Methought I heard her spirit say, “Remember Cornell’s end, I pray,

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And let no one reflection make, Upon my friends, for my poor sake. “Let woman’s weakness plead my cause, When cruel men break nature’s laws; Oft man by man is much deceiv’d— What tongue would not my weakness plead “Knew you but half the artful way, My base betrayer led me astray; The best may slip, the cautious fall, He’s more than man ne’er erred at all. “Ye maidens all, both old and young, Trust not to men’s false flatt’ring tongue; To know a man, pray know his life, How few there are deserve a wife. “Tho’ doom’d I am to awful end, I crave the prayers of every friend. That my poor spirit may be blest, And with my God in heaven rest. “Yet, to conclude this mournful song, These lines I pray remember long, Adieu! my friends, pray don’t repine, Example’s yours, experience mine.”71

On the morning of December 21, 1832, farmer John Durfee was startled to discover the lifeless body of a woman hanging from a pole supporting the roof of one of his haystacks on his farm near Fall River—a town of seven textile mills, a steamboat to Providence and Newport, a newspaper, and a population in excess of 4,000. Calling for assistance, Durfee set in motion a chain of events that riveted the attention of much of New England for many months. It was determined that the bruised and abused body belonged to Sarah Maria Cornell, a 31-year-old factory maid, and that she was approximately five months pregnant. A hastily convened coroner’s jury clumsily concluded that she had committed suicide. When her personal belongings were examined, a note was found that she had written the previous evening, when she left her boarding house, telling her landlady that she would return before 9:00 P.M. that evening: “If I should be missing enquire of the Rev. Mr. Avery of Bristol he will know where I am. Dec 20th S M Cornell.” With this and other new information, the body was exhumed and reexamined, and foul play was a decided possibility. Ephraim K. Avery, a 36-year-old ordained minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was suspected and arraigned. A hearing was convened in Bristol, Rhode Island, on December 25 (then not a holiday in Rhode Island). The prosecution argued that she was a child of an unhappy home who was rejected by her family; that she was a fervent Methodist who had been taken advantage of by Reverend Avery at one of the Methodist camp meetings that she attended regularly; that she approached him to help her out of her difficulty; that he gave her oil of tansy to induce abortion (recommending a dose that would have killed her); and that finally, he saw no way to save his own reputation other than do away with her. The defense brought considerable evidence that Cornell was a shameless hussy of scandalous morals, guilty of theft, perjury, and fornication, and that she seduced Avery and ultimately contrived the circumstances of her suicide vengefully

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to implicate him. On January 7, Avery was exonerated. Feelings against him still running high—much of the drama could be seen as an antagonistic relationship between the working-class factory community (who defended one of their own) and the unpopular Methodist Conference (who defended one of their own)—Avery’s lawyers advised him to leave the vicinity. His so doing only further convinced local citizens of his guilt. Additional evidence uncovered as well as irregularities in the coroner’s inquests and the hearing itself resulted in a formal, more protracted trial, held in Newport. Once again, Avery was acquitted (on June 2), but his career as a Methodist minister was effectively terminated. After trying to establish himself at other congregations in New England, he eventually removed to Ohio, where he took up farming and died in 1869. (There is some question whether this ballad should be considered the property of Massachusetts or Rhode Island. Today, Fall River is a Massachusetts city, but in the 1830s, the town was practically on the border between the two states. In fact, one of the broadsides published at the time states that the crime took place in Fall River, Rhode Island. Furthermore, most of the places involved in the events leading up to the murder and subsequently took place in Rhode Island, and since our smallest state has few ballads to which it can wholly lay claim, it is hereby awarded custody over this ballad.) The affair was one of the widely publicized of the early nineteenth century and was arguably the first in the country in which a man of the cloth was tried for murder. Avery’s release was no doubt due to the great expense and trouble to which the Methodist Conference went to obtain his acquittal. Though he continually professed his innocence, an impartial evaluation of the evidence that has survived makes Cornell’s suicide—the formal conclusion of the trial—very unlikely. Her death was most likely the result of a botched attempt at abortion, but no one other than Avery was ever suggested as a likely suspect. The Forget Me Not Songster text, though published in the 1840s, must have been written (and doubtless first published) between May and June 1833—after the first, but before the final trial’s outcome was known. It is a charming mixture of traditional commonplaces (“Kind Christians all, I pray, attend”), clumsy rhyme schemes (“Now in Rhode Island, bound is he”), grammatical errors (“murderer’s” for “murderers”), and occasional flashes of poetic skill (“Example’s yours, experience mine”). A pair of stanzas (1 and 5) in the text violate the otherwise consistent AABB rhyme scheme, suggesting perhaps a text remembered (or copied) imperfectly from an earlier original. Many gallows ballads from this era are called last goodnight ballads—written as if they were the final words of the criminal about to be executed. Invariably, they end with the criminal exhorting the audience not to tread his or her own wicked path of sin (see notes to “Charles Gibbs” above for more details). In this case, the author has used the device of imagining he heard poor Sarah’s departed spirit in order to conjure up her own conjectured last words; though Sarah is the victim, her words lead us to believe she was not entirely blameless. Two other broadside ballads commemorating the Cornell murder have been preserved on a single sheet: one, titled “Factory Maid,” beginning, “Oh, list the sad tale of the poor factory maid,” is paired with “The Clove-Hitch Knot—composed on the death of Sarah M. Cornell, who was murdered near Fall River, R.I.”; the first is to the tune of “The StarSpangled Banner” and the second to “Auld Lang Syne.” The clove hitch refers to the type of knot used in the rope around Sarah’s neck—an important feature that prompted considerable argument at the trials over whether a factory maid would know about such a mariner’s knot and would be able to hang herself with it. All three ballads, all of unknown authorship, take Reverend Avery’s guilt for granted; the one quoted here certainly does so, while still allowing for Sarah’s own moral failings.

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In this wise, they reflect the attitudes of the textile factory communities of which Sarah was a member. Other songs, likewise disposed against Avery, were printed in the months during and after the trial.72 One commentator, a journalist who went by the pen name of Aristides, gathered his newspaper reports into a single volume after the conclusion of the trial. Aristides was hard-pressed to accept Avery’s innocence. His preface reluctantly professes his satisfaction with the trial—but not with the consequences—and also exhibits some of the public acrimony toward the Methodist Conference: Avery, it is true, has been tried and acquitted by a jury of his country. With this, I am satisfied. But no jury shall ever force on me an opinion contrary to my conviction, nor compel me to hold my peace when I see even common decency set at naught. Had the [Methodist] Conference, at Boston, conducted as men in their stations ought to have conducted, and, with all humility, kept Ephraim K. Avery from the pulpit, till his innocence were made to appear, all would have been well. But, when, after using every possible means, fair and foul, to rescue him from the grasp of justice, he was borne in triumph to the metropolis of New-England, and, while the verdict of not guilty had scarcely ceased to vibrate on the ear, was raised in proud exultation to the consecrated desk—when, in the very face of truth, he was declared free, even of the suspicion of crime, and all those denounced as infidels, sceptics [sic], and bloody minded wretches, who presumed to doubt his innocence, the community that could have looked quietly on—that would not have broken out in a burst of honest indignation at such abuse, would scarcely deserve the name of civilized. The public demanded the simple facts, many of which were kept back by plotting and corruption. They now have them; and such as been their force, that the recreant has cowered before them—has abandoned the pulpit he so long disgraced, and winged his flight to some distant region. For one, I am satisfied with the result; and believe the public are likewise. Let him remain silent till his innocence can be made to appear, and if ever that event should take place, all will rejoice with him. Till then, though ten thousand juries and conferences acquit him, he can never be thought of, or spoken of, without having associated with his name the title of murderer. And every attempt to make the people think or speak otherwise, will inevitably recoil, like that which has past, on those who make them.73

That the Cornell-Avery saga generated considerable literature in the 1830s is not surprising; perhaps not expected is that a century and a half later, it still drew interest. Kasserman’s Fall River Outrage is a detailed account of the historical events as best as they could be reconstructed from the documents.74 Paul’s The Tragedy at Tiverton and Cable’s Avery’s Knot, both from the 1980s, are historical novels—a literary form that allows its creator(s) to rewrite history as they prefer it to have happened.75 Cable’s reconstruction of events is that Cornell and Avery were secret lovers, and her pregnancy forced Avery, for whom marriage or even just public disclosure were unthinkable, to try to effect an abortion. That attempt failed, Sarah died, and Avery strung her up to give the appearance of suicide. Paul’s story is much more imaginative: he acknowledges some intimacy between Cornell and Avery but finds another culprit (actually two) to blame for her death. Shall Dorr Be Freed (Tune: “The Star-Spangled Banner”) O say shall the victim remain in his thrall, For maintaining the post which a People had given; For accepting their loud and unanimous call— For whose good he so long, and so firmly has striven.

This broadside, “Shall Dorr Be Freed,” was one of many songs and poems written and distributed in Rhode Island during the Dorr rebellion around 1845. Courtesy of the Rhode Island Historical Society (RHi X3 6741).

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O say shall not he from base thrall be set free, And receive all his Rights with his dear Liberty? Will our Rulers have Justice and Mercy to save, And the victim be freed e’er he drops in the grave? And now the Election’s brief struggle is o’er, And Charles Jackson’s appointed to lead them to action; O may our Legislature in Justice restore, To the captive his freedom, and Rights to a fraction. If he had been wrong, he has suffered full long, And the voices that chose him were many and strong. O then may our Rulers use Mercy to save, And the victim be freed e’er he drops in the grave. Let such vain objections be heard of no more, And now Jackson is raised to the Governor’s station, May his councils direct, and guide you to restore Sweet Peace to Rhode Island through Dorr’s liberation. O then will not you, to the People be true, And forgive, like your God, who is merciful too. Then may you be just, and use Mercy to save, And the captive be freed e’er he drops in the grave. Then when he again breathes the pure balmy air, And is freed from the toil of the prison that bound him, And thousands to greet him, will hither repair, And fond parents and friends will gather around him. Then we shall have peace, and fierce discord will cease, And the name of our State, will in glory increase. Then may harmony guide you, and mercy to save, And the captive be freed e’er he drops in the grave. Put away Party hate, and let enmity cease From your bosoms revenge and hostility banish— Let harmony rule, and the bright Sun of Peace The land will illumine, and discord will vanish. Though some should deride, let their sneers not divide, And may God, with his Wisdom direct you and guide. May the banner of mercy and justice still wave, And Rhode Island be ranked with the free and the brave. —E.H.H.76

In the 1840s many Rhode Island citizens felt that the state’s political system was in the thrall of the antiquated royal colonial charter of 1663, and peaceful attempts at reform had been unsuccessful. Consequently, in 1842, under the leadership of Thomas Wilson Dorr (1805–1854), they resorted to an armed rebellion. Their goals included extension of suffrage by eliminating the ancient $134 freehold qualification for voting and office holding; reapportionment of the state House of Representatives, which was under the control of rural towns; removal of the judiciary from the control of the Assembly; modification of a harsh penal code; inauguration of secret ballot; and abolition of the requirement that nonvoters serve in the state militia. Growing reformist agitation had prompted the General Assembly several times to convene a constitutional convention that (perhaps by design) succeeded in effecting minimal

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changes or none at all. Finally, in 1841, convinced that legal procedures would not accomplish anything, reformers, led by Thomas Dorr, recently elected member to the House of Representatives, opted for extralegal means. Under Dorr’s leadership, they appealed to all adult male citizens to disregard landholding qualifications and elect delegates to a People’s Convention, to meet in October. A liberalized proposed constitution was drafted and submitted to popular referendum in December. Though it received a majority of favorable votes, the new constitution was not to go into effect until May 1842, which gave the old guard charter adherents time to launch a counterattack in the form of various laws (“Algerine laws”) to protect their own positions. In the turbulent months following, an election was held on April 18, and Dorr was elected governor, though the process was in violation of some of the recently passed Algerine laws and in effect made Dorr guilty of treason against the state. Dorr traveled to Washington to seek support from President John Tyler but was told that the president would back the conservative government in the event that the conflict escalated to armed confrontation. On May 17 Dorr’s followers seized two ancient Revolutionary War cannons from the mall in Providence’s town center and determined to attack the state arsenal. Confronted by the conservative militia, Dorr gave the order to fire the weapons, which failed to work properly, and Dorr’s forces fled or retreated. This fiasco doomed Dorr’s cause, and the following morning, he fled the state. In the following months, the conservative Law and Order Party convened another constitutional convention and enacted a new document meeting at least some of the reformers’ demands. After the new constitution was ratified, Dorr returned to Providence in October 1843 to surrender; he was arrested, tried for treason, and found guilty by a jury consisting of his political opponents. He was sentenced to solitary confinement for life but was pardoned by the new governor, Charles Jackson, after serving one year. A liberalized General Assembly restored his civil rights in 1851, but his spirit and health were crushed, and he died in 1854.77 “Shall Dorr Be Freed” must date from 1845, between Governor Jackson’s election and Dorr’s release from prison in June. Other broadside ballads on the Dorr episode include the following (title, first line, and credits, if any): 1. An Address to the Freemen of Rhode-Island (“Freemen of Rhode-Island, rise!”) 2. The Fearless Spirit of Thomas W. Dorr, As He Stood in the Legislative Hall, at Newport, R.I. (“He stood before the assembled crowd”) 3. Flight of Dorr’s Army (“The sun was low on Federal Hill”) 4. Gov. Thomas Wilson Dorr (“Next to the peerless Washington”) 5. Landholders’ Victory (“Brave suffrage men, assist while I sing”) 6. A Parody. Sung at the Young Women’s Suffrage Fair (“Shall Suffrage prisoners be forgot”) 7. Rhody’s Prodigy, or, the First and Only Veritable History of the Rhode Island War (“Ye patriots bold and sages old”) 8. The Suffrage Boys (“The Suffrage boys are wise awake”) 9. Suffrage Pledge (“Here on this sacred spot”) 10. Thomas W. Dorr in Prison. Written for the 4th of September (“While we assemble here this day”) 11. The Triumphs of Gov. Dorr: Or, His Victory Over His Enemies (“Triumphant spread your wings on high”); composed by John Costin James, a Friend of Freedom 12. Woonsocket Suffrage Song (“Come, list awhile, ye suffrage men”); by a Suffrage Lady; air: “American Boy.” 13. Untitled (“Come whiggies, come, Old Durham’s in trouble”); anti-Dorr ballad

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(Bright-Eyed) Little Nell of Narragansett Bay Full well do I remember my boyhood’s happy hours, The cottage and the garden where bloomed the fairest flowers, The bright and sparkling water, o’er which we used to sail With hearts so gay, for miles away, before the gentle gale. I had a dear companion, but she’s not with me now, The lily of the valley is waving o’er her brow, And I am sad and lonely, and mourning all the day For bright-eyed laughing little Nell of Narragansett Bay. Chorus: Toll, toll the bell at early dawn of day, For lovely Nell so quickly passed away, Toll, toll the bell a soft and mournful lay, For bright-eyed laughing little Nell of Narragansett Bay. I loved the little beauty, my boat it was my pride, And with her close beside me, what joy the foam to ride, She’d laugh with tone so merry to see the waves go by, As wildly blew the stormy wind, and murky was the sky, Though lightnings flashed around us and all was dark and drear, We loved to brave old ocean, and never dreamed of fear, The arrow bounded onward and darted through the spray, With bright-eyed laughing little Nell of Narragansett Bay. Chorus. One day from us she wandered, and soon within the boat, The cord was quickly loosened and with the tide afloat, The treacherous bark flew lightly and swift before the wind, While home and friends, and all so dear were many miles behind, Next day her form all lifeless, was washed upon the beach, I stood and gazed upon it, bereft of sense and speech; ’Tis years since thus we parted, but here I weep to day, For bright-eyed laughing little Nell of Narragansett Bay. Chorus.78

George Frederick Root (1820–1895) was one of the great American composers of the mid-nineteenth century, producing such enduring favorites as “The Battle Cry of Freedom,” “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,” and “Just Before the Battle, Mother.” Root grew up in Boston, where he was classically trained on piano. After moving to New York City in 1845, he played the organ at the Church of the Strangers and taught music at the Abbott Institute for Young Ladies. After some education in Europe, he was offered an opportunity to assist Lowell Mason, one of America’s most distinguished musicians and music educators, at Boston’s Academy of Music. For many years, Root was disconcerted by the conflict between the prestige of a career as a classical composer and the appeal of a writer of popular songs. In 1851 he began writing minstrel songs, concealing his identity for a while by using the pseudonym G. Friedrich Wurzel (“root” in German) because he was still troubled by the dilemma. His first success came in 1853 with “The Hazel Dell,” followed in 1855 with another hit, “Rosalie, the Prairie Flower.” In 1959 he moved the family to Chicago to join his older brother’s publishing company, Root & Cady. When the Civil War commenced, impelled by the desire to write songs that would win a wide audience and influence as many people as possible, Root began to write songs in support of the Union side. In 1863 he composed “The First Gun is Fired” and then, in 1864, the composition that became the best-known song of the war era,

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“The Battle Cry of Freedom.” Other songs composed during this time include “Just Before the Battle, Mother,” “Just After the Battle,” “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,” “On, On, On the Boys Came Marching,” and “The Vacant Chair.” Root continued working for Root & Cady after the war, and in 1872 the University of Chicago awarded him the honorary degree of doctor of music. In his later life, he was instrumental in founding the New York Normal Institute, dedicated to the training of music instructors. Narragansett Bay is an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean that nearly divides the state of Rhode Island in half. Since colonial times, it has been an important shipping center as well as a prosperous fishing and recreational area. Whether Root chose it as the site for this tragic story of love and death because of fond memories there or simply because it made the title phrase such a perfect line of iambic heptameter, I cannot say. There certainly is no historical basis for its story. Root’s song is a typical sentimental ballad of the Victorian era—meaning that, unlike the traditional ballads of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which tell tales of violence and/or passion, this one’s central figure dies pathetically and undeservedly from circumstances beyond her control. Root’s song endured in oral tradition long after its reign as a commercial hit. In the early twentieth century, it was collected from folksingers in the Northeast (Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania), the Midwest (Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota), the Southeast (Florida, Missouri, North Carolina), and the West (Utah, California) as well as in Canada. Alas, the same cannot be said for the four nineteenth-century ballads resulting from historical Rhode Island events; there is no indication that any of them was remembered into the twentieth century, let alone the twenty-first. Nevertheless, in their day they must have been widely sung. They provide a reminder that folk songs, no more than other kinds of lore, do not last forever, but have their finite lifetimes. It is not so remarkable that they fade from public memory after a century as that certain other songs and ballads last for three or four centuries. The Railroad Accident at Richmond Switch On April nineteenth, seventy-three, Of this affair we heard— The worst disaster, said to be, That ever here occurred. From Stonington, the Steamboat Train, To Boston being bound, With passengers who that night came From New York by the Sound. At Richmond Switch a bridge was gone; Not being warned of this, With lightning speed the train came on, And plunged in the abyss. Rush of water that night, they say, It through a mill dam came, Entirely took the bridge away, Just ere the coming train. The cars and engine, in the trench, Suddenly taking fire,

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Water failing the flames to quench, They were consumed entire. The engineer and fireman brave Ne’er from their duty turned; Passengers’ lives they’d wish to save, Themselves were killed and burned. The danger being by them seen, Firm at their posts did stand; At the throttle Guile’s killed by steam, Shovel in Eldred’s hand. Seven bodies to a crisp were burned, And taken from the wreck; With horror from the sight all turned, But none will it forget. Some twenty others, wounded sore, Were a pitiful sight; Some likely will be crippled for The balance of their life. But the number of lost, alas! A secret must remain; Passengers many, of second class, That night were on the train. The conductor, from rear platform, By fortune did escape; With signal he the Mail Train warned, Which saved it from that fate. The Boat Train’s Engineer, they say, Over the other claimed, By ten minutes, the right of way, And thus the road he gained. If the Mail Train had gone before, The right they did demand, Of the killed and wounded many more Would on the record stand. The bridge rebuilt over the brook, A train that soon passed by, The victims to Providence took, Whom friends identify. Guile it’s known, in Providence lived; Each time his train passed through, A whistle for his wife he’d give; The greeting she well knew. His place in Elmwood, plainly shown, The railroad passed his door; His widow, in her lonely home, His signal greets no more.

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Eldred, the fireman, Wickford claims; A noble son she bred; In grief, they say, there one remains, Whom he was soon to wed. Though railroad accidents severe Are often taking place, This road’s record of such is clear, It’s said, except this case.79

Just east of the village of Richmond Switch, Rhode Island (now called Wood River Junction), the tracks of the Stonington Line crossed Meadow Brook, on a bridge with a span of less than 20 feet. At about 2:45 on the morning of April 19, 1873, the Steam Boat Train pulled away from the Stonington steamboat landing, having made a delayed connection with the overnight steamboat from New York City. The Boat Train was bound for Providence with three flatcars piled high with freight and baggage and over 100 passengers packed into its five coaches. A great many of the 100 were packed in the first passenger car, a secondclass coach commonly called an emigrant car, carrying mostly emigrants freshly arrived in the United States. At Stonington Junction, the Boat Train met the northbound Shore Line Express, with the Boston mail. Conductor Orrin Gardner of the Boat Train was annoyed because the boat from New York had been a half hour late and he had not cleared the junction with the allotted time interval before the scheduled arrival of the Shore Line Express, and so he had to wait on a siding until it arrived. When the express finally arrived at 3:05, the two conductors argued over which train should proceed first over the bridge. After heated debate, it was decided that the boat train would cross first and the Shore Line would follow it at the prescribed interval of 10 minutes. In a few minutes, the Boat Train crossed the Pawcatuck River and entered Rhode Island at Westerly. After a brief station stop there, engineer Guile opened up the throttle and began to make up a little time racing through the dark and misty morning at about 40 miles an hour. Just about nine miles north of Westerly, the Boat Train thundered downgrade into Richmond Switch. At Richmond Switch, just west of the railroad track, Meadow Brook was dammed to provide water power for G. N. Ennis’s gristmill. The dam was made of dry-laid stone slabs backed by an earthen fill over 20 feet thick, with the Alton Road running on top of the fill. This dam held back about 40 acres of water. It had rained hard on Thursday and Friday, and the water level in the millpond rose quickly, in spite of the miller’s opening the mill gates to vent excess buildup. Suddenly, the dam gave way, sending a wall of water 10 feet high racing down the normally shallow channel and obliterating the railroad bridge—just in time for the arriving Boat Train. The locomotive leapt the chasm, now 40 feet wide, and crashed into the bank on the other side. The coal tender jackknifed, coming to rest upside down on top of the cab. The three flat cars piled into the stream, and then the first three coaches slammed together, each telescoping halfway through the one ahead of it. The first coach, the one packed with emigrants, was driven out atop the sunken flatcars by the force of the telescoping coaches behind it, spilling passengers into the frigid, swirling, dark water.

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Inside the splintering coaches, the glowing coal stoves and oil lamps overturned, showering the occupants and wreckage with glowing coals and flammable liquid. Fires broke out simultaneously in several places, fanned by a brisk northeast breeze. Brakeman Monroe raced along the tracks to warn the fast-approaching Express, and as soon as the engineer sighted him, he threw the engine in reverse. Conductor Sprague ordered the Express’s cars decoupled and had the engine pull up to the wreck, where he coupled onto the rear cars and pulled them out of the fire, which was already blistering their varnish. There was no escape for those trapped in the wreckage; the cars burned until there was nothing left but ashes and glowing metal parts. Other passengers, weighed down by their heavy clothing, foundered in the raging stream, some unable to reach firm ground. Engineer Guile’s body was found jammed between a driving wheel and the boiler, his lifeless hand still outstretched toward the throttle. The charred body of fireman George Eldred was found the next morning, still clutching the tender’s brake wheel in his fire-blackened hands. The train had 91 ticketed passengers, a nine-man crew, and six deadheading railroaders aboard on that fatal morning. The engineer, fireman, and nine passengers were killed in the wreck. Some passengers were never accounted for, and the death toll may have been higher. For weeks afterward, pieces of clothing, debris from the wreck, and occasionally, a gruesome part of a body were picked out of mill wheels as far downstream as Westerly. Engineer Guile had lived with his new wife in a house within walking distance of the railroad tracks in Providence. Like many engineers of the day, Guile had his own distinctive whistle, with which he would signal his wife as his train flew by.80 The ballad given here was published in Rhode Island without attribution or date; in view of its accuracy, it presumably was produced soon after the wreck. Like several others in this collection, there is no assurance that it was actually sung. There is a further literary interest in this tragic tale: Bret Harte, then a journalist working for the New York Tribune, read the story (but evidently misread the engineer’s name) and wrote a poem about it, “Guild’s Signal.” Its final stanza follows: And then, one night, it was heard no more From Stonington over Rhode Island shore, And the folk in Providence smiled and said As they turned in their beds, “The engineer Has once forgotten his midnight cheer.” One only knew, To his trust true, Guild lay under his engine, dead.

CONNECTICUT Although Dutch New Amsterdam and English Plymouth colony established trading posts along the Connecticut River in the early seventeenth century, the first permanent European settlers in the state came from the Massachusetts Bay colony to the middle Connecticut Valley during 1633–1635 and to the Saybrook–New Haven coastal strip during 1635–1638. (By the time of the first national census of 1790, there was little evidence of the Dutch presence in the state.) In 1665 the Connecticut River settlements and the New Haven colony were united. The New Haven colony was unsuccessful in an attempt to settle Delaware Bay, and the united Connecticut colony, despite its charter provisions, lost its claim to a strip of land extending to the Pacific. Following the American Revolution,

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settlers from Connecticut, with claims in the Midwest, were among the first to move into an area that became known as the Western Reserve, now northeastern Ohio. A royal charter from the British crown in 1662 provided for virtual self-government by suitably qualified (based on property and religion) colonists. This document remained in force until it was replaced by the state constitution adopted in 1818.81 The Yankees Return from Camp Father and I went down to camp Along with captain Gooding, Here we see the men and boys, As thick as hasty pudding. Chorus: Yankey doodle, keep it up, Yankee doodle, dandy; Mind the music and the step, And with the girls be handy. And there we see a thousand men, As rich as ’Squire David; And what they wasted every day, I wish it could be saved. Yankey doodle, &c. The ’lasses they eat every day, Would keep an house a winter; They have as much that I’ll be bound They eat it when they’re amind to. And there we see a swamping gun, Large as a log of maple, Upon a deuced little cart, A load for father’s cattle. And every time they shoot it off, It takes a horn of powder; It makes a noise like father’s gun, Only a nation louder. I went as nigh to one myself As ’Siah’s underpining; And father went as nigh again, I thought the deuce was in him. Cousin Simon grew so bold, I thought he would have cock’d it; It scar’d me so, I shrink’d it off, And hung by father’s pocket. And Captain Davis had a gun, He kind of clap’d his hand on’t, And struck a crooked stabbing iron Upon the little end on’t. And there I see a pumpkin shell As big as mother’s bason,

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Broadside, “The Yankees Return from Camp,” ca. 1810–1814, one of the earliest printed versions known of the perennial favorite, “Yankee Doodle.” This text was attributed to popular author Edward Bangs. The two woodcuts depict what appear to be sheep or lions, one as a musketeer guard and the other playing the violin. From Brown University Library.

And every time they touch’d it off, They scamper’d like the nation. I see a little barrel too, The heads were made of leather,

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They knock’d upon’t with little clubs, And call’d the folks together. And there was Captain Washington, And gentlefolks about him, They say he’s grown so tarnal proud, He will not ride without ’em. He got him on his meeting clothes, Upon a slapping stallion, He set the world along in rows, In hundred and in millions. The flaming ribbons in their hats, They look’d so taring fine, ah, I wanted pockily to get, To give to my Jemimah. I see another snarl of men A digging graves, they told me, So tarnal long, so tarnal deep, They ’tended they should hold me. It scar’d me so, I hook’d it off, Nor stopt, as I remember, Nor turn’d about till I got home, Lock’d up in mother’s chamber.82

Although the song “Yankee Doodle” belongs now to the entire nation, it is placed here because it is the official state song of Connecticut. Admittedly, these are not the words that are familiar to most readers; there were numerous versions published in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but this one has been preserved on an early song sheet by one of Boston’s most prolific printers of broadsides in the early 1800s. The origins and authorship of the song “Yankee Doodle”—as well as the origin of the expression yankee itself—have inspired a profusion of scholarship, anecdote, speculation, hearsay, and nonsense. It is well to remember that there were numerous versions, and different groups of stanzas must have had separate origins and at different times. The conclusion seems to be that, in spite of claims for foreign origin, the song was born on American soil—even though the music may have been printed in England earlier than in the New World. The earliest reference to the song is in the libretto of a comic opera published in 1767, where the phrase appears: “Exit, singing the chorus, yankee doodle, etc.” Thus one assumes that the song was already well known by then, even if printings have not yet surfaced.83 A compelling argument has been made that parts of the song originated during a battle at Cape Breton, Canada, during the French and Indian War in 1745. There are so many Americanisms that the author and early singers must have been American. The common verse (pony/macaroni, etc.) did not appear in print until the 1840s— though here again, the implication is that it had circulated orally well before—possibly as early as the 1760s, when the London Macaroni Club flourished. This was an entourage of young dandies who affected continental tastes and fashions and often sported elaborate hairstyles.84 As for the origin of the epithet “yankee” and the phrase yankee doodle—many ingenious explanations have been served up, including derivations from various Native American

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tongues as well as from Dutch, French, and even Persian. There is less argument that the term usually means (or did, in the eighteenth century) a New Englander, and was often use derogatorily. The Connecticut Pedlar I’m a Pedlar, I’m a Pedlar, I’m a Pedlar from Connecticut, I’m a Pedlar, I’m a Pedlar, pray don’t you want to buy; Many goods have I in store, sir, Listen while I name them o’er sir; Finer goods than e’er you saw before, sir, Very splendid goods have I to sell in store, sir, Listen while I name them o’er. Wooden wares, carpets for parlors and stairs, Maches and Spanish cigars, articles splendid I tell you. Here are tins, papers of needles and pins, Tracts upon popular sins, any of which I would sell. And here is Thomsonian medicine, Richest beyond all comparison, Killing the seeds of diseases, Appetite while it increases, Hot drops and strong compositions Will keep you in healthy conditions, So you will ne’er need a physician again. Here are combs, elegant brushes and brooms, Made for the sweeping of rooms, Finish’d both smoothly and neatly. Here are knives, ribbons and silks for your wives, Whistles and jews harps and fifes, On which your sons will play sweetly. And here’s the seed of asparagus, Lettuce, beet, onions and pepper grass, From the United Societies, Seeds of all kinds and varieties, Shaving soap, excellent razor strops, Razors that smoothly will shave your chops, Swain’s panacea and Jones’s drops too. Have you any seed of turnip?. . . . Do you sell the seed of coriander? Tell me pedlar, can you furnish me with any wire sieves or dinner horns?85

In an era when many of us can do most of our shopping without exiting our houses, it may tax credulity to accept that there was a time when many Americans had to depend on traveling salespersons, or peddlers (formerly, pedlars), to provide them with their needs, from books and magazines to manufactured goods and materials to be used in sewing, cooking, and other domestic occupations. This was particularly true away from the major metropolitan areas, where there were no markets or shops, and the nearest country store was a day’s travel by horse and wagon. Peddlers took on a particularly important role in the early 1800s: when foreign trade was curtailed because of British embargos prior to and during the War of 1812, many New England shippers and traders invested their idle

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capital in manufacturing. Yankee peddlers developed a market for Connecticut products, traveling as far as the South and Midwest selling buttons, pins, needles, hats, combs, tinware, brassware, clocks, rifles, tableware, and other items.86 Connecticut’s strong peddler tradition is reflected in the state motto, “The Nutmeg State,” which lingers from the days when unscrupulous peddlers tried to palm off wooden nutmegs to gullible colonists as the genuine article. (This will make no sense to a housewife whose only experience with nutmeg is in the powdered form.) It is delightful, therefore, to find this musical documentation of the role of these once vital elements in colonial life. The song reminds us of the needs that the peddler satisfied; it also pokes fun at (or at least, draws attention to) some of the long since discarded medicinal and hygienic practices of eighteenth-century America. For example, the reference to “Thomsonian medicine” recalls the once influential Samuel Thomson (1769–1843), who, in the early 1800s, putting little stock in the conventional practices of bleeding, cupping, and purging, began instead to develop his own theory of herbal medicine. Gradually, he established a reputation as a healer in his native New England and was soon marketing his system to others. By 1813 he had patented his system and began to sell “family rights certificates,” which gave the buyer a 16-page instructional booklet and allowed them to buy unadulterated domestic drugs. Did the remedies actually work? A host of medical treatments, whether by establishment practitioners or quack doctors, work because of (1) a placebo effect and (2) the body’s own natural ability to heal itself, regardless what treatment is used. Regular doctors disparaged the Thomsonians as “puke doctors and steamers.” However, Americans flocked to Thomsonian medical practitioners in the early decades of the nineteenth century. In the 1830s, when Thomsonianism reached its peak, the movement had its own lecture circuit, infirmaries, health practitioners, a network of Friendly Botanic Societies, and publications. Thomsonianism began to decline in the late 1830s even before the death of Samuel Thomson, plagued both by criticism from without and schisms from within— former associates who tried to step out on their own.87 Another favorite treatment of the day was Swain’s panacea—a patent medicine of William Swain of 1820, a cure-all that probably consisted mainly of rum and brandy. The “United Societies” mentioned in the fifth stanza was a Wesleyan religious organization. Though Massachusetts passed a law against hawkers in 1713, it carefully excluded book peddlers, who provided a valuable service in rural areas. The first bookseller seems to have been Hezekiah Usher of Boston, who added books to his general merchandise in about 1647.88 Springfield Mountain On Springfield mountains there did dwell A likely youth who was knowne full well; Lieutenant Mirick onley sone, A likely youth, nigh twenty one. One Friday morning he did go in to the medow and did moe. A round or two then he did feal, A pisin sarpent at his heal. When he received his dedly wond he dropt his sithe a pon the ground.

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And strate for home wase his intent, Caling aloude stil as he went. tho all around his voys wase hered but none of his friends to him apiere. they thot it wase some workman calld; and there poor Timothy alone must fall. So soon his Carful father went to seak his son with discontent and there hes fond onley son he found ded as a stone a pon the ground. And there he lay down sopose to rest with both his hands Acrost his brst his mouth and eyes Closed fast And there poor man he slept his last. his father vieude his track with great consarn Where he had run across the corn uneven tracks where he did go did appear to stagger to and frow The seventh of August sixty one this fatal axsident was done Let this a warning be to all, to be Prepared when God does call.89

The most frequently reported ballad of the Northeast (though comparatively uncommon in the Southeast) arose from a simple—probably common—domestic tragedy. This is “Springfield Mountain,” a tale that recounts the death of Timothy Myrick in Farmington, Connecticut, on August 7, 1761—believed to be the oldest indigenous ballad to survive in oral tradition into the twentieth century. The long and persistent popularity of this ballad must reflect in part the great concern over snakes in rural areas; tales such as this could have served as warnings to young children not to run off alone into the woods. The version printed here is as it was reconstructed by historian Rufus Stebbins, who is vague on his sources and may be responsible for the deliberately archaic spellings. Wrote Stebbins, “This poem had a wide circulation in both manuscript and print, and is the great Elegy of the ‘Mountains.’ Like the author of another immortal poem, the Iliad, its author and his residence are alike mythical; but his work and his fame have endured.”90 Myrick, 22 years old and soon to have been married, was born in Springfield Outer Commons, or Springfield Mountains, later renamed Wilbraham, Massachusetts. He was buried in the latter town’s cemetery, and because of his being both born and buried in that community, the song about him is often considered a Massachusetts ballad. Out of respect for the snake, which was a Connecticut native, the song has been categorized here as a Connecticut song. New England folk music scholar Phillips Barry researched the history of this ballad intensively and concluded that once, there were four distinct text types of the song: two, including the one given here, were of folk origin. Probably the first was written in or near the Springfield community and circulated in a (now lost) broadside; there was a tradition that it was composed by Nathan(iel) Terry, a cousin of Sarah (née Lamb) Dwight, Myrick’s fiancée. The second was a recomposition, perhaps made in Vermont, to where some of the

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Myrick family’s relatives had moved. Neither of these can be traced to earlier than 1849, and Barry speculated that Terry wrote the ballad 70 years afterward on the occasion of the centennial celebration of Springfield’s founding—an event at which one of the Myrick family was a guest speaker.91 On the other hand, it would not be unreasonable to conjecture that one ballad version was written soon after the accident but left no traces in the written record for seven decades. The other two versions were comic stage recompositions, the earlier copyrighted in 1836 and the later in 1840. These soon entered oral tradition alongside the older serious ones—especially in the Southeast.92 It may puzzle listeners of a later era how the story of a tragic death could have been made into a very popular comic song. The language of the latter appears to satirize the speech of the rural Yankee, and by trivializing the death, the song was probably intended to make fun of the rustic folk and their agrarian lifestyle in a way no longer considered acceptable. Snakes, after all, tend not to be city dwellers. Connecticut What land is that so nicely bound By Massachusetts and the Sound, Rhode Island and New York around; Where Yankees thick as hops are found, And hasty puddings do abound? Connecticut. What land is that, when George the king Did o’er the sea his fetters fling, And think to link us in their ring, Which gave the cry, “there’s no such thing,” Whose sons did Yankee Doodle sing? Connecticut. What land is that where folks are said To be scrupulously bred, To be so steady habited; Where hearty boys and girls are fed With pumpkin pies and gingerbread? Connecticut. What land is that, where old time walks In steady pace o’er maple blocks; Forsakes his brass for wooden clocks; Where heads too high will meet with knocks; And land were more if fewer rocks? Connecticut. What land is that where onions grow; Where maidens’ necks are white as snow, And cheeks like roses red, you know; Where jonnycakes are baked from dough That land where milk and honey flow? Connecticut. What land is that whence pedlars come A thousand miles or more from home, With tin, with basswood trenchers; some

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With patent nutmegs and new rum; To gather up the coppers?—hum! Connecticut. What land is that where parsons live, Where men hear gospel and believe; Where humble sinners seek reprieve; Where women stay at home and weave, Nor gad without their husbands’ leave? Connecticut. What land is that where I can trace My nineteenth cousin by his face; Where once I fished for little dace, And never learned the deuce from ace; Where gran[d]mother this night says grace; Connecticut. What land is that, when we behold, And all its history unfold, And all about the land is told, We like most things, but some we scold? Ah! gentle reader, that is old Connecticut.93

Every state’s citizens are entitled to brag about their home state, and this is one Connecticut writer’s paean of praise. The Connecticut of this text is old-fashioned, virtuous, simple, honest, and religious. Only the state’s pedlars are dealt a tiny crumb of criticism for their overzealous commercial dealings. The songster in which this text appeared was published soon after the Mexican War, or about 1848–1850, but the origin of the song itself—if indeed it was ever sung—is not known. In fact, the admonition to the “gentle reader” suggests perhaps it was only a poem, declaimed to a jovial pub audience who raised their tankards unsteadily and bellowed out “Connecticut” at each stanza’s conclusions. Perhaps some reader can put a new tune to it yet. Battle of Stonington A gallant ship from England came, Freighted deep with fire and flame, And other things we need not name, To have a dash at Stonington; Now safe arriv’d they work begun, They tho’t to make the Yankees run, And have a mighty deal of fun, In stealing sheep at Stonington. A Yankee then popped up his head, Parson Jones a sermon read, To which our Rev’rend Doctor said, That they must fight for Stonington; Their ships advancing sev’ral ways, The Britons soon began to blaze, Which put old Williams in amaze, Who fear’d the boys of Stonington.

Broadside printers would include more than one song if necessary to fill the sheet. This Leonard Deming print, ca. 1829–1831, pairs a commemoration of the Battle of Stonington of 1814 with a booster song for the fertile Ohio territory widely distributed in the 1830s and 1840s. From the Library of Congress.

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The Ramilies first began th’ attack, Nimrod made a mighty crack, And none can tell what kept them back From setting fire to Stonington; Their bombs were thrown, and rockets flew, And not a man of all their crew, Tho’ ev’ry man stood full in view, Could kill a man of Stonington. Their old razee, with red-hot ball, Made a farmer’s barrack fall, And did a cowhouse sadly maul; That stood a mile from Stonington; We Yankees to our fort repair’d, And made as how we little cared About their shot, tho’ very hard They blazed away at Stonington. To have a turn we tho’t but fair, So we brought two guns to bear, And, sir, it would have made you stare, To see the smoke at Stonington; We bored the Nimrod thro’ and thro’, And killed and mangled half her crew, When riddled, crippled, she withdrew, And cuss’d the boys of Stonington. The Ramilies gave up the affray, With her comrades sneaked away, Such was the valor on that day, Of British tars at Stonington; Now some assert on sartain grounds, Beside their damage and their wounds, It cost the king ten thousand pounds, To have a dash at Stonington.94

The town of Stonington in southeast Connecticut early developed prosperous shipbuilding and whaling industries. Perhaps on this account, it endured naval attacks by the British in 1775 during the American Revolution and again during the War of 1812. The Battle of Stonington commemorated in this ballad is from the later war: Early on August 9, 1814, four British vessels under the command of Sir Thomas Hardy, protégé of Lord Nelson, appeared offshore. They sent a delegation into the town, which was suspected of harboring torpedoes, to demand immediate surrender and evacuation within an hour. Two of Stonington’s leading citizens spoke for all with a note that stated, “We shall defend the place to the last extremity; should it be destroyed, we shall perish in its ruins.” Their entire arsenal consisted of two 18-pound cannons and one 6-pounder, set up on a hastily dug earthwork not far from the Point. For three days 158 Royal Navy guns pounded the town, destroying as many as forty buildings, but causing few casualties. The only death was that of an elderly woman who was being tended in her last illness by her daughter and who refused to move inland with the other noncombatants. The British, by contrast, suffered many dead and wounded, although the exact total is still undetermined, and on the afternoon of August 14, the battered fleet sailed off.95

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The ballad was written in 1815 by Philip Morin Freneau (1752–1832), an American poet of prodigious popularity and influence in the early 1800s, who penned numerous popular historical and patriotic songs and poems. He was alternately called the “poet of American independence” and the “father of American poetry.” After graduating from Princeton and a brief and desultory experience as an educator, he spent more than a half dozen years at sea, including some voyages to the West Indies, during one of which he was captured by the British after a bloody fight between the American ship Aurora and the British Iris. In the 1790s he married, settled in New York, and enjoyed a succession of journalistic positions and political appointments.96 After its initial publication, Freneau’s poem appeared on several broadsides.97 Freneau’s original text is three quatrains longer than the version given above and has several small textual differences. His opening line is “Four gallant ships from England came.” Broadside texts have it as three ships.98 Farmington Canal Song Oh! Captain Dick’s a gay old bird, Yes he is, upon my word! But that ain’t no excuse For his whiskers to be filled with terbacker juice! Click Webster never went to skule, But, he can drive any orn’ry mule, He chaws terbacker, he drinks rum, He can make a canal boat hum! The boat ties up at Whitin’s dock Two, three times a week, ’bout four o’clock, Out comes Adney and old Eb too, Gub Homer, Bela, and the rest of the crew. They pull and haul and cuss and swear, Unload the cargo and then repair To the store to licker up and smoke, Tell tall stories, swap lies, and joke!99

The durability of oral tradition is sometimes remarkable. “Matty Groves,” a graphic ballad of love, adultery, betrayal, and revenge, has been current in England and/or America since the early 1500s. “Froggy Went a-Courtin,’ ” a children’s song (now) about the improbable nuptials of a frog and a mouse, not only has been sung for just as long, but has also enjoyed numerous commercial recordings and picture book presentations. On the other hand, some songs are so specific to a certain time and place that they are doomed to evanescence. A group of New Haven businessmen met in 1821 to plan a Connecticut canal to facilitate trade. Ground was broken in 1825, and the canal was completed in 1835. The Farmington Canal was in use between New Haven, Connecticut, and Northampton, Massachusetts, until about 1848. Captain Dick Norton piloted a boat from New Haven to Plainville in that period, and the song must have originated then. There is no trace of the song other than in Plainville, and since it is so specific to that area, it seems unlikely that anyone anywhere else would have been interested in learning and remembering it. Henry A. Castle, who sent the text to folk song collector Eloise Hubbard Linscott, said that there was no set tune, but everyone used to sing it differently. In nineteenth-century Plainville, the characters were well known, the boat was a regular visitor, and therefore the song was a one-time favorite.

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As such, it is a good example of one of those folk songs that had a brief life in a very circumscribed geographic region but has now fallen completely out of use. The canal itself, however, has not fallen completely out of use—at least, in a sense. After 12 years of use, a railroad was built along the route of the canal, and the canal fell out of use. The Canal Railroad was used until the early 1980s, when flooding damaged the rail to the extent that it could not operate. During the 1990s, construction began on a trail following the original rail line route. At present, the Farmington Canal Heritage Greenway covers about 84 miles from New Haven to Northampton, Massachusetts.100 The Story of Gerald Chapman O, come all you young people and listen while I tell, The fate of Gerald Chapman who was hung in a prison cell; Just shortly after midnight he was called to meet his God, And shortly after sunrise was laid beneath the sod. He was a desperate criminal from the cradle to the grave, He murdered a policeman—for it his life he gave; He spent long years in prison, in Auburn and Sing Sing, He robbed the mail of over a million, got back in jail again. He was sent to Atlanta prison and tunneled out of that pen, Was shot three times and captured, escaped from the hospital again; He went up in Connecticut and in New Britain town, While attempting to rob a store there he shot James Skelley down. He was captured in Indiana was brought back to Connecticut state The jury found him guilty and hanging was his fate; He died with his secret in his heart and never told his name, Or where his money was hid til his last breath he was [dead?] Before the pardon board in his own behalf he pled, He did not ask for mercy only justice, he said; When told of the board’s decision he did not mourn or cry, But he only uttered “I’m not afraid to die.” He entered the death cell and not a word he said, And then two minutes later he was pronounced dead; Young people all take warning from Gerald Chapman’s fate, And lead an honest life before it is too late.101

Gerald Chapman led a life of crime for 19 years. In 1922 he was convicted in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York of mail robbery and placing the life of a mail carrier in jeopardy and was sentenced, on August 23, 1922, to 25 years’ imprisonment in the penitentiary at Atlanta, Georgia. But not long after, his sentence was commuted by President Calvin College for good behavior. Chapman’s good behavior evidently terminated with his liberation: on April 4, 1925, he was tried for, and convicted of, the murder of police officer James Skelly of New Britain on October 12, 1924. Though he was sentenced to be hanged on June 25, 1925, he received three reprieves and was not executed until midnight, April 5–6, 1926, at Connecticut State prison. Within a month of his execution, two ballads were recorded about his career: “Story of Gerald Chapman,” recorded by Carl Conner and transcribed here; and “Gerald Chapman, What a Pity,” recorded by Arthur Fields.

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NOTES 1. David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), in particular “Conclusion,” pp. 783ff. Population figures are from “Percent Distribution of the White Population, by Nationality: 1790,” in Historical Abstract of the United States: Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1961), Series Z 20; values have been recomputed excluding the “unassigned” population. 2. From Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “Maine.” 3. Abridged slightly from one of the texts given in the Bulletin of the Folk-Song Society of the Northeast (Cambridge, MA, 1932), 4:6–8, which gives considerable background information about this and another ballad about the skirmish. A shorter version is sung by Sandy Ives, Folksongs of Maine, Smithsonian Institution Folkways Cassette Series 05323. A longer text was published by Rufus W. Griswold, Curiosities of American Literature (1841), 27–28. 4. From Roland Palmer Gray, Songs and Ballads of the Main Lumberjacks with Other Songs from Maine (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925), 156–57. A recording of the song can be heard on Sandy Ives, Folksongs of Maine. 5. Gray, Songs and Ballads. 6. From Fannie Hardy Eckstorm and Mary Winslow Smyth, Minstrelsy of Maine: Folk-Songs and Ballads of the Woods and the Coast (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1927), 22–23, reprinted in Bulletin of the Folk-Song Society of the Northeast (Cambridge, MA, 1933), 6:11, and in Phillips Barry, ed., The Maine Woods Songster (Cambridge: Powell, 1939), 76–77. The text and tune are from the singing of Mrs. Annie V. Marston of West Gouldsboro, Maine. For references to other collected versions, see G. Malcolm Laws Jr., Native American Balladry: A Descriptive Study and a Bibliographical Syllabus, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: American Folklore Society, 1964), 155 [C 17]. 7. From Helen Hartness Flanders, Elizabeth F. Ballard, G. Brown, and Phillips Barry, The New Green Mountain Songster (Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associates, 1966), 58–60. Collected from Mr. Orlon Merrill, who learned it as a boy in Maine from his grandfather. For references to other collected versions, see Laws, Native American Balladry, 214 [G 5]. 8. From Phillips Barry, Bulletin of the Folk-Song Society of the Northeast (Cambridge, MA, 1935), 9:17–19. 9. From Asa Burnham Hutchinson, The Granite Songster: Comprising the Songs of the Hutchinson Family, without the Music (Boston: A. B. Hutchinson, 1847), 51–52. For a version from oral tradition as sung by Mrs. Jennie Hardy Linscott, in whose family it was sung for generations, see Eloise Hubbard Linscott, Folk Songs of Old New England (Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1962), 158–60. 10. From Gray, Songs and Ballads, 18–21, taken from John S. Springer, Forest Life and Forest Trees (New York, 1851), where it was stated, “Loggers, unlike most classes of men, are under the necessity of manufacturing their own songs. . . . The following is inserted as a specimen of log-swamp literature, composed by one of the loggers.” The ballad was also reprinted by Eckstorm and Smyth, Minstrelsy of Maine, 41–43. 11. From Harvard Advocate, November 10, 1871, p. 40; reprinted in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin, January 27, 1951, p. 331; and in Norm Cohen, Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong, 2nd ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 52. A recording by Doney Hammontree can be heard on Ozark Folksongs, Rounder 1108. 12. From Eckstorm and Smyth, Minstrelsy of Maine, 48–51; received in 1921 from Leonard Patterson of Berlin, New Hampshire, with the note, “But about the song. This is the way I have heard my father tell it many, many times. The boys were all out in the woods one afternoon and the cook thought that he would like some deer steak for supper. So he took his rifle and started out. When he returned the camp was burned flat. They all turned to and built the camp up again, and about two weeks after they had got moved into their new home, one evening they asked Mr. [Henry K.] Thompson to sing a song, and he sung this that he had made up about the camp burning down.” Another, slightly different text was sung by Mr. Patterson in 1936 for Phillips Barry and published, with tune, in Bulletin of the Folk-Song Society of the Northeast (Cambridge, MA, 1937), 12:20–21.

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13. Taken mostly from Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “New Hampshire.” 14. From Flanders et al., New Green Mountain Songster, 46–48, where it was copied literatim et punctatim from The Green Mountain Songster (Sandgate, VT: 1823), an anonymous manuscript by a veteran soldier. 15. From The American Vocalist, A Choice Collection of the Most Popular and Admired Sentimental, Patriotic, Comic, Irish, Negro, and Other Songs (New York: C. P. Huestis, 1847), 7–9. 16. From Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “The Hutchinson Family.” 17. Broadside from the Kenneth S. Goldstein Collection of American Song Broadsides, catalog 002501-BROAD, in the Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University. 18. Figures for earnings of mill operatives in the nineteenth century differ greatly according to source; often it is not clear whether the reported earnings are in actual dollars or have been converted to dollars for some reference year. According to Robert G. Layer, Earnings of Cotton Mill Operatives, 1825–1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, n.d.), actual average daily earnings for all workers of the Boston Company were 50–60 cents in the 1830s and 1840s. 19. From Linscott, Folk Songs of Old New England, 175–77, as sung by Mrs. Winifred Allard Piper of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, which adjoins Brookfield. The third verse was contributed by Dana Cate of Sanbornville, New Hampshire. For references to other collected versions, see Laws, Native American Balladry, 195 [F 8]. 20. From Helen Hartness Flanders and George Brown, Vermont Folk Songs and Ballads (Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associates, 1968), 72–73, recorded in 1930 in Springfield, Vermont, from the singing of Mrs. George Tatro, whose relatives knew some of the principals of the story. For references to other collected versions, see Laws, Native American Balladry, 202 [F 21]. 21. http://www.pembroke-nh.com/history.asp; http://www.oldnh.com/PembrokeSun html. 22. Barry, Bulletin of the Folk-Song Society, 4:20. 23. The first was Reverend S. C. Keeler, The Murdered Maiden Student: A Tribute to the Memory of Miss Josie A. Langmaid (Pembroke, NH: Suncook, 1878). Also of interest is The Trial of Joseph Lapage, the French Monster, for the Murder of the Beautiful School Girl, Miss Josie Langmaid. Also, the Account of the Murder of Miss Marietta Ball, the School Teacher, in the Woods, in Vermont . . . Copyrighted in 1876, this must have preceded Lapage’s conviction. For more details, see Thomas M. McDade, The Annals of Murder: A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on American Murders from Colonial Times to 1900 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961), 173–74. 24. From Edward D. Ives, “ ‘Ben Deane’ and Joe Scott: A Ballad and Its Probable Author,” Journal of American Folklore 73 (January–March 1959): 53–66, as sung by William Bell of Brewer, Maine. For references to other collected versions, see Laws, Native American Balladry, 207 [F 32], and Edward D. Ives, Joe Scott: The Woodsman-Songmaker (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979). 25. From Ives, Joe Scott. 26. For more details, see Ives, Joe Scott. 27. Taken mostly from Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “Vermont.” 28. From John and Lucy Allison, Ballads of the American Revolution and the War of 1812, Victor Album P-11, record 26460-B2. The Allisons’ source is not indicated. 29. Seven other songs and poems about the Bennington battle were gathered and reprinted by William L. Stone, Ballads and Poems Relating to the Burgoyne Campaign (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1970). 30. From Vermont Sings (Delaware, OH: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1959), 10–11, in turn taken from Perrin Batchelder Fisk, A Yeoman of the Lord: Poems (North Montpelier, Vt.: The Driftwind Press, 1933). Other versions have been reported from oral tradition: one, contributed by Mrs. Anna H. Dole of Danville, Vermont, is given in Flanders and Brown, Vermont Folk Songs and Ballads, 33–34, and is reprinted in Norm Cohen, Folk Music: A Regional Exploration (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005); another is given in Linscott, Folk Songs of Old New England, 238–40, from Mrs. Addie Jackson Morse of Underhill, Vermont.

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31. The text given here is as John G. Whittier wrote it; see Whittier, The Complete Poetical Works of Whittier (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1894), 509, wherein the editors note that this is the first edition of Whittier’s collected works that contains this poem, first published anonymously in 1833. The text is reprinted in Helen Hartness Flanders, ed., A Garland of Green Mountain Song (Northfield: Vermont Commission on Country Life, 1934), 7–8. Flanders collected one stanza from the singing of George Edwards of Burlington. The song was recorded by Margaret MacArthur on Vermont Ballads and Broadsides, Whetstone Records CD 01. 32. From Flanders and Brown, Vermont Folk Songs and Ballads, 43–45. From the singing of Mr. Paul Lorette of Manchester Center, Vermont. It has also been collected in North Dakota, New York, Michigan, and Kentucky. The composition “Green Mountain Boys” by William Cullen Bryant is completely different. 33. From Wehman’s Song Book, no. 15 (July 1887?), 24. To the tune of “Milwaukee Fire.” For a collected text, see Helen Hartness Flanders et al., The New Green Mountain Songster: Traditional Folksongs of Vermont (Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associates, 1966; reprint 1939), 156. Margaret MacArthur has recorded the ballad under the title “Central Vermont” on On the Mountains High, Living Folk Records LP F-LFR-100. 34. From Flanders et al., New Green Mountain Songster, 157–58; taken from the Boston Traveller, Boston Transcript, February 5–8, 1887. New Green Mountain Songster also gives a collected text, titled “The Hartford Wreck.” The bridge in the sixth line of the song is given as the Hartford Bridge. 35. From Flanders et al., New Green Mountain Songster, 257–58, contributed by Mrs. Grace Bartlett Fisk, in whose Springfield (Vermont) family the ballad had been sung for three generations. 36. From Bulletin of the Folk-Song Society of the Northeast (Cambridge, MA, 1934), 8:19–24. 37. From Flanders and Brown, Vermont Folk Songs and Ballads, 27–28, as sung by Mr. E. C. Beers. Margaret MacArthur has recorded the ballad on On the Mountains High, Living Folk Records LP F-LFR-100. 38. From the sheet music cover, “The Snow Storm, a Balad” (Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1843). 39. Ibid. 40. From Edited Appletons Encyclopedia, Copyright © 2001 Virtualology. 41. From Vermont Sings, 7–8. The text is also given in Flanders et al., New Green Mountain Songster, 102–5, but some of the stanzas are different. The text is by John G. Saxe and is set to the English traditional tune “The Lincolnshire Poacher.” A note states that the song was composed in 1850 to be used at a public sheep shearing at Hyde’s Hotel, Sudbury. Margaret MacArthur has recorded the song on An Almanac of New England Farm Songs, Green Linnet LP SIF 1039. 42. From www famousamericans net. 43. From Flanders et al., New Green Mountain Songster, 217–18, as sung by Mrs. Fred Blodgett of Springfield, Vermont, recorded by Helen Hartness Flanders. For references to other collected versions, see Laws, Native American Balladry, 180 [E 9]. 44. From Flanders and Brown, Vermont Folk Songs and Ballads, 19–26, taken from the singing of Mr. Orlon Merrill of Charlestown, New Hampshire. Merrill had learned it from the singing of a blind singer, George Abbott. The song was recorded by Margaret MacArthur on Vermont Ballads and Broadsides, Whetstone Records CD 01. 45. Julia C. R. Dorr, Poems (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1872), 56–62. 46. From Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “Massachusetts.” Encarta Encyclopedia Standard 2005 Edition CD-ROM edition, “Massachusetts.” 47. From the “Poets Corner” of Isaiah Thomas’s (Boston) Massachusetts Spy, February 3, 1774, as reprinted in J. A. Leo Lemay, “New England’s Annoyances”: America’s First Folk Song (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1985), 91–92. Clouts are patches. 48. As recorded by Carl T. Sprague, June 24, 1926 for Victor, released on Victor 78 rpm 20534; reissued on Cowtrails, Longhorns and Tight Saddles, Bear Family CD BCD 15979 AH. 49. From “Botany Bay,” a broadside printed by W. Armstrong of Liverpool, 1820–1824. A copy can be seen on the Bodleian Library Web site, http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/ballads/.

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50. For references to other collected versions, see G. Malcolm Laws Jr., American Balladry from British Broadsides: A Guide for Students and Collectors of Traditional Song (Philadelphia: American Folklore Society, 1957), 175[L16b]. 51. From a broadside owned by Brown University’s Hay Library, catalog no. HB 10577. The original text has been divided into stanzas of eight lines. 52. From Encarta Encyclopedia Standard 2005 Edition CD-ROM edition, s.v. “Joseph Warren.” 53. From a broadside, printed by Leonard Deming of Boston, at Brown University’s Hay Library, catalog no. HB 20513. 54. A recording of one, by Sam Hinton, can be heard on Library of Congress Session, Bear Family 16383. 55. A copy is in the Brown University’s Hay Library, catalog no. HB 14470. 56. From a broadside held by Brown University’s Hay Library, catalog no. HB 20517. 57. Transcribed and published by Gale Huntington, Songs the Whalemen Sang (Barre, MA: Barre, 1964), 165–67. Punctuation has been added, but original spelling is retained. Braken is an old-fashioned New England term for “torn, flawed”; a bunnet is a bonnet. 58. From Frank Shay, An American Sailor’s Treasury: Sea Songs, Chanteys, Legends and Lore (New York: Southmark, 1991), 90. Stan Ransom, the “Connecticut Peddler,” recorded a version on his CD, I Love Long Island: Traditional Music of Long Island, Plattsburgh. 59. From Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “Cape Cod.” 60. As sung by E. G. Huntington, learned from the singing of the Tilton brothers of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, on Folksongs from Martha’s Vineyard, Folkways LP/Cass FA 2032. Sugar of lead is lead acetate, a sweet but poisonous salt; alternatively, the phrase may simply mean “flavor it with gunshot.” 61. From a broadside, “Tea Tax,” sold by Leonard Deming of Boston, “Sung with unbounded applause at the Boston Theatre, by Mr. Andrews.” The sheet also contains a second song, “The Cottage on the Moor.” It can be viewed on the Library of Congress Web site, memory.loc.gov, “America Singing: Nineteenth Century Song Sheets.” I snum was a colloquial expression the equivalent of “I swear.” 62. From Robert H. Kemp, Father Kemp’s Old Folks Concert Tunes (Boston: Olive Ditson, 1889), p. 71. A recorded version can be heard on 200 Years of American Heritage in Song, CMH CD box set 1776. 63. Reprinted, literatim et punctatim, from Arthur M. Schlesinger, “A Note on Songs as Patriot Propaganda, 1765–1776,” William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3 11 (January 1954): 79–80; taken in turn from Virginia Gazette (Pudie and Dixon), January 20, 1774. Another version is given in Griswold, Curiosities, 30, where the tune is specified as “The Hosier’s Ghost.” The ballad was recorded by John and Lucy Allison, Early American Ballads, Keynote Records album K 102, 78 rpm. The angel “Hampden” may be John Hampden (1594–1643), English parliamentary leader who opposed King Charles I and for whom Hampden County, Massachusetts, was named in 1812. “Sidney” may be Algernon Sidney (1622–1683), English politician executed for allegedly plotting to overthrow King Charles II’s government. He was regarded as a great republican martyr. 64. From Flanders et al., New Green Mountain Songster, 161–63, where the text is reprinted verbatim et literatim from the original broadside. In the last stanza, con means “learn.” 65. Ibid., 229–31. Recorded from Mr. A. A. Mills of Florence, Vermont. 66. From Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “Rhode Island.” 67. From a broadside in possession of the Rhode Island Historical Society, reproduced in Ola Elizabeth Winslow, American Broadside Verse from Imprints of the 17th and 18th Centuries (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1930), 137 [No. 65]. The last word of the first line of the sixth quatrain is “insert,” but “assert” was meant. 68. Details from ibid. 69. Text from The Forget Me Not Songster (New York: Nafis and Cornish, n.d.), 72–74, with instructions to be sung to the tune of “The Rocks of Scilla.” A broadside, published by J. M’Cleland, 248 Water Street [Boston?], is available online through the New York Public Library.

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70. See Bruce Rosenberg, The Folksongs of Virginia, a Checklist of the WPA Holdings of Alderman Library, University of Virginia (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1969), no. 177, 23 stanzas, collected in 1941 in Virginia; and Louis W. Chappell, Folk-Songs of Roanoke and the Albemarle (Morgantown, WV: Ballad Press, 1939), 54, a fragment of two incomplete stanzas, collected in 1933 in North Carolina. 71. Text from Forget Me Not Songster, 195–96; the punctuation has been modernized. 72. See David Richard Kasserman, Fall River Outrage: Life, Murder, and Justice in Early Industrial New England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986), 220–21, for excerpts. 73. Aristides [William Simons Jr.?], Strictures on the Case of Ephraim K. Avery, Originally Published in the Republican Herald, Providence, R. I. (Providence, RI: William Simons Jr. Herald Office, 1833), 5–6. 74. Kasserman, Fall River Outrage. 75. Raymond Paul, The Tragedy at Tiverton: An Historical Novel of Murder (New York: Ballantine Books, 1984); Mary Cable, Avery’s Knot (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1981). 76. Text from a broadside reproduced in Russell J. DeSimone and Daniel C. Schofield, The Broadsides of the Dorr Rebellion (Providence: Rhode Island Supreme Court Historical Society, 1992). 77. Summarized from Patrick T. Conley, introduction to DeSimone and Schofield, Broadsides of the Dorr Rebellion, 1–13. 78. Sheet music written by G.C.W. Arranged by Wurzel. New York: Wm. A. Pond, 1860. 79. From a broadside in the collection of the Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfeesboro. Imprint: Niantio, Rhode Island, undated. 80. This account is taken from the Web site http://danger-ahead.railfan net/ accidents/richmond_ switch/home html. 81. Taken mainly from Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “Connecticut.” 82. From a broadside printed by N[athaniel] Coverly Jr., Milk Street, Boston, [1810–1814]. Copies held by the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts, and the John Hay Library, Brown University. 83. The most recent summary is given by James J. Fuld, The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular and Folk, 5th ed. (New York: Dover, 2000), 659–60, 697. Oscar Sonneck, prominent musicologist and chief of the Library of Congress Music Division in the early 1900s, produced the most thorough study, republished in Oscar Sonneck, Report on “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “Hail Columbia,” “America,” and “Yankee Doodle” (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1909). A more readable, and very convincing, study is J. A. Leo Lemay, “The American Origins of ‘Yankee Doodle,’ ” William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3 33 (July 1976): 435–64. Lemay is the only scholar to apply criteria of folk song and history to the problem—as opposed to just musical or publication criteria. 84. Sonneck, Report, 127–28. 85. Taken from Jim Douglas, Contentment, or, the Compleat Nutmeg-State Songster (Sturbridge, MA: Pedlar Press, 1987), 74 –80. According to Douglas, the song was first published in 1851 by Oliver Ditson of Boston, with words and music credited to H. W. Dunbar. The text is written here as straight verse; musically, it consists of several parts in a fuguing arrangement, so the words alone do not give an accurate impression of the song as sung. 86. From Encarta Encyclopedia Standard 2005 Edition, s.v. “Connecticut.” 87. See David Armstrong and Elizabeth Metzger Armstrong, “The Thomsonians: Every Man His Own Doctor,” in The Great American Medicine Show: Being an Illustrated History of Hucksters, Healers, Health Evangelists, and Heroes from Plymouth Rock to the Present (New York: Prentice Hall, 1991), chap. 3. 88. From Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “History of Publishing.” 89. Copied exactly as given in Rufus P. Stebbins, An Historical Address, Delivered at the Centennial Celebration of the Incorporation of the Town of Wilbraham, June 15, 1863 (Boston: George C. Rand and Avery, 1864), 206. See Norm Cohen, Folk Music, 94, for a traditional version sung by

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Mr. Josiah S. Kennison in Townshend, Vermont, as printed in Flanders and Brown, Vermont FolkSongs and Ballads, 15–16. 90. Stebbins, An Historical Address, 66–67. 91. Phillips Barry, Bulletin of the Folk-Song Society of the Northeast (Cambridge, MA: 1931– 36), 2:10; 3:30; 7:4 –5; 8:3–6; 9:8–10, 6–8; 10:13–15; 11:6–8. 92. Two surviving sheet music prints are “The Pesky Sarpent: A Pathetic Ballad” (Boston: Oakes and Swan, n.d.), no author given; and “On Springfield Mountains, or, the Pesky Sarpent. A Pathetic Ballad” (Boston: Oliver Diston, 1878). Both can be seen at http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu. edu, the Web site for the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music at Johns Hopkins’s Milton S. Eisenhower library. 93. From The National Songster: Embellished with Twenty-five Splendid Engravings, Illustrative of the American Victories in Mexico. By an American Officer (New York: Richard Marsh, [before 1848]), 239–40. 94. From Father Kemp’s Old Folks’ Concert Tunes (Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1889), 70. A razee is a wooden ship with the deck cut away. A recording by Wallace House can be heard on Ballads of the War of 1812, 1791–1836, Smithsonian Folkways FW 05002. 95. From the Web site http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1993/6/1993_6_ 22.shtml. 96. For more biographical information, see Harry Hayden Clark, ed., Poems of Freneau (New York: Hafner, 1929). 97. One broadside was published by Leonard Deming of Boston between 1829 and 1931, containing “Battle of Stonington” together with “Banks of Ohio.” The first line of the former is “Three gallant ships from England came.” Copies are held at the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts, and at the John Hay Library at Brown University. 98. See, e.g., “Battle of Stonington” and “Banks of Ohio” (Boston, Massachusetts), published by L. Deming between 1832 and 1837 (New York Historical Society Broadsides SY1832 no. 108). 99. From Linscott, Folk Songs of Old New England, 195–96. Words received from Henry A. Castle of Plainville, Connecticut. For a recorded version, see Wallace House, Ballads of the War of 1812, 1791–1836, Smithsonian Folkways FW 05002. 100. For more information, see http://www farmingtoncanal.org. 101. As recorded by Carl Conner on April 23, 1926, in Atlanta, Georgia, and issued on Columbia 15076-D, 78 rpm, in August 1926.

2 Midland (North Atlantic)

Early immigration to the midland states differed in character from that of New England to the North. Most of the British arrivals came later—mainly in the 40-year interval from 1675 to 1715—and came heavily from England’s north midlands country. Unlike New England’s settlers, 90 percent of whom came in families, only half of the midland colonists did so. Their occupations were divided between artisans and farmers. More significant, though, a substantial contribution to the population’s makeup came from European countries, in particular, Holland and Germany. Swedish immigrants constituted a sizeable fraction of New Jersey and, even more so, of Delaware (over 9%). Starting in 1717, the Scots Irish began arriving from northern Ireland. These were Protestants who had been driven out of Scotland, settling mainly in the Ulster region of northern Ireland before crossing the ocean. They settled in Pennsylvania west of the Susquehanna River and in northern New York. From Pennsylvania, they moved south into the less populated highlands, where they were joined by more immigrants—perhaps a quarter of a million—in the next half century. This migration left an enormous Scots imprint on American culture, particularly in the folk tunes, songs, and ballads that became a part of the new American musical tradition.1

NEW YORK What is now New York was originally settled as a colony of the Netherlands following Henry Hudson’s exploration in 1609 of the river later named for him. In 1624 the Dutch established Fort Orange at modern Albany as the first permanent European settlement in what is now New York, and one year later, he established New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. To formalize the settlement, Peter Minuit, the Dutch governor, tendered the natives’

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merchandise worth about 60 Dutch guilders—the celebrated $24 sale price for Manhattan. (Some historians have argued that the Indians understood the transaction to be for hunting rights, rather than actual property ownership—a concept that may have been foreign to them.) Lacking the motivations of political or religious freedoms that drove the English emigrants, the Dutch were apparently not interested in long-term agricultural development. Thus, when an English fleet sailed into New York harbor in 1664, Governor Peter Stuyvesant surrendered without a fight. By 1669 the colony was firmly in the hands of the English, who renamed it New York.2 The Dutch Lullaby Slaap, Kindje, slaap, Daar buiten loopt een Schaap, Eeen Schaap met witte Voetjes, Dat drunkt zijn melk zoo zoetjes, Slaap, Kindje, Slaap.

Sleep, little one, sleep, Out of doors there runs a sheep, A sheep with four white feet, That drinks its milk so sweet, Sleep, little one, sleep.3

Collector Frank Warner heard this song “in an old Dutch settlement up the Hudson River in New York.” Whether it actually survived from the Dutch colonists of the seventeenth century is not known, but it is not unreasonable to expect lullabies such as this, sung by parents to their children for generations, to endure for many centuries of Dutch Americans. The Battle of Schenectady A Ballad In which is set forth the horrid cruellties practised by the French and Indians on the Night of the 8th of Last February. The which I did compose Last Night in the space of one Hour, and am now writing, the Morning of Fryday, June 12, 1690. W. W. God Prosper long our King and Queen Our lives & Safeties all A sad misfortune once there did Schenectady befall. From forth the woods of Canada The Frenchmen tooke their Way The People of Schenectady To captivate and slay. They march’d for two & twenty dais, All thro’ the deepest snow; And on a dismal Winter Night They strucke the Cruel Blow. The lightsome sun that rules the Day, Had gone down in the West; And eke the drowsy Villagers [eke = “also”] Had sought and found their reste. They thought They were in Safetie all, And dreampt not of the Foe; But att Midnight They all awoke, In Wonderment & Woe.

MIDLAND (NORTH ATLANTIC)

For They were in their pleasant Beddies, And soundelie sleeping, when Each Door was sudden open broke By six or seven Men. The Men and Women Younge & Olde, And eke the Girls & Boys, All started up in great Affright, Att the alarming Noise. They then were murther’d in their Beddes Without shame or remorse; And soon the Floores and Streets were stew’d [stenched] With many a bleeding corse [corpse]. The Village soon began to Blaze Which shew’d the horrid sight— But, O, I scarce can Beare to Tell The Mis’ries of that Night. They threw the Infants in the Fire, The Men they did not spare; But killed All which they could find Tho’ Aged or tho’ Fair. O Christe! In the still Midnight air, It sounded dismally, The Women’s Prayers, and the loud screams, Of their great Agony. Methinks as if I hear them now All ringing in my ear; The Shrieks & Groanes & Woefull Sighs, They utter’d in their Fear. But some ran off to Albany, And told the dolefull Tale Yett tho’ We gave our cheerful Aid, It did not much avail. And We were horribly afraid, And shook with Terror, when They told us that the Frenchmen were More than a Thousand Men. The News came on the Sabbath morn, Just att the Break of Day. And with a companie of Horse I galloped away. But soone We found the French were gone With all their great Bootye; And then their Trail We did pursue, As was our true Dutye. The Mohaques joynd our brave Partye, And followed in the chase

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Till we came upp with the Frenchmen, Att a most likelye Place. Our soldiers fell upon their Reare, And killed twenty-five, Our Young Men were so much enrag’d They took scarce One alive. D’Aillebout Them did commande, Which were but Theevish Rogues, Else why did they consent and Goe With Bloodye Indian Dogges? And Here I End the long Ballad, The Which you just have redde; I wish that it may stay on earth Long after I am Dead. —Walter Wilie Albany, June 12, 16904

This fascinating historical ballad must be one of the earliest preserved to be written on (colonial) American soil. The story concerns an event during King William’s War (1689– 1697; in Europe, called the War of the League of Augsburg), the first of the four wars fought between England and France in the New World, the last of which is known as the French and Indian War. The British, led by Sir William Phips, captured Port Royal, Acadia (later Nova Scotia), but failed to take Quebec. Then, on the night of February 8, 1690, Count Frontenac led a party consisting of 200 French troops and friendly Indians and retaliated with attacks on Schenectady, Salmon Falls (in present New Hampshire), and Casco Bay (in present Maine). In the attack on the village of Schenectady, all but 30 of the inhabitants were killed; those 30 were taken captive to Montreal. The New England colonies responded with unsuccessful attacks on Canada. “D’Aillebout” in the penultimate stanza was Lieutenant D’Aillebout de Mantet, assistant to the French commander, Lemoine de Sainte Helene. The ballad is given as reprinted in an 1883 history and appears to preserve the archaic spelling of the late seventeenth century, except, possibly, the name “Schenectady” was modernized since in documents of the 1690s, it was variously spelled Schoonechtede, Schinectedy, Skinnechtady, or Schanechtede—all attempts to anglicize a Mohawk place name. The Mohawks were friendly to the colonists at that time. The Fate of John Burgoyne When Jack the king’s commander Was going to his duty, Through all the crown he smiled and bow’d To every blooming beauty. The city rung with feats he’d done In Portugal and Flanders, And all the town thought he’d be crown’d The first of Alexanders. To Hampton Court he first repairs To kiss great George’s hand, sirs; Then to harangue on state affairs

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Before he left the land, sirs; The “Lower House” sat mute as mouse To hear his grand oration; And all the peers, with loudest cheers, Proclaimed him to the nation. Then off he went to Canada, Next to Ticonderoga, And quitting those away he goes Straightway to Saratoga. With great parade his march he made To gain his wished-for station, While far and wide his minions hied To spread his “Proclamation.” To such as staid he offers made Of pardon on submission; But savage bands should waste the lands Of all in opposition. But ah, the cruel fates of war! This boasted son of Britain, When mounting his triumphal car With sudden fear was smitten. The sons of Freedom gathered round, His hostile bands confounded, And when they’d fain have turn’d their back They found themselves surrounded! In vain they fought, in vain they fled, Their chief, humane and tender, To save the rest soon thought it best His forces to surrender. Brave St. Clair when he first retired Knew what the fates portended; And Arnold and heroic Gates His conduct have defended. Thus may America’s brave songs With honor be rewarded, And be the fate of all her foes The same as here recorded.5

“The Fate of John Burgoyne,” written probably in 1777 to the dance tune “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” paints an accurate, if sketchy, picture of one of the northern campaigns of the Revolutionary War. Major General John (“Gentleman Johnny”) Burgoyne (1722–1792) had served with distinction in the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) and had been elected to the House of Commons in 1761 and again in 1768. Assigned to Canada in 1776, he entered into an offensive in which British armies from the North (Burgoyne’s troops), South (General Sir William Howe’s), and West (Colonel Barry St. Leger’s) would unite at Albany, New York, isolating New England from the other rebellious colonies. On July 6, 1777, Burgoyne’s force captured Fort Ticonderoga, New York, which was held by only a small garrison, and then Fort Edwards on July 31. However, the short journey between the forts was a nightmare for Burgoyne’s army, who had to slash their way through virgin forests and lay down roads wide enough for the hundreds of wagons carrying not only military provisions, but

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officers’ wives and children and Burgoyne’s fine linens and chests of dishes, silverware, and expensive wines—all the while fending off guerrilla attacks and disease-bearing insects. His army consisted of some 8,000 soldiers, among them a number of Native Americans. On the way south, Burgoyne would make inspiring speeches to his Indian warriors (probably not even intelligible to them), then send copies of them to the London newspapers. His ebullient optimism notwithstanding, he suffered a succession of disasters. One unit of his forces was completely routed by the Green Mountain Boys at the battle of Bennington (August 16, 1777). A month later (September 19), Brigadier General Benedict Arnold defeated his troops badly at the First Battle of Saratoga (also called the First Battle of Freeman’s Farm), some 20 miles north of Albany, along the Hudson. Meanwhile, General Benjamin Lincoln and a New England militia cut his communication to the North, preventing any retreat. In desperation, Burgoyne engaged the Americans again at the Second Battle of Saratoga, where his forces, now reduced to 6,000 men, were outnumbered by General Gates, and on October 17, he surrendered. His men were allowed to return to England on the promise that they not serve in the war again—a common practice at the time. The surrender at Saratoga proved one of the turning points in the war. Noble Lads of Canada Come all ye British heroes, I pray you lend your ears, Draw up your British forces, and then your volunteers; We’re going to fight the Yankee boys, by water and by land, And we never will return, till we conquer sword in hand. Refrain: We’re the noble lads of Canada, come to arms boys come. O now the time has come, my boys, to cross the Yankee’s line, We remember they were rebels once, and conquer’d John Burgoyne. We’ll subdue those mighty Democrats, and pull their dwellings down, And we’ll have the states inhabited with subjects to the crown. Refrain. We’ve as choice a British army as ever crossed the seas, We’ll burn both town and city, and with smoke becloud the skies. We’ll subdue the old Green Mountain boy, their Washington is gone, And we’ll play them Yankee Doodle, as the Yankees did Burgoyne. Refrain. Now we’ve reached the Platsburgh banks, my boys, and here we’ll make a stand, Until we take the Yankee fleet, McDonough doth command; We’ve the Growler and the Eagle, that from Smith we took away, And we’ll have their noble fleet that lies anchored in the bay. Refrain. O, our fleet is hove in view my boys, the cannon loudly roar, With death upon our cannon balls, we’ll drench their docks with gore; We’ve water craft sufficient to sink them in an hour, But our orders is to board and the Yankee’s flag destroy. Refrain. Now the battle’s growing hot, my boys, I don’t know how ’twill turn, While McDonough’s boats on swivels hung continually do burn, We see such constant flashing that the smoke beclouds the day, And our larger boats they’ve struck and our smaller run away. Refrain: O we’ve got too far from Canada, run for life boys, run. O Provost he sigh’d aloud and to his officers he said, I wish the devil and those Yankees could but said alongside. For the tars of France and England can’t stand before them well, For I think they’d flog the devil and drive him back to hell. Refrain.

The “Noble Lads of Canada” were the British forces engaged in the battle on Lake Champlain in 1814. Leonard Deming published this broadside in the 1830s.

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Now prepare for your retreat, my boys, make all the haste you can, The Yankees are surrounding us, we’ll surely be Burgoyn’d, Behind the hedges, and the ditches, and the trees, and every stump, You can see the sons of b——s, and the cursed Yankees jump. Refrain. Now we’ve reached the Chazy Heights my boys, we’ll make short delay, For the rest our weary limbs and to feed our beasts on hay; Soon McDonough’s cocks began to crow, was heard at Stark’s barn, And a report throughout the camp was the general alarm. Refrain. O Provost sighed aloud and to his officers did say, “The Yankee troops are hove in sight and hell will be to pay. Shall we fight like men of courage, and do the best we can?— When we know they will flog us two to one—I think we’d better run.” Refrain. Now if ever I reach Quebec alive I’ll surely stay at home, For McDonough’s gained a victory, the devil fight Macombe; I had rather fight a thousand troops as good as ever crossed the seas, Than fifty of those Yankees behind the stumps and trees. Refrain. They told us that the Fed’ralists were friendly to the crown, They’d join our army and the Democrats pull down; But they all unite together as a band of brothers joined, They will fight for independence till they die upon the ground. Refrain. The old ’76’s have sallied forth, upon their crutches they do lean. With their rifles leveled on us, with their specks they take good aim; For there’s no retreat in those my boys who’d rather die than run, And we make no doubt that these are those that conquered John Burgoyne. Refrain: When he got too far from Canada, run for life boys, run. Now we’ve reached the British ground, my boys, we’ll have a day of rest, And I wish my soul that I could say ’twould be a day of mirth; But I’ve left so many troops behind, it causes me to mourn, And if ever I fight the Yankees more, I’ll surely stay at home. Refrain: Now we’ve got back to Canada, stay at home, boys, stay, Here’s a health to all the British troops, likewise to general Provost, And to our respective families, and the girls we love most; To McDonough and Macombe, and to every Yankee boy, Now fill up your tumblers for I never was so dry. Refrain.6

The battle memorialized in the above ballad occurred during the War of 1812 on Lake Champlain. A British army of some 14,000 troops under Sir George Prevost reached Plattsburg in a joint land and sea operation. U.S. defenders included 1,500 regulars and about 2,500 militia commanded by General Alexander Macomb (1782–1841), supported by a 14-ship U.S. naval squadron under Commodore Thomas Macdonough (1783–1825). The outcome of the battle was determined on water when the British fleet was decisively defeated on September 11, 1814. Deprived of naval support, the invading army was forced to retreat. The victory at Plattsburg influenced the terms of peace drawn at the Treaty of Ghent the following December. General Burgoyne, the British military commander during the Revolutionary War, played no part in this battle, but his resounding defeat (after his steady display of excessive

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arrogance) at Saratoga in 1777 at the hands of General Horatio Gates gave a new verb to the American language (“to burgoyne” meant, for half a century, “to capture or take prisoner”). The ballad is written as if from the British point of view, but the admiration shown for the Yankee soldiers suggests the author was in reality an American. It has been credited to Miner Lewis of Mooers.7 The ballad was issued on several broadsides after the war, sometimes titled “The Bold Lads of Canada.” Several other ballads about the battle were written and disseminated in cheap print. Boston printer Nathaniel Coverly issued a single broadside that held two ballads on the same event.8 Another, completely different, ballad, “Battle of Plattsburgh,” was issued, but with no identifying markings.9 Early in the period of westward movement, the rivers offered promise as a principal means of transporting goods and people. Farsighted individuals envisioned canals as manmade extensions of the natural rivers that could greatly facilitate transportation. Today, we recall principally the Erie Canal, which ran west from Albany to Buffalo, but this was just the first of many. Construction on the Erie Canal began in 1817 and was completed in 1825. The opening of the Canal confirmed New York’s position as the gateway to what was then called “the West” from the Atlantic Coast. It was followed by others: the Ohio & Erie Canal, from Cleveland south to Portsmouth, Ohio (completed 1833); the Pennsylvania Canal, from Philadelphia west to Pittsburgh (1834); the Wabash & Erie Canal, from Toledo on Lake Erie southwest to Terre Haute, Indiana (1843); the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, from Washington, D.C., west to Cumberland (1866). Altogether, some 3,000 miles of inland waterways had been constructed by the 1840s. Their heyday was cut short in the 1850s with the rapid growth of the railroads, which soon made the canals obsolete. Early opponents to the railroads, who objected to them on various grounds of safety, noise, pollution, and undependability, found natural allies in the canal interests, who saw their own financial investments seriously threatened. The canals bred a host of songs and ballads, most of which died out in the nineteenth century as the canals themselves became obsolete, but a few, in particular, about the Erie, were still well remembered into the twentieth century. The E-ri-e We were forty miles from Albany, Forget it, I never shall; What a terrible storm we had one night, On the E-ri-e canal. Chorus: Oh, the E-ri-e was a-risin’, and the gin was a-gettin’ low; And I scarcely think we’ll get a drink till we get to Buffalo, Till we get to Buffalo. We were loaded down with barley, We were chock up full of rye; The Captain he looked down on me, With his gol-durn wicked eye. Chorus. Two days out from Syracuse, The vessel struck a shoal; And we like to all been foundered, On a chunk of Lackawanna coal. We hollered to the captain On the towpath, treadin’ dirt;

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He jumped on board and stopped the leak With his old red flannel shirt. The cook she was a grand old gal, She wore a ragged dress; We heisted her upon the pole, As a signal of distress. The wind begin to whistle The waves begin to roll, We had to reef our royals On that raging Canal. When we got to Syracuse, Off-mule he was dead, The nigh mule got blind staggers We cracked him on the head. The captain, he got married, The cook, she went to jail; And I’m the only sea-cook son, That’s left to tell the tale.10

Though immensely popular throughout the twentieth century, the details of the song’s early dissemination—apart from its presumed time and place of origin—are unknown. It appears to be a redaction of a much longer song from the 1840s called “The Raging Canawl (or Kanawl),” in which the towing team and driver actually fall in the canal in the stormy night.11 It did not appear in print in its present form until Carl Sandburg included it in his famous American Songbag, one of the first folk song collections intended for a general audience.12 Young Carlotta Young Carlotta lived on a mountain side, A wild and a lonely spot, There were no dwellings for many miles around Except her father’s cot. And yet on many a winter night, Young swains would gather there; Her father kept a social board, And she was very fair. One New Years’ Eve as the sun went down, Far looked her wishful eye; Out from the frosty windowpanes, As merry sleighs dashed by. At the village fifteen miles away, Was to be a ball that night; And though the air was freezing cold, Her heart was warm and bright. How brightly beamed her laughing eye, As a well-known voice she heard; And as she looked to the cottage door, Her lover’s sleigh appeared.

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“Oh daughter dear, O daughter dear, This blanket around you fold; For it’s an awful night outside, You’ll catch your death of cold.” “Oh nay, nay, nay,” Young Carlotta cried, And she laughed like a gypsy queen; To ride in blankets muffled up, I never will be seen. “My silken coat is quite enough, You know it’s lined throughout; And there’s my silken scarf To twine my head and neck about.” Her bonnet and her gloves are on, She jumped into the sleigh; And swiftly sped down the mountainside And over the hills away. With muffled beats so silently Five miles at length were passed; When Charles with a few and shivering words The silence broke at last. “Such a dreadful night I’ve never seen, My reins I scarce can hold”; Young Carlotta faintly then replied, “Oh I am very cold.” He cracked his whip, he urged his steed, Much faster than before; And thus five other weary miles, In silence they passed o’er. Spoke Charles then, “How fast the ice Is freezing on my brow”; Carlotta still more faintly said, “I’m getting warmer now.” Thus on they rode through the frosty air, And the blustering cold afright; Until at last the village lamps And the ballroom came in sight. They reached the door, young Charles sprang out, He held his hand to her, “Why sit you like a monument That hath no power to stir?” He called her once, he called her twice, She answered not a word; He asked her for her hand again, But still she never stirred. He took her hand in his—’twas cold, ’Twas hard as any stone; He tore the mantle from her face, The cold stars on it shown.

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Then quickly to the lighted hall Her lifeless form he bore; Young Carlotta’s eyes had closed in death, Her voice was heard no more. And there he set down by her side, His bitter tears did flow; He cried, “My own, my charming bride, You never more will know.” He twined his arms about her form, And kissed her marble brow; His thoughts went back to when she said, “I’m getting warmer now.”13

Under the title “A Corpse Going to a Ball,” this ballad was first published in 1843 by Seba Smith (1792–1868) in a journal he edited, the Rover.14 Smith was born in Portland, Maine, and wrote many pieces that enjoyed popularity in their day. Smith’s simple, direct language and suspenseful telling, together with the innately (possibly morbidly) interesting plot made many listeners want to add it to their repertoires; it would have been a superb piece for declaiming at a public gathering—a popular pastime in the nineteenth century. In spite of the remarkably well preserved state of the ballad as it was performed by Almeda Riddle, the hand of at least one folk recomposer is evident in her two final stanzas, which were not in Smith’s original. Whoever wrote them was skillful in matching Smith’s style, and also adding an element of narrative irony that was lacking from the original. Other recorded versions append yet two more stanzas that were not in the original: They bore her out into the sleigh, And Charles with her rode home. And when they reached her cottage door, Oh, how her parents mourned! They mourned for the loss of their daughter dear, And Charles mourned o’er his bride, Until at length his heart did break And they slumber side by side.15 Henry Green of Troy Good people, come, both old and young, and hear a story told, Concerning a young damsel, ’twill make your blood run cold; A young and beautiful woman, Miss White, it was her name, Who was murdered by her husband, and he hanged for the same. Miss White, I’m told was handsome unto a high degree, Young Henry was wealthy, as you shall plainly see; He went unto her dwelling and this to her did say; “Dear Mary, will you be my wife? oh, pray, do name the day!” “Oh, Henry dear Henry, I fear this ne’er will do, For you have proud relations and I’m not as rich as you; And when your parents come to know they’ll spurn us from the door! They’d rather you’d marry some other girl with wealth laid up in store.”

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No information regarding the author, publisher, date, or place was given on this broadside, “The Murdered Wife: or the Case of Henry G. Green . . . ,” but it probably was issued soon after the murderer’s execution in September 1845. Brown University Library. “Oh, Mary, dearest Mary, pray, why torment me so? I swear by all that’s sacred I ever will prove true, And if you do not give consent, I’ll surely take my life, For I no longer wish to live unless you are my wife.” She, hearing all that he had said, believing it was true, Soon gave consent to be his wife, but little did she know;

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Oh, little did she dream, indeed, how could she e’er suspect, That he would shortly take the life he had sworn to protect? They had been married scarce a week when she was taken ill Great doctors quick were summoned, who tried their utmost skill; They tried their best in every way, but none her life could save, And soon it was proclaimed that she might go down to the grave. Her brother, hearing of the same, straightway to her did go, Saying, “Sister, you are dying. Dear, tell me is it so? Have you not been murdered by the one you thought your friend? Oh, tell the truth before you die, do not the guilty ‘fend!” “As I am on the bed of death, and know that I must die, And that I’m going to meet my God, I’ll not the truth deny; Young Henry Green has poisoned me—oh, quickly for him send. For still I love him, just as well as when he was my friend.” Young Henry Green was summoned his dying wife to see, ’Twas there she said, “Oh, Henry, were you e’er deceived by me?” She cast on him one loving look, then dropped into death’s swoon, While he gazed on her with a tearful eye, then in silence left the room. At an inquest on the body, according to the law, ’Twas ascertained by doctors that arsenic was the cause; Young Henry was arrested and cast into Troy jail. There to await his trial, as the court would take no bail. When his trial day arrived, he was brought upon the stand, To answer for the blackest crime committed in our land; He said he was innocent, and did her friends defy, But Judge Parker passed his sentence, and he was condemned to die.16

This ballad relates a true crime that was committed over 150 years ago. Green married Mary Ann Wyatt on February 10, 1845, in Berlin, New York, about five weeks after he first met her while she was performing with a company of itinerant temperance players. Both were 22 years old at the time. Five days later, apparently regretting his marriage, Green tried to poison his bride, first with doses of opium in her food, and, when she vomited that up, by lacing her meals with arsenic for the next two days. She died eight days after their marriage. At the coroner’s inquest, several witnesses reported having seen Henry administering some white powder in liquids and foods to Mary, and abundant traces of arsenic were found. Henry was tried on July 7, found guilty, and hanged on September 10, 1845, in Troy, New York. The traditional ballad, probably written soon afterward, was found most often in Vermont but has been collected as far away as Virginia, Florida, Michigan, and Missouri. A comic parody, in which the protagonists are William Henry White and Polly Green, was written in the 1880s by William B. Brown and published in his songster, Comical Brown’s Songster.17 The Lamentation of James Rodgers Come all you tender Christians, I hope you will draw near, And likewise pay attention to those few lines I have here: For the murder of Mr. Swanton I am condemned to die, On the twelfth day of November upon the gallows high.

This is the better-known of two ballads published in 1858 soon after the execution of James Rodgers, this one by Andrews, one of the most prolific of New York’s broadside publishers of the midnineteenth century. From the Library of Congress.

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My name is James Rodgers—the same I ne’er denied, Which leaves my aged parents in sorrow for to cry; It’s little ever they thought, all in my youth and bloom I came into New York for to meet my fatal doom. My parents raised me tenderly, as you may plainly see, And constantly good advice they used to give to me; They told me to shun night walking and all bad company, Or states prison or the scaffold would be the doom for me. In bad houses and liquor I used to take delight, And constantly my companions they used me there invite; They all persuaded me the use of knives were free, I migh[t] commit a murder, and hanged I would not be. Upon the fatal night, as you may plainly see, My companions advised me to go and have a spree; My passion got the best of me, as you may plainly know, I drew the fatal knife, and it proved my overthrow. Mr. Swanton and his wife were passing through the street, And in my drunken passion I chanced them for to meet; They surely did not injure me—the same I’ll ne’er deny, But Satan being so near me, I could not pass them by. I staggered up against them, and then he turned around, And demanded if the sidewalk had not enough of ground; It’s then I drew the fatal knife, and stabbed him to the heart, Which leaves the loving wife from her husband for to part. To Woodbridge then I quickly fled, thinking to escape, But the hand of Providence was before me—indeed I was too late; There I was taken prisoner, and fetched unto my doom, To die upon the gallows, all in my youthful bloom. My trial came on quickly, and condemned I was to die, My companions and associates, they were standing by; I told them to take warning by that my humble fate, To shun night walking and bad company ere it be too late. Farewell, my aged father, I ne’er will see you more, And my broken-hearted mother, my loss you do deplore; My sisters and brothers, to you I bid adieu, Upon this fatal forenoon I have to part with you. The morning of my execution most heartrending for to see, My sister came from Jersey to take the last farewell of me; She flew into my arms, and bitterly did cry, Saying, my dear and loving brother, this day you are to die. Thanks to the sheriff for his kindness to me, Also my noble counsellor, who thought to get me free; And likewise my faithful clergy who brought my mind to bear, For now I die a true penitent I solemnly declare. My life is now ended—from this world I must part, For the murder of Mr. Swanton I am sorry to the heart;

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Let each wild and vicious youth a warning take by me, To be ruled by their parents, and shun bad company.18

On the night of October 17, 1857, at the corner of 10th Avenue and 21st Street in New York, a very drunken James Rodgers and two rowdy companions were engaged in an altercation when they encountered Mr. and Mrs. John Swanston (“Swanton” in the song). Rodgers accidentally staggered into Mrs. Swanston, upon which her husband, a wellreputed engineer, spoke harshly to him. Rodgers drew a knife and stabbed Swanston, causing almost instant death. The youths fled; a terrified Mrs. Swanston shrieked for help and her husband’s body was borne to their home. The police were notified and soon found two of the youths; the third, Rodgers, had fled to Woodbridge, where he sought refuge at the home of his sister. He soon left the home and attempted to hide out in the woods, but he was apprehended, taken to prison, and soon tried and found guilty to be hanged. His comportment in the courtroom astonished spectators, who had expected a surly and unkempt prisoner, but found him gentle, meek, almost girlish, and apologetic: he had no recollection of the killing, but he acknowledged that he was drunk and in the company of bad companions, and accepted that the accusation must be true. He was held in jail for over a year before the day of his execution. On the preceding night, he bade farewell to his aged mother and spent his final hours in prayer in the company of Father Duranke of the 16th Street Church. His father, two sisters, two brothers, and a brother-in-law joined him in a final Mass in the prison chapel. That evening, two gentlemen holding prominent political positions visited the governor to appeal for a commutation of his sentence, but to no avail.19 Rodgers’s execution on November 12, 1858, was followed by at least two broadside songs, one of which served as the model for several later ballads (see the discussion in chapter 5 concerning the songs of Ohio).20 The ballad preserves many specifics of this particular event, though it is closely based on numerous other Irish and Irish American street ballads of the nineteenth century.21 Though there may not be any traces of this particular ballad story in oral tradition, the piece is justifiably labeled a folk song by virtue of its undeniable position in a long tradition of folk verse. Jim Fisk Song If you’ll listen a while, I’ll sing you a song About this glorious land of the free; And the difference I’ll show ‘twixt the rich and the poor In a trial by jury, you see— If you’ve plenty of stamps, you can hold up your head, And walk out from your own prison door; But they’ll hang you up high if you’ve no friends or gold— Let the rich go, but hang up the poor! Chorus: In the trials for murder we’ve had now-a-days The rich ones get off swift and sure; While they’ve thousands to pay to the jury and Judge, You can bet they’ll go back on the poor. Let me speak of a man who’s now dead in his grave— A good man as ever was born— Jim Fisk he was called, and his money he gave To the outcast, the poor and forlorn;

The elaborately lithographed sheet music cover to “Jim Fisk, or He Never Went Back on the Poor,” (1874) remembers robber baron Fisk’s most charitable act: sending a trainload of supplies for victims of the Chicago fire of 1871. From the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music, Special Collections, Sheridan Libraries, The Johns Hopkins University.

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We all know he loved both women and wine, But his heart it was right I am sure; Though he lived like a prince in a palace so fine, Yet he never went back on the poor! Chorus: If a man was in trouble, Fisk helped him along To drive the grim wolf from the door; He strove to do right, though he may have done wrong, But he never went back on the poor! Jim Fisk was a man who wore his heart on his sleeve, No matter what people would say; And he did all his deeds (both the good and the bad) In the broad open light of the day. With his grand six-in-hand on the beach at Long Branch, He cut a big dash, to be sure; But Chicago’s great fire showed the world that Jim Fisk With his wealth, still remembered the poor! Chorus: When the telegram came that the homeless, that night, Were starving to death, slow but sure, His lightning express, manned by noble Jim Fisk, Flew to feed all her hungry and poor! Now, what do you think of this trial of Stokes, Who murdered this friend of the poor? When such men get free, is there any one safe If they step from outside their own door? Is there one law for the poor, and one for the rich? It seems so—at least so I say— If they hang up the poor, why—damn it—the rich Ought to swing up the very same way! Chorus: Don’t show any favor to friend or to foe, The beggar or prince at his door; The big millionaire you must hang up also, But never go back on the poor! Oh! shame on this land of the free and brave, When such sights as this meet our eye! The poor in their prisons are treated like slaves While the rich in their cells they live high. A poor devil, crazy with drink, they will hang For a murder he didn’t intend; But a wealthy assassin, with political friends, Gets off, for he’s money to spend! Chorus: But if things go on this way, we’ll stand it no more, The people will rise up in bands; A Vigilance Committee we’ll raise on our shore, And take the law in our own hands!22

Even in death, Jim Fisk was larger than life. If ever a man could be characterized as a Robin Hood—robbing the rich and aiding the poor—Fisk was such an individual. With his partner in chicanery, Jay Gould, Fisk engaged in a succession of financial malfeasances

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that brought financial ruin to untold numbers of speculators and financiers. In 1868 they acquired control of the Erie Railroad, which they used to further their shady operations on the stock market. Their most brazen operation resulted from Gould’s dream to corner the entire U.S. gold supply, and it ended in the panic of Black Friday, September 24, 1869. But Jubilee Jim, the “Prince of the Erie,” as he was dubbed, could indeed be a generous man. When the Chicago fire of October 8, 1871, left thousands destitute and homeless, he sent a trainload of supplies to the stricken city, one of many acts of kindness that induced the common folk to forgive him for all the speculators he had driven to ruin. Separated from his wife, Fisk lived a life of opulence and had a weakness for women. One favorite was Helen Josephine Mansfield, whom he set up in a four-story residence not far from the Grand Opera House, which he owned. In about 1870, Fisk introduced Mansfield to Edward S. Stokes, an oil refinery owner whom Fisk had helped financially. Soon, Mansfield announced she had fallen in love with Stokes and demanded a substantial cash settlement from Fisk. Jubilee Jim took some revenge on Stokes by cutting off all deals between the Erie Railroad and Stokes’s refinery, thus ruining the latter’s business. Stokes and Mansfield tried to blackmail Fisk by threatening to publish his love letters to Mansfield; Fisk sued, and they countersued. Though the case was dismissed, the report of another lawsuit so enraged Stokes that he accosted Fisk at the Grand Central Hotel and, on January 6, 1872, shot him fatally. Stokes was arrested and tried; after three trials, he was finally found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in Sing Sing, of which he served four. He died in 1901. The ballad “Jim Fisk, or He Never Went Back on the Poor” was published by W. F. Helmick of Cincinnati in 1874, with “J. S.” (generally believed to be songwriter William J. Scanlon) credited as author. The song is built on an older song, “Never Go Back on the Poor,” and uses its tune. The song’s author is outraged that Stokes, one of the undeserving rich in his opinion, gets off with only minor punishment, whereas had he been poor, he would have been treated much more harshly. Fisk’s crimes and wealth are politely excused—more than compensated for by his memorable acts of generosity.23 The Two Orphans, or, the Brooklyn Theatre Fire The evening’s bright stars they were shining, The moonbeams shone clear on our [land]; Our city was in peace and quietness, The hour of midnight near at hand. But, hark! Do you hear that cry? Fire! How dismal those bells they do sound— Our Brooklyn Theatre is burning! Alas! burning fast to the ground. Chorus: We ne’er can forget the “Two Orphans,” Bad luck seems to be in its wake: It seems it were brought to our city, The lives of our dear friends to take. The doors they were open at seven, The curtain was rolled up at eight: Them that had got seats they were happy, Outside they were mad that were late. The play it went on very smoothly, ’Till sparks from the scenes they did fly;

An early broadside published by Henry J. Wehman. DeKalb Avenue was his home address in 1880 –1881 during his first years in business. From the Kenneth S. Goldstein collection, Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University.

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It’s then that men, women and children, “O God! save our lives!” they did cry. Chorus. Next morn, in amongst those black rains, O God! what a sight met our eyes! The dead they were lying in all shapes, Some there that none could recognize! Poor mothers there weeping and crying, For sons that were out all that night; O God! let their souls rest in heaven, Amongst the innocent and bright. Chorus. What means this large gathering of people, Upon such a cold dreary day? Or what means this long line of hearses, With tops plumed in feathery array? Far out to the cemetery of Greenwood, Where the wind makes the lone willow sigh, ’Tis there where the funeral is going, The poor unknown dead there to lie. Chorus.24

On the night of December 5, 1876, a calamitous fire destroyed the Brooklyn Theater on Johnson Street. The conflagration was started by a kerosene lamp, which swiftly bathed the ceiling in flames and turned the auditorium into an inferno. The theater had no fire escapes and only five narrow exits. In one of the worst fires in modern history, over 300 people (including some of the actors) who had come to see the popular actress Kate Claxton in “The Two Orphans” died. Unidentified bodies were buried in a common grave in GreenWood Cemetery. Sing Ha-Ha, Come from China My name Sing-Ha-Ha, come from China, Keep a little wash shop way down street. No like-a ’Melican man, too much chin-chin, No pay wash bill, him a dead beat. Me got an Irish girl, she well nice-ee Me make her some day my wife. We have a nice time, go back China, Eat plenty much good rats and mice. My name Sing-Ha-Ha, come from China, Run away soon, no come back. Me catch-a Irish girl on-a ’Melican man’s lap Kissee her—smack, smack, smack. Got a little house in Bottle Alley, Two little rooms top side high; We get married, drink much gin-gin, She get tight and hit my eye. P’liceman come along—take me up—lock me up a shop, Put me in a room and make me stay; Judge send me up for a very long time-ee, My pretty Irish girl she run away.

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Oh! My name Sing-Ha-Ha, come from China, Me like-a Irish girl, she like-a me. Me from-a Hong Kong, ’Melican man come along, Steal an Irish girl from a poor Chinee.25

So long as they kept their mouths shut, immigrants from Western Europe could blend in among the masses of Americans with relative ease. Children, generally quicker at learning the language of their surroundings, could assimilate even faster. Asian immigrants were doomed to endure discrimination for generations after coming to the New World. The preceding text, from the 1880s, displays an unusual mixture of dislike and sympathy for the foreigners. The place name reference “Bottle Alley” is ambiguous. In fact, there are many bottle alleys in America, as well as elsewhere. The chapter on South Carolina songs includes a “Bottle Alley Song” that refers to a Charleston locale. Other bottle alleys are known in Baltimore and Colorado Springs, not to mention London and Hastings, England, and the city of Colon in Panama. The Bottle Alley of the preceding song is most likely the one in New York City’s Chinatown, amid a neighborhood heavily overlaid with diverse immigrant communities. The above text is from oral tradition, but a very different text, probably the original, was published in the 1880s under the title “Hong Kong.” The first stanza and chorus went as follows: My name is Sin-Sin, come from China, In a bigee large ship, commee long here; Wind blow welly muchee, kick upee blubelly, Ship makee Chinaman feelee wellee queer. Me fetchee longee a lillee gal nicee, She come longee to be my wife, She say she lovee me once or twicee, Makee bigee swear to it all her life. Chorus: Me likee bow wow, wellee goodee chow-chow, Me likee lillee gal, she likee me, Me fetchee Hong-Kong, white man comee long, Takee lillee gal from a poor Chinee.26

This text is so different (among other differences, there is no reference to Bottle Alley) that it is safe to assume that the song was current in oral tradition for some time.27 The Smugglers of Buffalo It was on the sixth of April as I lay on my bed, A-thinking of the sorrows that crowned my aching head; And surrounded I was by officers, and with them I was forced to go, To serve a long a dreary trick in the jails of Buffalo. When I’ve done my trick and am pardoned, and once more I am free, I’ll go down to Sandusky, my true love for to see; But, perhaps, my boys, she will give me the bounce when she does come to know That I led a gang of smugglers to the jails of Buffalo. Oh, the girl she came from Peterson, and the truth to you I’ll tell, She was an only daughter, and her parents loved her well;

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They brought her up in fear of the Lord, but little did she know That she was married to a smuggler that served time in Buffalo.28

Shipping ports—whether on ocean, lake, sea, or river—were often wild and lawless places, where sailors, whalers, and boatmen touched land after tediously long periods on the water, and were eager for opportunities to spend their earnings on women, whiskey, and other entertainments. Buffalo ranked along with the worst of them, as this song attests. It’s very possible that the song’s author had in mind “Buffalo Skinners,” a southwestern ballad of the 1870s with the repeating phrase “on the range of the buffalo.” McKinley Say, Mr. McKinley, why didn’t you run, Seen a man comin’ with a smoking forty-one, In Buffalo, in Buffalo. Send for the doctor, doctor he come, Come in a walking, comin’ a runnin’ In Buffalo, in Buffalo. Doctor, doctor, do all you can, Man shot my husband with handkerchief over his hand, In Buffalo, in Buffalo. He looked at McKinley, looked through his specs, Told Mr. McKinley that he done cashed his checks, In Buffalo, in Buffalo. Rubber-tired buggy, double-seated hack, Carried him to graveyard but won’t carry him back, In Buffalo, in Buffalo. Mrs. McKinley in Brooklyn all dressed in red, Weepin’ and a-moanin’ for her husband was dead, In Buffalo, in Buffalo. Jailer told Czolgosz, “What you doin’ here?” “Took and shot McKinley, gonna take electric chair,” In Buffalo, in Buffalo. Czolgosz told jailer, “Treat me like a man, I got to die and go to Dixie Land,” In Buffalo, in Buffalo.29

William McKinley was the third of our presidents to be assassinated. He had been attending the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, where, on September 5, 1901, designated President’s Day, he had given a major speech that contributed to the breaking of all previous attendance records at the fair. On September 6 was to be a public reception, at which the president would shake hands with a long queue of admirers. Though there were some 50 guards, Secret Service agents, and detectives, no one took note of a young man standing in line with his hand bound up in a handkerchief. As the man, Leon Czolgosz, stepped up to the president, he fired two shots from his .32 caliber Iver Johnson pistol. He was immediately seized, pummeled, handcuffed, and hastily spirited away, lest he be lynched by the angry mob. Czolgosz was later examined and declared mentally sane;

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his crime was said to result from his anarchist persuasion, and he was electrocuted seven weeks later at Auburn, New York. With the memory of President Garfield’s assassination of two decades earlier—when Garfield died of gunshot wounds because his doctors failed to opt promptly for surgery— still on their minds, McKinley’s doctors decided to operate immediately under circumstances (in a makeshift fairgrounds emergency hospital) that were far from ideal. Without proper instruments and working under inadequate lighting, surgeons did the best they could, but it was not enough. For a few days it looked as if the president would recover, but a week after the shooting, McKinley took a turn for the worse and his condition steadily worsened. He died during predawn hours of September 14. Riley Puckett’s rendition is in the style of African American ballads (note, in particular, the three-line stanza, AAB—characteristic of blues—rather than the quatrain of Anglo American ballads) and uses many African American commonplaces. For example, the formulaic .41 caliber gun replaces the actual .32 caliber one. Stanzas such as the third and fourth are also formulaic verses in African American folk ballads and blues and have little factual basis in this story.30 The Ballad of Grace Brown and Chester Gillette The dreams of the happy is finished, The scores are brought in at last; A jury has brought in its verdict, The sentence on Gillette is passed. Two mothers are weeping and praying; One praying that justice be done, The other one asking for mercy, Asking God to save her dear son. All eyes are turned on the drama, A-watching the press night and day, A-reading those sweet pleading letters, Wondering what Gillette would say. He is now in State’s Auburn dark prison Where he soon will give up his young life, Which might have been filled with sweet sunshine Had he taken Grace Brown for his wife. But Cupid was too strong for Gillette, It was playing too strong with his heart, For the one that had loved him so dearly, Yet from her he wanted to part. ’Twas on a hot, sultry day in the summer When the flowers were all aglow, They started out on their vacation For the lakes and the mountains to roam. Did she think when he gathered those flowers, That grew on the shores of the lake, That the hand that plucked those sweet lilies, Her own sweet life they would take?

Photographs of Grace Brown and her lover/murderer, Chester Gillette, from the book, Grace Brown’s Love Letters (1906). Author’s collection.

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They were seen on the clear, crystal waters Of the beautiful Big Moose Lake, And nobody thought he’d be guilty Of the life of that poor girl to take. It happened along in the evening, Just at the close of the day, With the one that had loved him so dearly They drifted along on South Bay. They were out of the view of the people Where no one could hear her last call, And nobody knows how it happened, But Gillette and God knows it all.31

Most people who grew up in the middle half of the twentieth century know the story of Grace Brown and Chester Gillette, but they may not know the characters by name. In 1925 Theodore Dreiser published a novel based on their story, An American Tragedy, and in 1951 the story was brought to the cinema as A Place in the Sun. (An early filmed version, in 1931, enjoyed very limited success and resulted in acrimonious accusations and libel suits.) The factual vacation escapade took place at Big Moose Lake in Adirondack Park in upstate New York; the accident/murder took place on July 11, 1906. Many of the overt aspects of Dreiser’s account mirrored the historical event; when Gillette was arrested, he acknowledged the boat outing, but insisted the drowning was an accident. However, there was little, if any, basis for Dreiser’s “other woman” character. At his trial, Gillette asserted that he told Brown he would reveal his identity to her family, upon which she panicked and committed suicide by jumping into the water. After six hours’ deliberation on December 4, the incredulous jury found Gillette guilty. Whether or not he really was—as the anonymous balladist says—only Gillette and God know.32 In Dreiser’s fictionalized account, Clyde Griffiths (based on Chester Gillette) is attracted to Roberta Alden (based on the real Grace Brown), and she becomes pregnant, but almost at the same time, he falls for the dazzling Sondra. Roberta demands he provide for (or marry) her, but Clyde is increasingly bewitched by Sondra and finally conceives a plan whereby he and Roberta will take a vacation trip and go on a picnic on the lake, where he will push her overboard, knowing that she can’t swim. But out on the boat, Clyde seems to have a change of heart (or loses his nerve) and abandons his plan. However, a sudden movement by Roberta startles him, and he accidentally hits her with his camera tripod, knocking her overboard. He decides not to try to rescue her. Clyde is arrested and brought to trial. He tells his lawyer all; his lawyer assures him that a jury would never believe that he planned murder but the actual death was an accident; he has to concoct a fabricated story that makes more sense. In the end, Clyde is found guilty anyway. Dreiser’s story was a tragedy in several ways, but his title suggests his awareness of the widespread nature of the story—in real life as well as in balladry: man murders pregnant sweetheart rather than be burdened with a family. Governor Al Smith Cal in the White House preparing for his rest, Al and his buddies are doing their best He’ll win, Al will win.

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Hoover in the northland he’s firing his gun Smith admits it [?], he’s winning everyone Hard to beat, hard to beat. Well, hear the people shouting, “no booze they say,” Its ruining . . . you can get it any day Bootleg juries [?] and killers too. The sugar that they make now will make you bounce around The brandy that you will put you flat on the ground Bad stuff, hard to drink. It won’t be long now till she will be free, Then we’ll make corn licker as pure as can be, Free from lye and sugar too. When Hoover went out we didn’t think then That we would have a chance together back again He’s coming back, back again. Well, let’s nominate Al Smith, nominate him, I say, And we’ll find true law on election day, Yes true, all the way. He made a good governor, you all will agree He’ll make a good president as good as can be, Yes he will, yes he will. Let’s nominate Al Smith, nominate I say, Then he’ll find true law on election day, Yes true all the way.33

Official political campaign songs tend to portray their candidates in the most general favorable language. The smaller handful of folk songs relating to political contests have a decidedly different flavor. Candidates are endorsed on what seem to be the most whimsical grounds. This song by a North Carolina string band seems more concerned with the quality of alcoholic beverage than with any more substantive issues. Smith’s opposition to Prohibition is a major reason for the singers’ endorsement. It is interesting, though, that their opposition to Prohibition seems to be largely because of the adverse health consequences of illegally produced alcoholic beverages. The tune the Night Hawks use is, coincidentally, the same as the tune of the “McKinley” ballad quoted previously. As the very popular four-time Democratic governor of New York, Alfred E. Smith (1873–1944) worked for many social causes, including adequate housing, improved factory laws, proper care of the mentally ill, child welfare, and state parks. In 1924 Smith became the first Roman Catholic to receive serious consideration as a candidate for the presidency of the United States. The major factors working against him were his religion and his opposition to Prohibition. Four years later, he won the chance to represent the Democratic Party in the 1928 elections, but was resoundingly defeated, carrying only 87 electoral votes to Republican Herbert Hoover’s 444.

NEW JERSEY Although the first European to visit what became New Jersey was the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, in 1524, colonization did not begin until the arrival in 1609 of the

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English navigator Henry Hudson, who sent a party to explore Sandy Hook Bay. The first permanent European settlement was at Bergen (now Jersey City) in 1660. The colony was brought under English rule in 1664, although for the next five years, the Dutch disputed that claim. In 1676 the province was divided into East and West Jersey, the former going to Sir George Carteret and the latter to a group of Quakers. The division continued until 1702, when all of the province reverted to the Crown, and until 1738 New Jersey and New York were ruled by a single governor.34 The Dutch presence was still felt after the Revolution: in the 1790 census, 20 percent of New Jersey’s population was of Dutch origin—the largest percentage of any of the states. Battle of Trenton On Christmas day in seventy-six, Our ragged troops with bayonets fix’d, For Trenton marched away. The Delaware see! the boats below! The light obscured by hail and snow! But no signs of dismay. Our object was the Hessian band, That dared invade fair freedom’s land, And quarter in that place. Great Washington he led us on, Whose streaming flag, in storm or sun, Had never known disgrace. In silent march we pass’d the night, Each soldier panting for the fight, Though quite benumb’d with frost. Greene, on the left, at six began, The right was led by Sullivan, Who ne’er a moment lost. Their pickets storm’d, the alarm was spread, That rebels risen from the dead Were marching into town. Some scamper’d here, some scamper’d there, And some for action did prepare; But soon their arms laid down. Twelve hundred servile miscreants, With all their colors, guns, and tents, Were trophies of the day. The frolic o’er, the bright canteen, In centre, front, and rear was seen Driving fatigue away. Now, brothers of the patriot bands, Let’s sing deliverance from the hands Of arbitrary sway. And as our life is but a span, Let’s touch the tankard while we can, In memory of that day.35

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The Revolutionary War battles of Trenton and Princeton, New Jersey, are considered Washington’s first successes in the open field. After a series of unsuccessful campaigns in New York, December 1776 found the enfeebled American army under General Washington’s command in tatters and miserably discouraged. Washington had led his 5,000 men into New Jersey ahead of General Lord Cornwallis’s army, hoping to preserve the Continental Army intact and defend Philadelphia. Many of his troops’ terms of enlistment expired at the end of December, and few replacements were signing up. To Washington’s dismay, the men of New Jersey were fence-sitters; they wanted to wait out the coming campaigns before deciding to which side they would commit themselves. General Sir William Howe (Cornwallis’s superior), in a comfortable military position, facing a bitterly cold winter with the lure of a charming mistress awaiting him in New York, called off any immediate military engagements, assuming that Washington’s army would only melt away during the bitter cold. Instead, Washington decided that his only option was to seize the initiative. A Hessian brigade was settled in at Trenton. Washington resolved to capture the Hessians since they were unsupported by other troops. He planned to cross the Delaware with three columns, but only one got across. The passage was made with 2,500 men on Christmas eve, across floating ice, to a point nine miles north of the Hessians. Dividing his force into two divisions, he approached the town by two different routes and took the Hessian outposts by surprise. They continued to the town, where the Hessians were sleeping off Christmas dinner, and attacked on the afternoon of December 26. All avenues of retreat being closed, and being fired upon by American artillery and musketry, 950 Hessians surrendered themselves, 1,200 small arms, six brass cannon, and the colors of the Hessian brigade. Encouraged by this victory, Washington recrossed the Delaware on December 30 and occupied Trenton. From there, encouraged and strengthened, Washington led his army north to Princeton, where Lord Cornwallis had a strong rear guard. On the night of January 2–3, Washington advanced on Princeton and routed the British contingent. They retreated to the college, where one of the regiments barricaded itself in Nassau Hall, but they surrendered after Washington’s artillery fired a few cannonballs into the building. The two campaigns, at Trenton and Princeton, reinvigorated the American cause and won Washington the confidence of his troops and the country. Historian Samuel Eliot Morison summarized the events: “In a campaign lasting only three weeks, at a time of year when gentlemen were not supposed to fight, the military genius of America’s greatest gentleman, and the fortitude of some five thousand of his men, had undone everything Howe accomplished, recovered the Jersies, and saved the American cause.”36 The Sons of New Jersey There was a call for Volunteers sometime in last year, And there the Sons of New Jersey did quickly volunteer, They volunteered in Company K, to give the South a slamb, And each and all did volunteer to fight for Uncle Sam. Chorus: They are the sons of Liberty, They are the sons of Liberty, They are the sons of Liberty, And they’ll fight for Uncle Sam. There is our noble three year boys, we know will cut a swell, Way down south in Dixie’s land where Traitor Jackson dwells; They will not let the rebels cross Columbia’s happy land. For they all did volunteer to fight for Uncle Sam. Chorus.

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Burnside is now in command, and we think all things are right, He’s on his way to Richmond, now to have another fight, He is a man, a soldier bold, and will give the Rebels a flamb, He volunteered his services to fight for Uncle Sam. Chorus. There is our noble and gallant flag, that waves so bold and free. All over the sweet northern lands, and on the raging sea; The rebels thought they would take down, and give the north a jamb, And then we all did volunteer to fight for Uncle Sam. Chorus. There is our gallant 24th we know won’t leave the ranks, For there they have a young Burnside that went from Turkey Point, They volunteered for this call—this noble gallant band, They are known in Washington, and will fight for Uncle Sam. Chorus.37

The background of this Civil War song is obscure. In September 1862, Major General Burnside fought in the Battle of Antietam under General George B. McClellan, whom he succeeded in November as a commander of the Army of the Potomac; it would seem that this song dates from shortly after that event. The reference to “Turkey Point,” a lighthouse on the Elk River in Maryland, is also puzzling. (Possibly it is a later addition, inasmuch as it breaks the regular rhyme scheme.) At any rate, the enthusiasm for young Burnside may have been misplaced: a month later, his forces were decisively defeated by Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Today, Burnside is mainly remembered (if at all) for his prolific facial whiskers, nicknamed, in his honor, “burnsides,” and then later “sideburns.” The song also sports some long-forgotten slang terms: “jam(b),” “slam(b),” and “flam(b).” New Jers-A Come, kind friends, all draw near, The song that I’m about to sing, you every one should hear, So give me your attention to what I’m going to say; I’ll sing you a new song about New Jers-A. The things that I’m about to mention in my rhyme, I’ll prove to you quite plainly, if you will give me time; So for all convicted prisoners, I beg you all to pray, For they ne’er will get pardoned if in New Jers-A. If you go to Jersey and ask them for their fruit, The stingy old Spaniards will at you shoot, And if you find an apple, you’ll have to run away, For they’ll choke you for a cherry, up in New Jers-A. The first thing I will mention, happened on the Delaware. A steamboat was burnt and many drowned there; The guilty were arrested and allowed to walk away; That’s the way they do things up in New Jers-A. Another time at Burlington, you surely don’t forget, The cars were running backwards, and by accident upset; Old and young were killed there, but no one had to pay; For they never hurts a Jerseyman in New Jers-A. Over here in Camden, not many months ago, A German went a gunning all through the ice and snow, He accidently shot one, (Hatch); they marched straight away, Twenty years to prison up in New Jers-A.

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The latest thing that has occurred, caused many a tear, I think that it happened some time last year. A man was murdered, so we heard say, Way down at Freehold in New Jers-A. A man was arrested at once for the deed, And to a court of Justice they straight did him lead. He was tried and convicted: on the scaffold he had to pay; Yes, they strung up poor Donnelly in New Jers-A. After hanging thirty minutes, he was cut down; The sheriff on his body cast many a frown, And he wanted to exhibit the corpse that day On the Court House steps at Freehold in New Jers-A. Here I would have you know, to my country I am true, But give to me the power, I’ll tell you what I’d do: Over to New Jersey I would go straight way, And hang up all the Jerseymen in New Jers-A. Now for a time my song is done; I hope in this rhyme I’ve not offended any one; If I have, forgive me, all, I pray, And I will say no more about New Jers-A.38

The broadside from which this text is taken is undated, but, based on the publisher’s address, it is probably from 1859–1860. Considering that it was sung by a New York man in a New York theater, it suggests that the New York–New Jersey rivalry predates the Civil War. Perhaps neighbors across the Hudson had a small uncivil war of their own going on. The Laws of Jersey State The laws of Jersey state are such You dare not kill a snail; To Camden jail they’ll send you off Without a cent of bail. They’ll seize upon your gun For climbing on a fence And give you twenty years to boot If you practice self defence. There’s nothing like it, boys, you know, There’s nothing, now I say, There is nothing like it, boys, you know, So let them blaze away.39

While we’re bad-mouthing New Jersey, let’s not overlook this little gem, recalled by an attorney of Butler, Pennsylvania, in 1926, from his youth: “When I was a boy of 8 or 10 (I am chasing fourscore now) going to a country school in west Pennsylvania, our teacher taught us a number of songs.” Since we can’t question the good lawyer under oath, let’s take his word for it and date this ditty to ca. 1855. The sentiments are much the same as the preceding song, though the style is very different.

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Moore and Jacoby While I relate my story you oystermen give ear, Jacoby’s fading glory you presently shall hear; Give me your attention and you will plainly see That the Eloisa Moore can beat the Samuel Jacoby. Chorus: Ring, ring your bells at dawning of the day, The Moore’s the fastest boat around to sail the Delaware Bay; Oystermen ring your fog bells to let the people see, That the Eloisa Moore can beat the Samuel Jacoby. Here comes old Sam Spencer, he’s always hanging ’round, It’s nothing but the Jacoby whenever he’s in town; He goes into the chandlery and sets upon a stool, It’s enough to make the people think that he’s a perfect fool. Chorus. We were sailing up the Delaware as though we had no wind, When the Eloise Moore had to take her topsail in; We arrived at Philadelphia, we harbored there all night, But the Samuel Jacoby arrived at first daylight. William Peterson was our captain, Willie Newcomb was the mate, Will Ladlow was our pot wrestler, he cooked us what we ate; Dave Robbins and Harry Gates were the men before the mast, The whole crews’ heart just swelled with pride as we went sailing past. Chorus. Here comes Seth and Billy, they jam in but a word, I think it would be better now if they were seen not heard; With this I’ll end me song and I hope it wasn’t long, But we can beat the Samuel Jacoby each time she comes along.40

Jim Albertson, who recorded the preceding song, offered some background information: An envelope arrived one day from Nick Anastor, president of the Vineland Historical Society. He thought I might be interested in the enclosed newspaper clipping from around the turn of the century that told about a song concerning a racing rivalry between two South Jersey oyster boats that once sailed the Delaware Bay. Since the tune was not included, I found the words suggested a tune from “Strike the Bell, Second Mate.” This is how I have sung the song ever since. Clyde Phillips and Walt Hinson of Maricetown put me in touch with Seth Henderson of Newport, NJ, who knew the original and remembered the song being sung in his family (his grandfather is one of the little boys mentioned in the song) and Captain Cornelius Campbell, also of Newport who knew the history of the boats (his uncle was the cook), and took me to Money Island to see the last remains and final resting place of the Samuel Jacoby. I was pleased to record the song for the New Jersey Public Television documentary film, “Schooners on the Bay.”41 Mount Holly Jail When you go to Mount Holly, it’s there where you’re set, It’s whiskey and tobacco you get damned a bit. Chorus: And it’s hard times in Mount Holly Jail. (2) Your hands and your feet chained down to the floor, God damn their old souls why can’t they do more.

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Soup that you get is not very neat, It’s full some scraps and some damned dirty meat. Fetched from the kitchen in an old slop pail, And that’s the way they serve you Mount Holly Jail. Oh lice! Oh lice! as big as young quails, You can’t help get lousy in Mount Holly Jail. There is High Sheriff Townsell, I almost forget, He’s the greatest old loafer was in the whole lot. If he was tried and had his just due, He’s been sent to state’s prison ’count burglaries too. There’s Billy Reeves I almost forgot, He’s the damndest old loafer was in the whole lot. Your pockets he’ll pick and your clothes he will sell, Get drunk on your money at Townsell’s hotel. There is Mr. Pitcher, he’s a very nice man, If you ask him for a favor, he’ll do it if he can. That ain’t all I’d have you to know, Every Sunday morning we have Holy Joe. There he will stand and the truth he will tell, To save the poor prisoners from going to hell.42

Every region of the country has its own cell full of jail songs. Either they catalog the incivilities and abuses of the local sheriff, or they rail against the bug infestations and inedible food of the jail facilities. The characters in these songs and ballads are usually not hardened criminals, but merely those unfortunates who were caught for some lesser offense—drunkenness, disturbing the peace, wife beating, library fines. That way, listeners could sympathize with the complaints in good conscience, knowing they weren’t abetting any serious crimes. Other regions have produced songs very similar to this one from New Jersey’s Mount Holly jail.43 Jim Albertson offered some additional verses, including the following: When you go to Mount Holly, it’s there you will find, An old stone jail house, leave all joy behind.

His last verse ends, To save all the prisoners from going to . . . Atlantic City. (spoken): Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.44 The Hoboken Fire ’Twas on a Saturday evening that the fire bells rang out, The North German docks are burning! most every one did shout; And the quiet folks of Hoboken did rush in deep despair, When that awful cry of fire was carried through the air. The Saale, the Maine and Bremen, three noble German ships,

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Were blazing just like furnaces as they lay in their slips; And hundreds of good people gazed at the calamity so dire. Helpless to give any aid to the victims of the fire. Chorus: Picture the ships from stem to stern, picture the victims doomed to burn. Picture their friends upon the shore, whom they would never see no more; Picture the flames mounting high, looking as if they touched the sky, A terrible sight it was to see, a picture no artist could paint. The firemen they worked nobly and did rescue some poor souls, Who rushed to gain a shelter down in the steamships’ holds; While others from the water they did their best to save, And snatched about a score or two from an untimely grave. The police they did their duty, and promptly gave a hand To help the injured people as they came to the land; And the people of Hoboken gave every want and desire To help the needy sufferers of that awful terrible fire.45

At 4:00 P.M. on June 30, 1900, a fire broke out amid the cotton stored on Pier 3 of the North German Lloyd Steamship Company on the Hoboken, New Jersey, waterfront. Within half an hour, the piers, four large oceangoing steamers, and numerous small boats were on fire. Over 200 souls perished as passengers and crew could not escape from the burning vessels in time. The estimated loss of property was put in excess of $6 million. As the New York Times reported the following day, Pier 3, the southernmost of the Bremen piers, was filled with cotton, the bales piled high, and with barrels of turpentine and oil. Without a warning a fire started in the middle of the cotton, about one-third way out on the pier, and the strong wind instantly fanned the little sheet of flame into a roaring devouring blaze, and almost before any one could make a move the flames reached the barrels of oil and turpentine, which exploded in such rapid succession that the sound was like that of a rapid-fire gun. So quickly had the flames taken hold of the cotton and oil that these reports were the first warning of the fire received at the company’s offices on Water Street. An alarm was turned in promptly by the policeman on the pier, and the Hoboken firemen were on the ground within three minutes after the discovery of the fire, but it had gained headway with such incredible rapidity that the three piers of the North German Lloyd Line were already beyond saving.46

A ballad was written soon after by one Larry Lavake, who used the tune and format of the pop hit of the preceding year, “A Picture No Artist Can Paint” (he retained the title phrase in the last line of the chorus). While Lavake’s composition offers little to merit immortality (nor do the other songs of his that Delaney published), it is a characteristic example of a typical folk poet at work, writing in the style of traditional disaster ballads of the nineteenth century, and borrowing a tune that his readers would recognize. Folk musicians and poets are much more adept at producing original lyrics than at composing a new melody; hence the use of an older, familiar tune is a common procedure. Not only are writers such as Lavake probably ill prepared to compose their own tunes, but the cheap print publishers, such as William Delaney, would have found it much easier (and less expensive) to be spared the requirement of printing music. Delaney’s series of songbooks, which were published between 1893 and 1922, typically included words to some 160–180 songs in each issue. These included new popular songs, with proper copyright credits and information on how the sheet music could be purchased, and older traditional songs, which

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required no such details. Usually, the contemporary popular songs were at the front of the publication and the public domain titles toward the back. Lavake’s song was on page 4, suggesting that it was a new song that Lavake had submitted to Delaney for publication; probably he sold publication rights outright, since no copyright notice was printed. Since the tune was widely known at the time, one can reasonably assume that some readers, particularly in the New Jersey area, may have taken the trouble to learn the song and perform it—at least, for a few years, while the memory of the terrible disaster was still fresh in their minds. The Paterson Fire The fatal cry of fire it was carried though the air, And crowds of people they came rushing round. All Paterson is burning, it was passed from lip to lip, Where a knot of silent people could be found. And the noise of rushing engines, falling walls and stifled groans Told of the awful suff’ring that was there; And the people rushing hither for some place they could escape, Filled their honest hearts with horror and despair. Chorus: Oh, that awful cry of fire it was sick’ning, And the people from their beds they had to fly; Paterson is burning down! was the cry that passed around, When to save themselves they did madly try. How the flames did roar around them as they fled from danger near, Soaring to a height that seemed like mountain high; And how many loving children who had wakened from their sleep, Will nevermore fond parent forms decry. For the cruel hand of fate has parted them forevermore, And their souls from earth have sadly passed away; Drop a tear in their remembrance as you read the awful tale Of those victims of that fatal Sabath [sic] day.47

The Great Paterson Fire occurred on Sunday, February 9, 1902, shortly after midnight. It consumed nearly 500 buildings, devastating the downtown and Sandy Hill areas of Silk City. Two lives were lost, and several people were injured. It is estimated that the monetary loss of the Great Fire was nearly $6 million (in today’s dollars, that would be equivalent to more than $120 million). It stands today as New Jersey’s largest fire. Approximately 250 families lost their homes in the conflagration. While only a few silkmanufacturing establishments were affected by the fire, numerous banks, retail stores, and other commercial enterprises were consumed by the blaze. Larry Lavake contributed this item as well as the preceding one to publisher William W. Delaney, and it shows no improvement in his talents (see, in particular, the very clumsy second stanza). Evidently not a musician, he again borrowed a popular song for his tune, this time using the 1901 hit “I’ll Be with You When the Roses Bloom Again,” by Cobb and Edwards. The Trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann Here’s a story that’s worth repeating, It’s a story that ends the same,

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Of a man gone astray and the price he must pay He’s the only one who’s to blame. In the quaint little town of Flemington On the second of January Bruno sat in the room and the State asked his doom While the world listened to that story. On the jury sat four good women On the jury sat eight good men; And the judge said “proceed,” and the state said “indeed”; While Defense said “go prove it then.” And his wife the State’s first witness, January third was the day; And she held in her hand as she sat on the stand The suit her dear child wore away. Col. Lindy was the State’s next witness That he paid though his child was dead; Under oath there he swore that he heard a Doctor, Just same that as Poffince [?] had said. ’Twas the night when he called Doc Condon And he said with a voice that rang true, That the kidnapper John was Bruno Hauptmann Bruno turned pale when “Jafsie” got through. Then they called a handwriting expert, Mr. Osborn was that man’s name; And he swore Hauptman wrote each ransom note; Bruno snarled for he knew no shame. “You’re a liar” yelled Bruno Hauptmann To the agent Tom Sisk on the stand And the jury he told they found notes of gold That were given the kidnapper’s hand. Ellen Achenbach, Bruno’s neighbor, Told how Bruno had limped one day When a voice with a ring, hollered, “your lying,” Mrs. Hoffman was heard to say. Then the state to Attorney Wilentz To the kind hearted judge Trechard said The state rests its case, and he said in their place You must see Anna and Bruno dead. The Defense called their first witness January the 24th day; Bruno then took the stand, on the bible his hand, And he swore that the truth he would say. On the 28th he admitted That he lied to the New York police; In a voice hoarse and bold then his story he told Told the jury he was with his niece.

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Bruno Hauptmann was cross examined And this was what he told; That it was the wish of Isadore Fisch That he kept a shoe box of gold. But he wouldn’t explain the address That was found in his small closet wall, First he answered with “Yes,” then he said “No I guess,” And the jury listened to it all. When they asked why he hid that money In the wall with the auger hole Well he mumbled a sigh, trying hard to reply Just how to explain his bank roll. He denied that piece of pinewood, He denied about the ladder too; He denied every word the jury had heard And he said that each word was untrue. On the 13th day of February The judge charged the jury And he said, “Judge him fair when you all get in there And deliberate honestly.” On the jury sat four good women, On the jury sat eight good men; When the jury came out not a face had a doubt They had dealt with justice then. O the story is worth repeating It’s a story that ends the same; When a man goes astray there’s a price he must pay He’s the only one who’s to blame. On the last great day in heaven When the master calls out each name Will you stand with the blessed and eternal rest Or will you have to answer some shame?48

In 1932, Colonel Charles Lindbergh was one of America’s most celebrated heroes. His solo transatlantic flight a few years earlier itself prompted a flock of popular and hillbilly songs. Then, suddenly, tragedy struck the Lindbergh household. It was called the “crime of the century”—but then, what celebrated crime hasn’t? Seven different hillbilly songs about this nationally prominent crime were written and /or recorded between 1932 and 1935, three of which—including this one—by the prolific New York songwriter, publisher, and singer, Bob Miller. On the night of March 1, 1932, someone entered the second-storey nursery of the Lindbergh home in Hopewell, New Jersey, by a ladder and abducted the sleeping Charles Lindbergh Jr., leaving a ransom note demanding $50,000. After various efforts at communication through newspaper advertisements, a go-between—a retired New York teacher named John F. Condon—delivered the ransom on the night of April 8 at the Woodland Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City, following the promise of the return of the baby. The baby, however, had been killed shortly after the abduction, and its body was found on May 12 near the Lindbergh home.

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A manhunt was launched and the serial numbers of the ransom bills (many in uncommon gold certificates) were publicized. More than two years later, on September 15, 1934, Bruno Richard Hauptmann passed one of the notes at a Bronx filling station. He was arrested, and a large stash of the ransom money was found in a shoe box when his house was searched. At his trial at Flemington, New Jersey, from January 2 through February 13, 1935, the chief evidence against Hauptmann was (1) the recovered money (the “notes of gold” in the song), (2) the discovery of go-between Condon’s telephone number on a closet wall in Hauptmann’s home (the ballad refers to it as an address), (3) the identification of Hauptmann by witnesses, who professed seeing him near the Lindbergh home or in the cemetery, and (4) the discovery that the ladder used in the kidnapping had been mended with a missing plank from Hauptmann’s attic (referred to in the 16th stanza). Hauptmann countered that he had merely held the money for a friend, one Isidore Fisch, who had returned to Germany in 1933 and died there; that he was a carpenter and furthermore wouldn’t have made or used such a shoddy ladder. Hauptmann was convicted and electrocuted on April 3, 1936, in the New Jersey State Prison—to the end claiming his innocence. An article he wrote, “Why Did You Kill Me?,” appeared posthumously in Liberty magazine on May 2. The song transcribed previously—and the several others mentioned—were all written before Hauptmann’s execution (some even before his conviction), yet his guilt was always presumed. As in many celebrated criminal trials, arguments surfaced interminably, claiming that the German immigrant Hauptmann had been set up and was innocent. In 1948 a wooden table turned up in Plainfield, New Jersey, with a message, penciled in German, that the writer—and not Hauptmann—was part of a gang that had executed the kidnapping. It was signed NSDAP—the initials of the Nazi Party. The matter has still not been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction and probably never will be.49 Morro Castle Disaster As the fire filled the air maddening scenes were everywhere The flame-swept decks were far beyond control In his cabin overhead lay the captain, who was dead While death took charge, demanding its great toll. Chorus: And all around ocean waves, Carried poor humans to their graves; Surely angels way up there Wept for loved ones way down here, Beseeching God for mercy to each soul. Many hundreds made the trip on the Morro Castle ship, Bidding goodby to loved ones that were dear; And that proud ship sailed along with its happy merry throng, No one dreaming that death was hovering near. Chorus: And all around ocean waves, Waited to carry souls to graves; Surely God in heaven above, In his mercy filled with love Made angels guard the lost souls way down here. There’s no doubt that something failed when the Morro Castle sailed Perhaps ’twas carelessness on that deep sea;

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They’ll investigate the set [?]; still that won’t restore the death The innocent ones of that tragedy. Chorus: And all around ocean waves, Carried poor humans to their graves; Oh, the guilty ones shall pay, On that last great judgment day, When God shall judge each one in His glory.50

The Morro Castle and Oriente were the largest and most luxurious Ward Liners ever built, measuring 11,520 tons gross and providing 437 first-class passengers and 95 touristclass passengers with an array of lavishly decorated public rooms, staterooms, and suites. Ironically, it was those elaborate interiors that added to the Morro Castle’s destruction. Early in the morning of September 8, 1934, a mysterious fire was detected in her first-class writing room as the Morro Castle steamed off the New Jersey coast. Fanned by a gale, the fire quickly raced across the varnish, veneer, and draperies of the first-class cabins. Toxic smoke cut off most passengers from the lifeboats, while confusion among the crew added to the disaster. By the time the smoldering wreck washed ashore at Asbury Park, 134 people had lost their lives. What actually started the fire has never been determined, but arson was thought likely. Why someone on board the ship would have risked his or her own life in such an act is not clear. Whatever the cause, the Ward Line never recovered from the negative publicity caused by the tragedy. In 1935 the Ward name was dropped for good, and the line thereafter became known as the Cuba Mail Line. Ships of the fleet were painted in new color schemes in an effort to erase the memory of the Morro Castle’s famous profile. The Morro Castle disaster remains one of the deadliest shipwrecks in American history.51 Bob Miller’s ballad was recorded by Ray Whitley only nine days after the disaster, and the records were released within two months. Knowing his audience’s religious convictions, he ended the ballad with the characteristic moral promising that the guilty parties would not escape God’s judgment.

PENNSYLVANIA Although the Swedes and the Dutch were the region’s earliest European settlers, English Quakers soon overtook them in numbers and importance, and quickly turned William Penn’s three original counties of Philadelphia, Chester, and Bucks into a thriving commercial center. Penn’s policies of religious toleration encouraged other groups to settle in Pennsylvania; among them were German immigrants from the Rhineland (long since erroneously called Pennsylvania Dutch, by a misunderstanding of the German’s own word for themselves, Deutsch), who grew rapidly in numbers.52 By the time of the first national census in 1790, the Pennsylvania Germans constituted 38 percent of the of the state’s population, while the earlier Dutch and Swedes combined now accounted for less than 2 percent of the total. Scots and Scots Irish (Ulster Irish)—Scots who had earlier been driven out of the highlands and herded into parts of Ireland—composed another major ethnic group. These two groups consituted almost 23 percent of the 1790 population. Other British groups, such as the Welsh and Cornish, established a presence that grew in importance through the nineteenth century. By the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, the major influxes of immigrants came from Italy and Eastern Europe. All of these groups made a major contribution to the culture of the mining communities, in particular, to their music.

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One of several broadside prints of “Battle of the Kegs,” this one published ca. 1810– 1814 in Boston. From the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. The Battle of the Kegs Gallants attend, and hear a friend, Trill forth harmonious ditty, Strange things I’ll tell, which late befell, In Philadelphia city.

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’Twas early day, as poets say, Just when the sun was rising, A soldier stood, on a log of wood, And saw a thing surprising. As in amaze he stood to gaze, The truth can’t be denied, sir, He spied a score of kegs or more, Come floating down the tide, sir. A sailor, too, in jerkin blue, This strange appearance viewing, First damn’d his eyes, in great surprise Then said, “some mischief’s brewing. These kegs, I’m told, the rebels hold, Packed up like pickled herring, And they’re coming down, t’ attack the town, In this new way of ferrying.” The soldier flew, the sailor too, And scared almost to death, sir, Wore out their shoes to spread the news, And ran till out of breath, sir. Now up and down, throughout the town; Most frantic scenes were acted; And some ran here, and others there, Like men almost distracted. Sore fire cried, which some denied, But said the earth had quakéd; And girls and boys, with hideous noise, Ran through the streets half naked. Sir William, he, snug as a flea,53 Lay all this time a snoring; Nor dreamed of harm, as he lay warm, In bed with Mrs. L —g.54 Now, in a fright, he starts upright, Awaked by such a clatter; He rubs both eyes, and boldly cries, “For God’s sake, what’s the matter?” At his bedside, he then espied, Sir Erskine at command, sir,55 Upon one foot he had one boot, And th’other in his hand, sir. “Arise! arise,” Sir Erskine cries, The rebels—more’s the pity— Without a boat, are all afloat, And rang’d before the city. “The motley crew, in vessels new, With Satan for their guide, sir,

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Pack’d up in bags, or wooden kegs, Come driving down the tide, sir. “Therefore prepare for bloody war; These kegs must all be routed; Or surely we despised shall be, And British courage doubted.” The royal band, now ready stand, All ranged in dread array, sir; With stomachs stout, to see it out, And make a bloody day, sir. The cannons roar from shore to shore, The small arms make a rattle; Since wars began, I’m sure no man E’er saw so strange a battle. The rebel dales, the rebel vales, With rebel trees surrounded, The distant wood, the hills and floods, With rebel echoes sounded. The fish below swam to and fro, Attack’d from every quarter; Why sure thought they, the devil’s to pay, ’Mongst folks above the water. The kegs, ’tis said, though strongly made, Of rebel staves and hoops, sir, Could not oppose their powerful foes, The conquering British troops, sir. From morn till night, these men of might Display’d amazing courage; And when the sun was fairly down, Retired to sup their porridge. An hundred men, with each a pen, Or more, upon my word, sir, It is most true would be too few, Their valor to record, sir. Such feats did they perform that day, Against those wicked kegs, sir, That years to come, if they get home, They’ll make their boasts and brags, sir.56 Early in January, 1778, David Bushnell, the inventor of the American Torpedo, and other submarine machinery, prepared a number of “infernals,” as the British termed them, and set the afloat in the Delaware River a few miles above Philadelphia, in order to annoy the royal shipping, which at that time lay off that place. These machines were constructed of kegs, charged with powder, and so arranged as to explode on coming in contact with any thing while floating along with the tide. On their appearance, the British seamen and troops became alarmed, and, manning the shipping and wharves, discharged their small arms and cannon at every thing they could see floating in the river during the ebb tide. Upon this incident the [preceding] song was composed by Francis Hopkinson, one of the happiest writers of his time. It soon became popular with Washington’s army.57

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Hopkinson, a resident of Philadelphia at the time, was a graduate of Princeton, member of Congress, judge, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and patron of the arts. Though he composed tunes for some of his own songs, “Battle of the Kegs” was meant to be sung to the tune of “Yankee Doodle.”58 Polly Williams Come all ye good people, wherever you be; Come listen a while to my sad tragedy, It is of a young lady that was worthy of praise— At the age of eighteen she ended her days. Long time she’d been courted, as I have heard say, And her lover to delude her took many a way; For soon as he found that her love he had gained, Her company he slighted; her love he disdained. And then to destroy her he contrived a plan, To this mountain conveyed her, as I understand, Oh, this innocent creature his mind did not know And in hopes to be married, with the traitor did go. And when to this mountain he did her convey, Oh, he left her fair body for the varmints a prey. She was cruelly treated and shamefully used, By this cruel tyrant; who could him excuse? Which caused old and young to weep and to cry, And to find out this traitor they each one did try; He was apprehended, his cause to bewail, Straightway he was conducted to Uniontown jail. There by judge and jury he was proven out clear, And now he takes Polly Clayton and calls her his dear; But like a deceiver, he’ll live in despair Till the day of strict judgment, when all must appear. Oh, the judge and the jury, they all will be there, And with one accord, the truth will declare; Oh, the impartial judge, he will pass the decree, And the cruel tyrant condem-ned will be. Come all ye good people who saw this object, Don’t add or diminish, deceive or correct; This honored young lady was found in her gore, And her flesh by the traitor all mangled and tore. Oh, it’s every temptation is the future of some more, And of all such false lovers, I would have you beware. Oh, beware of false lovers, who court in deceit, Lest, like Polly Williams, it will prove your sad fate— To be brought by a lover to shame and disgrace, And to lose your sweet life in some wilderness place; They will hug you and kiss you and call you their own, And when your back is turned, they will leave you to mourn.59

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The above text was collected by Pennsylvania folklorist Samuel Bayard and published by George Swetnam in his breezy history of western Pennsylvania. Swetnam recounted in detail the history of this tragedy of nearly two centuries ago thus. Mary Williams, called Polly, was born in about 1792 at New Salem, Pennsylvania, not far from Uniontown. In about 1808 she met Philip Rogers, the handsome and smoothtalking son of a neighbor, and it became understood in those parts that a wedding was not far off. But Philip delayed and doubted, and Polly’s trust, once firmly anchored on a foundation of love, began to lose its moorings, and her spirits slowly turned moody and melancholy. In August 1810 Philip proposed that they run away to be married by a squire who lived some 14 miles thence. Polly dressed her best and set off with Philip, never to be seen alive again. Her body was discovered by a horrified party of berry-picking youngsters the next day at the foot of White Rocks, showing signs of a desperate struggle and severe head wounds. A coroner concluded that she had been pushed over the cliff and then bashed with a rock for good measure. Rogers was arrested and tried in Uniontown in November. He protested that he and Polly had quarreled and they had separated, implying that she had fallen or jumped. The judge’s instructions to the jury included the assertion that the evidence against him was “very strong,” but the jury found him innocent. Polly’s body was reburied in another grave, later marked with a headstone that bore the inscription Behold with pity, you that pass by; Here doth the bones of Polly Williams lie; Who was cut off in her youthful bloom, By a vile wretch, her intended groom.

Rogers left the neighborhood a few years later, married, and raised a family. He died during the Civil War at the age of 74. Wrote Bayard, The Murder caused a tremendous sensation in the southwestern counties of Pennsylvania, and everyone can still tell the story, though few remember the song. Several songs were composed—both of the folk type and of the literary type. I have another folk ballad about this tragedy, which is longer and more detailed, but not complete. In the course of years, many legends—some of them being of a decidedly superstitious turn—have grown up about the career of the murderer after his acquittal and marriage.60

In this early example of trial by ballad, as in the case, for example, of Sarah Maria Cornell discussed in chapter 1, we find that the judgment of the community—especially as given expression by the ballad writer—is perpendicular to that of the legal system. Before sharing in the public outrage at counterfeit coins in the scales of Justice, it is wise to consider some similar scandalous murders of our own time—the John F. Kennedy assassination, or the O. J. Simpson trial—and the public dissatisfaction with the outcome of the investigations. Every murder story since that of Abel by Cain is complicated, and seldom does the legal system dispose of them tidily and without embarrassing loose ends. As for the ballad text itself—we should note that it is in typical broadside or “comeall-ye” style, full of editorial abuse heaped on the accused, and concluding with abundant moralizing directed toward the wide-eyed public. The language is awkward and rhymes are forced. Bayard’s concluding stanza is similar to lines in other ballads and songs; compare the widely known “False Hearted Lover” (or “On Top of Old Smoky”), which concludes,

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They’ll hug you and kiss you and tell you more lies Than cross ties on a railroad or stars in the skies.61

But not necessarily murder you. James Bird You sons of freedom listen to me, and you daughters too, give ear, You a sad a mournful story as we ever told shall hear; Hull, you know, his troops surrendered, and defenseless left the West, Our forces quick assembled, the invaders to resist. There was one amongst the number, tall, graceful and serene, Firm his step, his look undaunted, ne’er a nobler youth was seen. One fond kiss he snatched from Mary, craved his mother’s prayer once more, Pressed his father’s hand and left them for Lake Erie’s distant shore. Soon he came where noble Perry had assembled all his fleet. Here this noble Bird enlisted, expecting soon the foe to meet. Where is Bird when battle rages? Is he in the strife or no? Hark, the cannon’s roar tremendous, here we meet our furious foe. But behold! a ball has struck him, see the crimson current flow. “Leave the deck!” exclaimed brave Perry. “No,” cried Bird, “I will not go. Here on deck I took my station, Bird will ne’er his colors fly; I will stand by you, brave Perry, till we conquer or we die.” And did Bird receive a pension, or was he to his friends restored? No, nor ever to his bosom clasped the maid his heart adored. But there came most dismal tidings from Lake Erie’s distant shore; Better there that brave Bird had perished after the battle’s awful roar. “Dearest father, tell my mother when this letter reaches you, Not to mourn, her first beloved oh dearly bids his last adieu. I’m a sufferer for deserting from the brig Niagary, Dearest mother, read this letter, ’tis the last you’ll hear from me.” Dark and dismal was the morning Bird was ordered out to die. Where’s the heart that would not pity or for him would heave a sigh? See him kneel upon his coffin, sure his death can do no good. Spare him! Hark! O God, they’ve shot him, see his bosom stream with blood! Farewell, Bird, farewell forever! Home nor friends you’ll see no more, Now his mangled corpse lies buried on Lake Erie’s distant shore. Bird will ever be remembered, aye unto this present day. Oh, what can beset wrong them who engage in war or fray?62

“James Bird” was written by a journalist, Charles Miner (1780–1865), who printed it in a newspaper he edited, the Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Gleaner in 1814. Bird enlisted and fought bravely with Commodore Perry on the Lawrence and was wounded. After he recovered, he deserted from guard duty watching over government stores. He was captured, court-martialed, and convicted, and in October 1814, he was executed on board the Niagara. Miner, a strong Bird partisan, was accurate in his depiction of the events, but he clearly felt that Bird’s heroism should have exonerated his petty infraction. For decades, feelings about Bird continued to run strong, with much local opinion

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in his favor. In about 1885 one correspondent of the Williamsport Breakfast Table (Pennsylvania) wrote, I was familiar in my boyhood with Bird’s story, as the man who betrayed him lived only 12 miles from where I was born. After Perry’s victory on Lake Erie, Bird was idle a long time, and seeing no further need of his service in the fleet, he deserted and finally went to work for a man named Waterman, near Gowanda, N.Y. I have seen Waterman many times and often passed the land cleared by Bird for him. When Waterman was owing Bird quite a sum for work, he told him, if he would go with him to Buffalo he could get the money there to pay him. Arriving there, and finding no United States troops, Mr. Waterman induced him to go with him to Erie, saying he would pay his fare, and that the man who was to let him have the money had gone to Erie. Bird not suspecting his design went with him. Once there, Bird was surrendered to the troops, and Waterman, pocketing the reward for returning deserters, left him to be shot, balancing his own account at the same time and never paying Bird a cent for his labor.” The words “Spare him! Hark! Oh, God, they’ve shot him” were said to have been exclaimed by Commadore Perry, who had ridden on horseback from Buffalo to Erie to save Bird’s life.63

The version printed here, collected in the 1960s, is remarkably close to Miner’s original text of 150 years earlier, except for the final couplet, which was added by someone else in the intervening years—probably a considerable number of years later, considering the phrase, “aye, unto this present day.” Only around the Great Lakes and New England area did the ballad remain a favorite, but there it could still being heard long after the echoes from gunfire had faded away and all the participants in the war had departed. The Banks of the Schuylkill On the banks of the Schuylkill so pleasant and gay, There, bless’d with my true love, I spend the short day, Where the sun shed his rays thro’ the mulberry tree, And the streams form’d a mirror for my true love and me. On the spot of clover we sat ourselves down, Not envying the greatest of monarchs that’s crowned. My name in the sand with his finger he drew, And he swore by the stream he would ever prove true. To which I beheld the gay pride of my fair, I gazed on his face while he play’d with my hair, He need not have told me his love with a sigh, For the Schuylkill secures my dear fellow to me. Of times he told me the stories of love, He would sing me a song my affections to move, My lips were solicited, my hand gently press’d On the banks of the Schuylkill, where Jesse was bless’d. Whenever we leave this enchanting retreat, With blushes, she says, when next shall we meet? Next Sunday, he says, if the weather proves clear, On the banks of the Schuylkill, I’ll meet you my dear. Now all these innocent pleasure’s [sic] are o’er, The murmuring river can please me no more, Since the banks of the Schuylkill have lost all their charms, And the soldiers have torn my dear boy from my arms.

The text to the ballad “Banks of the Schuylkill” provides filler to the page devoted primarily to another ballad, one from the War of 1812, to which the fine woodcut illustration refers. It was published by Leonard Deming in Boston in 1832–1837. From the Library of Congress.

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But should ever I clasp him again to my heart, No more shall my true love and I ever part, No more shall the wars take my true love away, And the banks of the Schuylkill shall ever be gay.64

This is one of the minority of songs in this collection that does not deal with war, disaster, death, betrayal, or murder. The preoccupation of the ballad muse with such grim subjects is neither remarkable nor peculiar to the times; a census of today’s newspapers would reveal a similar apportionment between topics of alarm and those of happy times. This song appeared in broadsides and songsters of the 1840s and possibly earlier.65 The theme of a young maid whose true love has been whisked off to the army suggests a period of wartime, but there was none in the country before the 1840s since the War of 1812. The omission of any details regarding a specific conflict suggests further that the song was not written during a war, nor with any one war in mind. The song’s author could be confident that the day would come when the song would again resonate with personal meaning to many singers and listeners. There is a tiny enigma in the text: who is Jesse? If this is some literary reference it is indeed obscure; if, rather, it refers to some local person (baptized in the river?), he has long since been forgotten. The Schuylkill River is in southeastern Pennsylvania. It rises in eastern Schuylkill County in an anthracite-coal region and flows southeastward for 130 miles to the Delaware River at Philadelphia. Canals were built in the 1820s, enhancing navigation opportunities and spurring early industrial growth of the cities in the Schuylkill valley. By the 1840s rail transport had largely rendered the canal obsolete. The song mentions none of this, suggesting an earlier, bucolic preindustrial stage in the region’s development. The song was collected from oral tradition in Maine and in Missouri in the 1940s.66 De Philadelphia Riots, or, I Guess It Wan’t De Niggas Dis Time Oh in Philadelphia folks say how Dat Darkies kick up all de rows, But de riot up in Skensin’ton, Beats all de darkies twelve to one. Chorus: An’ I guess it wasn’t de niggas dis time, I guess it wasn’t de niggas dis time, I guess it wasn’t de niggas dis time, Mr. Mayor, I guess it wasn’t de niggas dis time. Oh, de “Natives” de went up to meet, At de corner ob Second an’ Massa street, De Irish cotch dar Starry Flag, An’ tare him clean up to a rag. Chorus. Oh, de peaceful Natives go away, An’ meet up dar an odder day, Den de Irish get half shot all round, An’ den dey shoot de Natives down. De Natives couldn’t stand dat quite, For freemen will defend dar right, An’ when dar blood begin to spill, Dey thought ob glorious Bunker Hill.

This undated Philadelphia broadside probably was published soon after 1844 when the events it describes occurred. Courtesy of Lewis Becker.

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Day dart like lions on dese Pats, An’ stoned ’em back wid whole brickbats, Day fought wid hands ’gin loaded guns, Lord, how American blood did run. Chorus: But whar was de sheriff dis time? But whar was de sheriff dis time? But whar was de sheriff dis time, Mr. Mayor? Oh, whar was de sheriff dis time? Oh, de Irish in dar houses say, Like ’possums in a holler tree, Day poke dar guns out through de wall, Lord, how day make poor Natives fall. Dey kotch one shooter by de hip, Dey drag him on his jaw bone lip, Dey thought him dead and leff him be, But he cum de possum, an’ got free. De Natives got some shooting sticks, An’ fired at dar frames an’ bricks, De Pats shot back an’ de hot lead flew, Lord! what’s creation comin’ to? De Natives couldn’t fire much ball, An so dey fire dar houses all, Den de sheriff fotch his troops about, I ’spose to shoot de fire out. Chorus: But dey cum rather late dat time, But dey cum rather late dat time, But dey cum rather late dat time, Mr. Mayor, But dey cum rather late dat time. De Michael leff ’em in a lurch, An’ so dey burn de Michael’s church. Oh, dat dar was a burnin’ shame, But I wonder who was mos’ to blame. Cat-wallader he walk in now, An’ wid his brave men stop de row, Den wicked rowdies went in town, An’ burn de St. Augustine’s down. Chorus: Oh, whar was de police dat time? Oh, whar was de police dat time? Oh, whar was de police dat time, Mr. Mayor? Oh, whar was de police dat time? Oh, den de big fish ’gin to fear, Dey thought the burnin’ was too near, Dey call’d a meetin’ to make peace, An’ made all white folks turn police.

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Chorus: If dey’d been a little sooner dat time, If dey’d been a little sooner dat time, If dey’d been a little sooner dat time, Mr. Mayor, Dey might a stopt all dis crime. An’ next de gub’ner cum to town, Arter fifty Natives war shot down, To save de spilt milk all endeavor, But dey say “it’s better late dan neber.” Den de sheriff ax de States’ ’Torney, To know what a sheriff’s duty be, De ’Torney answer like a man, It am to do de best you can. Chorus: But dar’s nothin’ like doin’ it in time, But dar’s nothin’ like doin’ it in time, But dar’s nothin’ like doin’ it in time, Mr. Mayor, But dar’s nothin’ like doin’ it in time. Den Massa sheriff to get free Make Patterson his deputy, De general gallowson’s de town, To shoot de used up riot down. His barracks am Girard’s ole bank, De ghost ob Stephy’s dollars clank, If he’s been dar to saw de scene, He’s day, “by dam vat all dis mean” Dey make a stable ob de yard, An’ de vault a sleepin’ place for guard, An’ dar was one deposit queer, De Princeton’s tars wid sharp-toed spears Den for church burners soon de mayor, Offered a reward quite rare, But to cotch dem dat killed freedom’s sons De state couldn’t find no law nor funds. Chorus: Oh, I guess it wan’t so in old times, Oh, I guess it wan’t so in old times, Oh, I guess it wan’t so in old times, Mr. Mayor, Oh, I guess it wan’t so in old times. But decent folks am quiet now, Still newspapers keep up a row, Dey spin long lies about de riot, Because they’re makin’ money by it. Chorus: Howebber ’taint de niggas dis time, Howebber ’taint de niggas dis time, Howebber ’taint de niggas dis time, Mr. Mayor, Howebber ’taint de niggas dis time.67

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The Greek word for “foreigners” is barbaroi, which English borrowed, but changed its meaning into the much more pejorative term barbarian. For hundreds of years, Anglo American society has reacted uneasily to the prospect of foreign immigrants; all that has changed over the years since colonial days has been the nationality of the recipients of native hostility. In the early years of the twenty-first century, the animosity has focused on Hispanic immigrants; in the twentieth century, Asians were a principal target, and in the nineteenth century before them, the Irish, the Germans, the Dutch, the Jews, the Italians, and the Scandinavians were in turn vilified, scorned, cursed, and attacked. Irish immigration to America experienced a great surge in the 1840s as a result mainly of the failure of the potato crop. Unlike earlier Irish immigrants, who settled in rural areas, the famine refugees headed for cities such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco. Here they settled in clusters that became targets for discrimination and attacks. A commonly seen placard in store windows in New York City and elsewhere was “Help Wanted—No Irish Need Apply.” In Philadelphia, in May 1844, tensions reached such a degree that riots broke out. Called variously the Philadelphia nativist riots, the Philadelphia prayer riots, the Bible riots, and the Native American riots, the riots involved conflicts between nativists (i.e., antiforeigners) and recent Irish Catholic immigrants. They began in the largely Irish suburb of Kensington because of a controversy concerning Bible reading in the public schools. The challenge concerned not the practice itself, but rather the fact that it was a Protestant version that was used. In November 1842 Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic bishop, Francis Kenrick, wrote a letter to the board of controllers of public schools, asking that Catholic children be allowed to use the Catholic (Douay) version of the Bible and be excused from other religious teaching while at school. The school board was ready to accommodate this reasonable request, but outraged anti-Catholics turned the petition into an attack on the Bible itself. The American Nativist Party, a virulently antiforeigner, anti-immigration organization, together with the American Protestant Association, put forth the theory that the Pope was planning to take over America, and the Irish, because of their loyalty to the Pope, would be his steadfast soldiers in this action. On May 3 the short-lived nativist group, the American Republican Party, was founded and pledged to work for a new naturalization law that required a residence of 21 years before citizenship could be granted. The party provocatively held a meeting in a heavily Irish part of the Philadelphia suburb of Kensington. The Irish responded with clubs, stones, and shots, killing one Protestant youth. The nativists retreated, to return on May 6 in greater numbers. This meeting began with inflammatory remarks and ended in more fisticuffs that resulted in several deaths. Conflicts resumed on the following day. Bishop Kenrick requested the Catholics not to resort to violence, but this did not deter the Protestants and nativists. Rioters burned down St. Michael’s Catholic Church and rectory, at 2nd and Jefferson Streets, the Seminary of the Sisters of Charity, and several homes before soldiers arrived and the fire was contained. In Philadelphia itself, another riot erupted that resulted in the burning of St. Augustine’s Church, located on 4th Street between Vine and New Streets. A nearby school with a collection of rare books was burned as well. Order was finally restored, but not before some 30 deaths and 150 wounded. In addition, 200 fled their homes, and damage totaled $150,000.68 Several ballads were published about the riots. This one is particularly interesting in that it represents neither of the combatants’ points of view, but rather the perspective of the downtrodden African American populace. Thank goodness “it wasn’t de niggas dis time,

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Mr. Mayor”! This was a reference to earlier antislavery riots in the city in 1830, when “negroes were pelted in the streets, white men, who pleaded their cause, were pelted on the platform.”69 That the text was actually written by an African American seems improbable; more likely it was written by blackface minstrel entertainers, who often commented on political events of the day and were occasionally sympathetic toward African Americans. The wealth of details, mostly factual, suggest composition very soon after the riots. In this case, the objects of criticism include not only the nativist rioters, but also the agencies of the government who responded too slowly to prevent deaths and destruction. The picture painted is not an unfamiliar one to our own times. “Catwallader” refers to Philadelphia native George Cadwalader (1806–1879), who studied law and was admitted to the bar. He served in the Pennsylvania state militia and led the city’s first brigade against the rioters. He became a general in the U.S. Army during the Mexican American War and also served in the Civil War. “Massa” street in the second stanza refers to Jefferson Street, an interesting way of referring to the former president. “Natives” and “Pats” are, respectively, the anti-Catholic “nativists” and the Irish. “Girard’s bank” in the fourth stanza from the end had been appropriated for the military headquarters. The officers and crew of the U.S. steamship Princeton, mentioned in the next stanza, arrived, ready to join the fray if they were needed. They took up their quarters in the Girard Bank. “Patterson” was Major Patterson, who lead the cavalry troops. Down in the Lehigh Valley Just let me sit down here and rest, I’m only a tramp poor and . . . But once I had home pure and blest, the best that the world could . . . My wife and my fair daughter Nellie together were happy each day Until came a city stranger who stole our sweet Nellie away. Chorus: ’Twas down in the Lehigh Valley I dwelt in a happy nest My wife and my daughter Nellie made ev’ry moment blest; But into our peaceful cottage that viper foul did come Down in the Lehigh Valley he broke up our happy home. I know I am ragged and mean, and roaming the cold world alone; My wife died of grief in that scene where Nell’s blighted was our own; And since thro’ the world I’ve been drifting, I know ’tis my fortune and fate, Yes, drifting, with vengeance still drifting, to meet once that fiend whom I hate. So just let sit down and rest, and don’t ev’ry one on me frown, I know you are all of the best, and so was I till I was down; The future for me is all shadow, the world to my heart dark and dreer, But I’ll die with a smile for all mankind, if only that scoundrel were here!70

The Lehigh Valley and the Lehigh county name are derived from Lechauwekink (later shortened to Lecha), the Delaware Indian name for the Lehigh River, meaning “where there are forks.” With the advent of the Lehigh Canal in 1829, the region became an important industrial center, with anthracite coal, iron, cement, and silk as featured products.71 Though this song has been collected with other titles, it is most often associated with the Lehigh Valley, but the reasons for this are not apparent.72 In some versions, the narrator tramp gives his former occupation as village blacksmith—and one recording even used “The Village Blacksmith” as its title. George Milburn, who collected a boxcar full of hobo

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songs and poems, includes a sequence of half a dozen songs all derived from this one.73 In the 1870s and 1880s the region figured prominently as a music place name, with “Lehigh Polka” (1875), “The Lehigh Valley Route” (1887), and “Lehigh Valley Waltz” (1887). In these cases, the Lehigh is meant to conjure up images of a happy and romantic sort—quite different from the fate of our poor betrayed blacksmith. Possibly the name was associated with an impersonal industrialized setting, where jobs came and went and life had become unstable because of creeping industrialization, and life itself had acquired the sooty grime of ubiquitous coal dust. Another song from the same period, “The Pennsylvania Tramp,” paints an image of an unaccountably different sort: Here I am, a lonely stranger all the way from Pennsylvania, When I work my life’s in danger, ladies, come and pity me—hi yah! I have traveled this world over, in my pockets not a stamp, My name’s a terror to this nation, I’m the Pennsylvania tramp—hi yah! etc.74 The Avondale Mine Disaster Good Christians all, both great and small, I pray ye lend an ear, And listen with attention while The truth I will declare; When you hear this lamentation, It will cause ye to weep and wail, About the suffocation In the mines of Avondale. On the sixth day of September, Eighteen hundred and sixty-nine, Those miners all then got a call To go work in the mine; But little did they think that day That death would gloom the vale Before they would return again From the mines of Avondale. The women and the children, Their hearts were filled with joy, To see the men go work again, And likewise every boy; But a dismal sight in broad daylight Soon made them all turn pale, When they saw the breaker burning O’er the mines of Avondale. From here and there, and everywhere, They gathered in a crowd, Some tearing off their clothes and hair, And crying out aloud: “Get out our husbands and our sons! Death he’s going to steal Their lives away without delay In the mines of Avondale.”

This broadside ballad was published in Scranton, Pennsylvania, not far from the site of the 1869 mine accident, and may have been the original text of one of the traditional ballads about the event. From the Kenneth S. Goldstein collection, Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University.

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But all in vain, there was no hope, One single soul to save, For there is not second outlet From the subterranean cave. No pen can write the awful fright And horror that did prevail, Among the dying victims, In the mines of Avondale. A consultation then was held, ’Twas asked who’d volunteer For to go down this dismal shaft, To seek their comrades dear; Two Welshmen brave, without dismay,75 And courage without fail, Went down the shaft, without delay, In the mines of Avondale. When at the bottom they arrived, And thought to make their way, One of them died for want of air, While the other, in great dismay, He gave a sign to hoist him up, To tell the dreadful tale, That all were lost forever In the mines of Avondale. Every effort then took place To send down some fresh air; The men that next went down again They took of them good care; They traversed through the chambers, And this time did not fail In finding those dead bodies In the mines of Avondale. Sixty-seven was the number That in a heap were found, It seemed they were bewailing Their fate in underground; They found a father with his son Clasped in his arms so pale, It was a heart-rending scene In the mines of Avondale. Now to conclude, and make an end, Their number I’ll pen down— One hundred and ten of brave stout men Were smothered underground; They’re in their graves till the lat day, Their widows may bewail, And the orphans’ cries they rend the skies All round through Avondale!76

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Two ballads were written and preserved in oral tradition after the dreadful disaster in the Avondale mines near Plymouth, Pennsylvania, in 1869. The Avondale mine, as was common, was ventilated by means of a furnace on the bottom level, which had a flue running up the mine shaft. On the morning of September 6, the flue caught fire, and soon the coal breaker (a machine for crushing the anthracite rock) was aflame. The shaft was the only outlet from the mine, and since it was now filled with smoke and flame, there was no source for fresh air to the mine; consequently the trapped miners suffocated from want of oxygen. Altogether, 110 men died—including two members of the rescue party overcome by black damp (carbon dioxide). George Korson found a printed broadside version of this ballad bearing the name of James Fox of Scranton as the author. Besides the version reprinted here, the ballad was collected by Korson, Mellinger E. Henry, and Henry W. Shoemaker.77 Another broadside with the imprint “Published and for sale at Mac’s Book Store, Wyoming Ave., Scranton, Pa.” has also been preserved.78 In this latter text, the number cited in the penultimate stanza is 97, rather than 67. Korson, who gave an extensive account of the disaster and the ballad, was told by one former Avondale miner that for many years after the explosion, the mine and the village were said to be haunted by the spirits of the dead miners, who had often been seen slipping through the gloom or the mine or in the village, and that the ballad was composed by a Jewish peddler from Scranton, who had sold his wares to miners in Avondale. Thomas Duffy Come all ye true-born Irishmen, wherever you may be, I hope you will pay attention and listen unto me, Concerning ten brave Irishmen all in their youthful bloom, Who died in Pennsylvania on the twenty-first of June. Thomas Duffy and James Carroll as you can plainly see, They were murdered by false perjurers all on the gallows tree. Thomas Duffy on the brink of death did neither shake nor fear, But he smiled upon his murderers although his end was near. He took his brother by the hand and kissed him o’er and o’er Saying, “Farewell, my faithful brother, I shall never see you more, Till your spirit from this world has fled to that celestial shore Where perjurers can’t enter to shake loving hearts any more. “Take my advice, dear Patrick, and follow in my wake. Let perjurers do all they can, my heart they will never shake.” He scorned his prosecutors although he stood alone, As did many a gallant Irishman before England’s king and throne. He said, “We are not defeated; up or with our banner high, Although our parents were treated we will show them how to die.” He mounted on the scaffold with a firm and steady tread, Resembling a young nobleman a-going up to bed. He looked up the circle that stood around him there, And smiled upon his brother whose heart was in despair. “Give me your hand, dear Patrick, fret not for my sad fate, But before I will bid this world adieu, the truth to you I’ll state. I never saw James Kerrigan, the truth to you I’ll tell, Save once at Carroll residence where I treated him right well.

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I never asked James Carroll to shoot a man for me, Nor offered him ten dollars, as my God I hope to see. “I bear no living creature the slightest hate or spite, But as I am going to face my God my conscience it is light. But why should I tarry longer in this dark world of woe? My faith was never stronger and I am longing for to go.” The rope was dropped around his neck and the warrant to him read, And in twenty minutes after, brave Duffy he was dead. God rest his soul; he perished there to friends and country true, And he kept his secrets to the last as Irishmen should do. Bright angels thronged the jail yard until they saw him dead, And taking a last look at him his spirit with them fled. Tom Duffy was as true a man as ever blessed our sod, And now we hope his soul’s at rest with Mary and with God.79

The Molly Maguires were Irish Catholic miners who “had gained control of the anthracite divisions of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and used them as a cloak for criminal activities” in the anthracite coal region prior to the Civil War.80 They took their name from a band of young Irish peasants who terrorized landlords’ agents in the 1840s. Prosecuting the Mollies proved challenging for many years because their organization was so secretive and because most of the Irish American collier communities supported them, either willingly or otherwise. Active in their prosecution was the Pinkerton Agency—in fact, this was one of the salient cases that established the reputation of Alan Pinkerton and his detectives, perhaps the first truly modern detective agency in history. In 1871 Pinkerton hired a detective, James McParlan(d), whose assignment was to infiltrate the organization. It took McParlan, who assumed the alias of James McKenna, five years to gain the Mollies’ confidence and gather the evidence needed to expose and break them. Ten Molly Maguires were hanged on June 21, 1877, in Mauch Chunk or Pottsville, Pennsylvania—a coordinated mass hanging intended by authorities to serve as an unforgettable warning that the organization was doomed.81 Folklorist and journalist George Korson, who recovered the above ballad, collected and published eight songs about the Maguires in the course of his researches in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania’s Carbon and Schuylkill counties.82 The ballad is modeled after the Anglo Irish criminal’s last goodnight pattern, but without the usual penitential farewells and moralizing. The executee is not regarded at all as a criminal, but a martyred hero. Similar ballads abounded in Ireland in various conflicts with the British throughout the nineteenth century. The Johnstown Flood On a balmy day in May, when nature held full sway, And the birds sang sweetly in the sky above; A lovely city lay serene in a valley deep in green, Where thousands well in happiness and love. But soon the scene was changed, for just like a thing deranged, A storm came crashing through the quiet town; The wind rave and shrieked, thunder rolled, lightning streaked, And the rain it poured in awful torrents down.

Henry Wehman’s broadside, “The Johnstown Flood,” followed the sheet music publication of the same song. From the Kenneth S. Goldstein collection, Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University.

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Chorus: Then the cry of distress rings from East to West, And our whole dear country now is plunged in woe; For the thousands burned and drowned in the city of Johnstown, All were lost in that great overflow. Like Paul Revere of old, comes a rider, brave and bold, On a big bay horse he’s flying like a deer; And he is shouting warnings shrill: Quickly fly off to the hills! But the people smile and show no signs of fear. Ah, but ere they turned away, the brave rider and his bay And the many thousand souls he tried to save; For they had no time to spare or to offer up a prayer, They were hurled at once into a watery grave. ’Twas a scene no tongue can tell, homes strewn about pell-mell, Infants torn away from loving mothers’ arms; Strong men battling for their lives, husbands for their wives, And no one left protecting them from harm. Fathers, mothers, children, all, both young, old great, and small, Were thrown about like chaff before the wind; When the fearful raging flood, rushing where the city stood, Leaving thousands dead and dying there behind. Soon the houses piled on high, reaching far up to the sky, And containing dead and living human freight; Loud shrieks soon rent the air from the wounded lying there. With no chance to help avert their dreadful fate. But a fearful cry arose, like the screams of battling foes, For that dreadful sick’ning pile was now on fire; While pouring prayers to heaven, they were burned as in an oven. And that burning heap had formed their funeral pyre.83

Johnstown, in southwestern Pennsylvania, lies at the confluence of the Conemaugh River and Stony Creek, 76 miles east of Pittsburgh. At 3:10 P.M. on May 31, 1889, the South Fork Dam, a poorly maintained earth fill structure holding a major upstream reservoir, collapsed after heavy rains, sending a terrifying wall of water careening down the Conemaugh River valley at speeds of 20–40 miles per hour. At 4:07 P.M., a 30-foot-high wall of water smashed into Johnstown, which lay on the floodplain of the Conemaugh. The flood swept away most of the northern half of the city, killing 2,209 people and destroying 1,600 homes.84 I Lie in the American Land Ej, Božemoj, cotej Ameriki, Idze doňej narod preveliki, Ija pojdzem, šak som mladi ešče, Dami Panboh tam dajake sčesce.

Ah, my God, what’s in America? Very many people are going over there, I will also go, for I am still young, God the Lord grant me good luck there.

Jaše vracim kecme nezabije, Lem ti čekaj ot domňe novinu, Jak ot domne novinu dostaneš, Šicko sebe doporjatku prines, Sama šedneš navraneho koňa, Atak prijdzeš draha duso moja.

I’ll return if I don’t get killed, But you wait for news from me, When you hear from me, Put everything in order, Mount a raven-black horse, And come to me, dear soul of mine.

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Ajak vona do McKeesport prišla, Ta uš muža živoho nenašla, Len totu krev co znoho kapkala Atak nadnu prehorko plakala.

But when she came to McKeesport, She did not find her husband alive; Only his blood did she find And over it bitterly she cried.

“Ej, mužumoj co žeši učinil, Žesi tote dzeci osirocil.” “Povic ženo tej mojej siroce, Žeja ležim utej Americe, Povic ženo najme nečekaju, Boja ležim v Americkim kraju.”

“Ah, my husband, what did you do, Orphaned, these children of ours?” “To these orphans of mine, my wife, say, That I lie here in America. Tell them, wife of mine, not to wait for me, For I lie in the American land.”85

Jacob Evanson collected this tragic ballad from its author, Andrew Kovaly, who emigrated to the United States from Slovakia in 1899. Describing how he wrote it in the early 1900s, Kovaly said, I was a young foreman in a Bessemer mill here in McKeesport. A very good friend of mine, a member of my crew, had saved enough money to send to Slovakia for his family. While they were on the way to America, he was killed before my eyes under an ingot buggy. I tried to grab him but it was too late. It was terrible. I felt so bad that when I met his wife and little children at the railroad station I hardly know how to break the sad news to them. Then I made this song. My friend was very proud of America and it was with pride and happiness that he had looked forward to raising his children as Americans. The song made me feel better and also my friend’s wife. But she cried very hard. I have never forgotten it.86 The Homestead Strike We are asking one another as we pass the time of day, Why working men resort to arms to get their proper pay. And why our labor unions they must not be recognized Whilst the actions of a syndicate must not be criticized. Now the troubles down at Homestead were brought about this way, When a grasping corporation had the audacity to say: “You must all renounce your union and forswear your liberty And we will give you a chance to live and die in slavery.” Chorus: Now the man that fights for honor, none came blame him, May luck attend wherever he may roam; And no son of his will ever live to shame him, Whilst liberty and honor rule our home. Now this sturdy band of workingmen started out at the break of day, Determination in their faces which plainly meant to say: “No one can come and take our homes for which we have toiled so long. No one can come and take our places—no, here’s where we belong!” A woman with a rifle saw her husband in the crowd, She handed him the weapon and they cheered her long and loud. He kissed her and said, “Mary, you go home till we’re through.” She answered, “No, if you must fight, my place is here with you.” When a lot of bum detectives came without authority, Like thieves at night when decent men were sleeping peacefully— Can you wonder why all honest hearts with indignation burn, And why the slimy worm that treads the earth when trod upon will turn?

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When they locked out men at Homestead so they were face to face With a lot of bum detectives and they knew it was their place To protect their homes and families, and this was neatly done, And the public will reward them for the victories they won.87

This song and the one following commemorate a major conflict in the struggle to unionize the Pittsburg iron and steel workers in the late nineteenth century. As Evanson tells it, Before dawn on the foggy morning of July 6, 1892, the whistle of the Homestead steel mills started to blow. This was a pre-arranged signal to warn the workers of trouble, and was reinforced by a horseman who galloped through the streets to call them out. Hugh O’Donnell, the steelworkers’ leader, had received a telegram from the lookout on the Smithfield Street bridge in Pittsburgh, seven miles down the Monongahela River; it read: “Watch river. Steamer with barges left here.” Before long, O’Donnell and most of the 3,800 workers, armed with rifles, shotguns, pistols, and clubs, reached the mill in time to see the tugboat Little Bill emerged from the fog with two barges in tow. Their worst fears were realized when armed men in the uniform of the hated Pinkertons prepared to embark. These uniformed strikebreakers had been hired by the Carnegie Steel Company, which on June 20 had locked out the workers as the result of a wage dispute. Then the employees, backed by the Amalgamated Association, had retaliated by organizing on a military basis, and for five days had succeeded in preventing anyone from entering the plant. The stage was set for an epic battle. The company and the union were both powerful. Each had taken the law into its own hands. “This was no ordinary lockout, It was revolution, sheer, stark, elemental.” The Little Bill steamed away, leaving three hundred Pinkertons in the two barges, but opposed to them were thousands who now swarmed over the mill property to points of vantage. An all-day battle was on, mainly with small arms, but also with dynamite, burning oil and gas, and even obsolete cannon. When the Pinkertons finally surrendered, the toll on both sides was ten men dead and over sixty wounded.88

Father Was Killed by the Pinkerton Men ’Twas in a Pennsylvania town, not very long ago, Men struck against reduction of their pay; Their millionaire employer, with philanthropic show, Had closed the works till starved they would obey. They fought for home and right to live where they had toiled so long, But ere the sun had set some were laid low; There’re hearts now sadly grieving by that sad and bitter wrong. Got help them! for it was a cruel blow. Chorus: God help them tonight in their hour of affliction, Praying for him whom they’ll ne’er see again; Hear the poor orphans tell their sad story: “Father was killed by the Pinkerton men!” Ye prating politicians who boast protection creed, Go to Homestead and stop the orphans’ cry; Protection for the rich man—ye pander to his greed. His workmen they are cattle and may die. The freedom of the city, in Scotland far away, ’Tis presented to the millionaire suave; But here in free America, with protection in full sway, His workmen get the freedom of the grave.89

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The small town of Homestead, Pennsylvania, nine miles upstream from Pittsburgh on the Monongahela, was the site of the Homestead Steel Works, one small ingot in Andrew Carnegie’s vast industrial fortress. The factory had been unionized by the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers (AA), but management saw the AA as a deterrent to improved technology, efficient production, and, perhaps most important, increased profits. In March 1892 Carnegie decided to let his contract with the AA locals expire, warning employees that the firm could not be only partly unionized; it must be wholly Union shop or not at all. Anticipating resistance, he ordered his managers to stock up on essential fabricated parts so they could withstand a strike. The plant manager, Henry Clay Frick, ordered his carpenters to build a sturdy wooden fence around the mill and secretly hired 300 armed Pinkerton guards to protect the property. Wage negotiations continued but seemed doomed to fail, and on June 29 Frick ordered the mill shut down and demanded the union’s capitulation. Although the AA claimed only 800 members, Frick’s action goaded nearly 3,000 other workers to take sides with the union, and the lockout was turned into a strike. Early in the morning of July 6, two barges laden with Pinkerton gunmen and their associated strike breakers were tugged up river to the plant site, and a battle began. At least 10 men were killed, and many more were wounded. A few days later, with the standoff unresolved, the governor sent in the state militia, and the strikers, who had taken control of the town, were ordered dispersed. Nonunion labor was brought in under protection of the militia. The union was crushed, and the steel industry was able to resist successful unionization until the late 1930s.90 Today, the terrible battles between unionists and capitalists are largely forgotten, and the names of Carnegie and Frick are associated with magnificent libraries and art galleries. Songsters and broadsides of the late nineteenth century were frequent venues for songs and ballads of a decidedly different tenor from the more widely disseminated sheet music products of the principal pop music establishment called “Tin Pan Alley” and centered in New York’s Union Square district. In addition to the reprinting of genuinely old traditional ballads, some centuries old, these media often offered contemporary topical songs that would have been of interest primarily to the working classes. “Willie Wildwave,” credited with the preceding piece, wrote numerous topical screeds. This colorful pseudonym was for decades the alter ego of New York–born William W. Delaney, for 34 years one of the few preeminent publishers of cheap print collections of popular songs. Born in the 1860s, he became a “printer’s devil” ( print shop apprentice) at age 15. Later, as Willie Wildwave, he wrote puzzles for Frank Leslie’s Boys’ and Girls’ Weekly and for Harrigan and Hart’s New York Boys. Later he became a reporter for the New York News Agency and, in 1877, became a compositor for the New York Sun. In 1890 he opened his own print shop on Park Row. When he quit the business in 1924, it was because of competition from the phonograph, the piano player, and the radio.91 Altoona Freight Wreck They had just left the point at Kittanning, Freight Number Twelve Sixty-two, She traveled right on down the mountain, And brave were the men in her crew. The engineer pulled at the whistle, For the brakes wouldn’t work when applied; The brakeman climbed out on the car top, For he knew what that whistle had cried.

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With all of the strength that God gave him, He tightened the brakes with a prayer; But she kept right on down the mountain, Her whistle was piercing the air. She traveled at sixty an hour, Gaining speed every foot of the way; And then in a crash it was over, And there on the track the freight lay. They were found at their post in the wreckage, Both had done their duty so well; The engineer still held the whistle, And the fireman still hung to the bell.92

On the morning of November 29, 1925, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s eastbound freight train VL-4, hauled by engine 1282, had just reached a block station 3.3 miles from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and started down the grade, when it was stalled by an application of the brakes for a reason that was never ascertained. The engineer started the train up again without ensuring that the air brake system was working properly and never regained control of the engine. The train was derailed after reaching a speed of approximately 60 miles an hour on a downhill grade. Both the engineer and fireman were killed, and most of the cars were demolished.93 The ballad was written within two months of the accident and was credited to one Fred Tait-Douglas, who probably sent his poem to Carson J. Robison for publication. This was common procedure at the time; Robison was a very prolific and well-known writer of hillbilly event ballads, and many writers mailed him their compositions in the hope that he would set them to music and publish them. Robison’s published text had nine stanzas, but the singer, limited by the approximately three minutes’ duration of a10-inch 78 rpm record, had to shorten the song to five stanzas. One of the omitted stanzas was Robison’s conclusion—the ubiquitous moral to a tragic tale such as this one: This story is told of a freight train, And it should be a warning to all; You should be prepared every minute, For you cannot tell when He’ll call.94 My Old Pennsylvania Home Die suun schiendt hell in em alt Pennsylfawnisch heim, Sis suummer die schwartze sin fro; Es welschkarn is tzeidich uun die wiss iss im blieh, Die feggel singe da gons dawg doh. Die kinner rulle uf em floor in die hitt, Oll luschdich, oll fraylich uun schmart; Eb lang, ‘hardie tzeita’ gluppa uf da dier, Noe mei alt Pennsylfawnisch heim guut nacht. Chorus: Wein nich mehr du hulde, O, wein nich mehr; Weir singen en sang fa die alt Pennsylfawnisch heim, Fa die alt Pennsylfawnisch heim das so farn.95

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German immigration to the New World began in earnest in 1683 following William Penn’s establishment of a new colony in 1681. As part of his aggressive promotion of the new colony, in 1682 he published Some Account of the Province of Pennsylvania. Translated into German, Dutch, and French, and circulated in Europe, it aided in the active recruitment of Europeans—Germans, in particular—to Pennsylvania. From provinces along the lower Rhine, Saxony, Bavaria, Alsace, and Switzerland, altogether, some 109,000 Germanspeaking peoples came in the 1700s, perhaps encouraged by the Germanic heritage of both English kings, George I (ruled 1714 –1727) and George II (1727–1760). (George I of Hannover—now part of Germany—became heir to the English throne because he was the great grandson of King James I of England. Simultaneously a prince of Hannover, George always was more interested in his German realm than in his new English one, and his son, George II, had similar preferences.) The first all-German settlement in America was at Germantown, Pennsylvania, and successive immigrants heavily settled the valleys of southeastern Pennsylvania. There they learned to tolerate being called “Dutch” because the English settlers misinterpreted the German word Deutsch (Deitsch in their dialect), which meant “German.” Well into the twentieth century, the Pennsylvania Dutch of the Mahantongo Valley preserved the folklore of their eighteenth-century German-speaking immigrant ancestors. Their folk songs include lullabies and songs of childhood, courting songs, songs about farm life, drinking songs, and of course, religious songs. Other songs originated in the New World, some as translations or parodies of the American songs they heard their neighbors singing.96 The above song is the Pennsylvania Dutch rendition of Stephen Foster’s “My Old Kentucky Home,” published in 1853. It follows Foster’s text fairly closely, except for the change of “Kentucky” to “Pennsylvania” (for the original text, see the discussion of Kentucky songs in chapter 3). Foster’s songs found fans everywhere, and those who did not speak English fluently had them translated into their own languages.

DELAWARE The Dutch who established the first European settlement in what is now Delaware in 1631 were soon eradicated by natives, and it was not until 1638 that a permanent settlement—New Sweden—was established at Fort Christina, now Wilmington. The Dutch from New Amsterdam (later, New York) conquered the Swedes in 1655, and the English seized the colony from the Dutch in 1664. Thereafter, except for a brief Dutch reconquest in 1673, Delaware was administered as part of New York until 1682, when the Duke of York ceded it to William Penn, who wanted it so that his colony of Pennsylvania could have ocean access. Though Penn tried to unite the Delaware counties with Pennsylvania, both sides resented union. In 1704 he allowed Delaware an assembly of its own. Pennsylvania and Delaware shared an appointed governor until the Revolution. On December 7, 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the new Constitution.97 In spite of diminutive Delaware’s primacy in ratification of the new American Constitution, one is hard-pressed to find traditional songs and ballads that reflect specifically Delawarean history and society. The Battle of the Wilderness Now boys just listen while I sing to you a song sirs, About our glorious Veteran troops and how they move along sirs,

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Of our Keystone Boys and how they fought and how the rebels run sirs And left their sick and wounded back and stores for Uncle Sam sirs. Chorus: And that’s just so—Ri, fal, de ral de laddy and that’s just so. When the battle first commenced, they stood up to a man sirs; But when they saw the Yankees come led on by General Grant sirs, They thought it time to make a dash and come up in a mass, sirs: But the Yankees sent them howling back, they fell like withered grass sirs. Chorus. Oh there’s General Beauregard, Jeff. Davis, Bragg and Lee sirs, They thought to bag our Union Boys and trap brave General Meade sirs; But Uncle Abe he had a man, he brought from Tennessee sirs, That whipped them several times before and set their darkies free sirs. Chorus. Old New York and Jersey too is moving in the train sirs, Likewise the boys from old Vermont and noble state of Maine sirs; They will meet them in their Capital and free our sick and lame sirs And then return to their homes and peace they will proclaim sirs. Chorus. Ohio boys and Hoosiers too have many pressing claimes [sic] sirs, And Massachusetts too can boast of men both true and brave sirs, There’s Michigan and Illinois who sent us Honest Abe sirs And lots of men to back him up and help our Union save sirs. Chorus. They met them in the Wilderness, just at the break of day sirs, And fought them on the right and left, till Lee he ran away sirs, And left some thousands on the field, he could not get away sirs; But our Union boys they dressed their wounds, their dead they put away sirs. Chorus. In Spottsylvania Court House the Rebels they marched away sirs, But Hancock with his second corps just happened around that way sirs; His boys they were still full of fight and thought they’d make a day sirs, They thrashed the Reb’s and captured lots and brought off forty guns sirs. Chorus. We mourn the loss of [Sedgwick], commander of the corps sirs, The gallant Sixth, who fought so well, through all this bloody war sirs, He fell while nobly cheering on the boys of his command sirs, And his name will be remembered long by every loyal man sirs. Chorus. They captured Stuart on that day and brought him in to Grant sirs, He would not take our Yankee grub and could not stand our Meade sirs; They shipped him to Fort Delaware, where he must long remain sirs, Until the stars and stripes shall float from Florida to Maine sirs. Chorus. Now here success to our Volunteers, to Gen. Grant and Meade sirs, To Hancock, Warren and Burnside we give three hearty cheers sirs, With fighting Butler in the rear and Gun Boats on the James sirs, We’ll thrash the southern traitors before we close the year sirs. Chorus.98

The Battle of the Wilderness was fought in Virginia on May 5–6, 1864. Following its indecisive conclusion, Union General Ulysses S. Grant moved his left flank forward, engaging the Confederate forces of General Robert E. Lee at Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia. The battle raged for about a week and a half, and on May 20, Grant continued his march southeastward in a flanking movement toward the Confederate capital. The Union army suffered some 18,000 casualties compared to the Confederates’ 11,000 or fewer.

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The song is placed in this section because of its mention of Fort Delaware on Pea Patch Island, an important prison for captured Confederate soldiers starting in July 1861. The year 1862 brought the first political prisoners to Fort Delaware. The state’s tenuous position as a border state and the army’s crackdown on civilians who expressed secessionist sentiments contributed to arrests of dissidents. By the fall, 129 political prisoners were being held at the fort. As the battles of the Civil War became bloodier and more frequent, more facilities were required to house surrendered or captured Confederate troops. Fort Delaware was an attractive choice because of its sturdy fortifications and proximity to many Southern states. Following the battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg in the summer of 1863, the prison population swelled by more than 12,500 new arrivals. In three and a half years, more than 30,000 prisoners passed through the gates of the island fortress. More than 2,400 died on the island, the vast majority of whom were buried at Finn’s Point, New Jersey, just across the river from the fort.99 The poem employs a type of feminine rhyme scheme common in the nineteenth century and earlier but seldom encountered anymore; yet several of the ballads and songs in this collection make use of it. Feminine rhyme in general involves the last two syllables of the rhyming lines; but in this usage, the last syllable is a repeating “sirs” falling on an unaccented beat. Without it, the meter would be the familiar iambic (short-long)—heptameter in this case. Many songs and poems of the period used exactly this device—a repeating “sirs” or “boys” or “oh” at the end of every line. What Did Delaware? What did Delaware, boys, what did Delaware? I ask you again as a personal friend, what did Delaware?” “She wore a New Jersey, boys, she wore a New Jersey. I tell you again as a personal friend, She wore a New Jersey.” What did Tennessee, boys? . . .

She saw what Arkansas . . .

Where did Idaho, boys? . . .

She hoed in Maryland . . .

What did Iowa, boys? . . .

She weighed a Washington . . .

What made Chicago ill, boys? . . .

Too much Illinois . . .

What did Mississip, boys? . . .

She sipped a Minnesota . . .100

The essence of a folk song is that it belongs to everyone: in the collective social consciousness, it has no writer, no author, no composer, no publisher; it’s yours and mine to sing or to change as we see fit. In practice it is not always easy to determine the truth of these attributes, so, as discussed in the introduction, we are forced to look to other, more verifiable criteria, such as the existence of variation, which is a strong suggestion that singers do not feel the imposition of a so-called correct version. By almost any criterion, “What Did Delaware?” is a folk song, in spite of its having been copyrighted, published, and recorded in 1960.101 Examination of the several versions of the song currently available on our most recent mass medium—the Internet—offers proof that the song is still being sung and recomposed.

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Apart from Mr. Irving, however, no one seems to have cared to take credit for the composition of the song. Which is to say, until it was recorded by the very popular Perry Como in 1960, there was little money to be gained from acknowledging paternity—and certainly no glory or fame. The above is the oldest printed version found. Other verses include the following: Oh, where has Oregon? . . .

She’s gone to Oklahoma . . .

Oh, what did Massa-chew? . . .

She chewed her Connecti-cud . . .

Oh, how did Connecti-cut? . . .

She cut with her Arkansas . . .

Oh, how did Flori-die? . . .

She died in Missouri . . .

Oh, why did Cali-phone ya? . . .

She phoned to say “Hawaii.” . . .

Oh, where has Oregon? . . .

She went to pay her Texas . . .

Oh, how did Wisconsin? . . .

She stole a New-brass-key . . .

Swimming in the Delaware The Old Gray Mare went swimming in the Delaware, In her yellow underwear— Said she didn’t give a care! The Old Gray Mare went swimming in the Delaware, Many long years ago.102 Floatin’ Down the Delaware There goes [person’s name] Floatin’ down the Delaware, Holes in his underwear, Couldn’t afford another pair Three weeks later Bitten by a polar bear Poor old polar bear died.103

No disrespect is intended in immortalizing Delaware’s contribution to American folk song with two children’s ditties about shabbily attired swimmers in the local river. The immediate ancestor of these bits of children’s lore is a 1915 pop song published by Frank Panella, “The Old Gray Mare” (“The old gray mare came tearin’ out of the wilderness . . . many long years ago”). Panella had borrowed from an 1858 song of J. Warner titled “Down in Alabam,” later known as “Down in the Wilderness.” Earlier still, all these songs were based on the religious spiritual “I Wait upon the Lord”: If you want to get to Heaven, Got to go in the wilderness, Go in the wilderness, (2) Mornin,’ brother, go in the wilderness, Got to go in the wilderness, And wait upon the Lord.104

What does it all have to do with Delaware? Frankly, very little. In fact, the song earns a place in this section merely on account of the Delaware River, only a few of whose

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405 miles touch Delaware soil, forming the border with New Jersey before emptying into the Delaware Bay. It is tempting to try to relate the wilderness that the old gray mare came tearing out of with the wilderness of the Civil War battle mentioned previously, but there is absolutely no justification for such sleight of hand. My Delaware How beautiful along thy shore, Delaware, my Delaware, Shall Freedom’s word ring out once more, Delaware, my Delaware. We want the earth, we want the earth; Our warrant is our manhood’s worth. Our title is our human birth. Delaware, my Delaware. Chorus: We want the earth, we want it all; We want the whole terrestrial ball. Awake! Awake! ’Tis Freedom’s call. Delaware, my Delaware. How beautiful for thy release, Delaware, my Delaware. The feet of them that bring thee peace. Delaware, my Delaware. Who bring the good that is to be, Who make the way for Liberty, Who bring the truth that makes thee free. Delaware, my Delaware. Chorus.105

In the 1890s, many Americans were swayed by economist Henry George’s theory of the single tax: an argument that (1) there should be but a single tax, and that on land only; (2) furthermore, land was not to be owned but only leased; those who leased the land were free to improve it as they wished, and would pay a single tax on the land only, not the improvements. In June 1895 a single-tax campaign was begun in Delaware; its leaders included Jackson H. Ralston, Arthur H. Stevenson, Frank Stephens, and Harold Studell. In 1900 sculptor Stephens and architect Will Price, putting the ideas of single-tax philosophy into practice, founded the community of Arden: the land was (and still is) owned in common; residents pay taxes on the land they rent. The experiment proved so successful that in 1922 Ardentown was founded along similar principles, and then Ardencroft in 1950.106 Though Stephens was primarily a sculptor, he was also a poet of some talent, and he put those talents to work writing songs in support of the Delaware single-tax movement: These songs were written in the beginning of the campaign, and were sung at meetings which were held all over the sate, and at club assemblages. They did much to stimulate the spirit which sent our speakers, in the face of arrests and threats of assassination, into every town and village of the “Blue Hen State” to preach the Single Tax Gospel.107

“My Delaware” was one of the songs Frank Stephens (1859–1935) wrote for the campaign. It was marked to be sung to the tune of “Maryland, My Maryland.” How much it

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was sung during those years we have no evidence, but we have Studell’s attestation that the several songs Stephens wrote for the campaign were sung widely and with enthusiasm during those end-of-the-century years.

MARYLAND The land that became Maryland was granted by royal charter to Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore, in 1632, as a haven in which his fellow Roman Catholics might escape the restrictions placed on them in England. Leonard Calvert, Lord Baltimore’s younger brother, led the founding expedition on St. Clement’s (now Blakistone) Island in the lower Potomac in March 1634. As the population center shifted to the north and west, the capital was moved to Annapolis, and in 1729 the eponymous city of Baltimore was founded. Marylanders early resisted British efforts to make the colonies bear more of the costs of government: in 1774, the year following the infamous Boston Tea Party, a ship laden with tea was burned at an Annapolis dock. In April 1788 Maryland became the seventh state to ratify the new federal Constitution. Three years later, it ceded territory and advanced money for public buildings to help form the District of Columbia. The Civil War found Maryland riven by opposing factions. Landed gentry and residents of the Eastern Shore supported the secessionists, while workingmen and western Marylanders stood up for the Union; a third faction favored neutrality. In the end, Maryland did not join the 11 states of the Confederacy and remained formally within the Union, in spite of some strong Confederate sentiments. Federal troops occupied Baltimore and Annapolis, and martial law was imposed in this border state. The constitution of 1864 abolished slavery and removed power from the rural aristocracy.108 The Battle of Baltimore Old Ross, Cockburn, and Cochran, too, And many a bloody villain more, Swore with their bloody savage crew, That they would plunder Baltimore. But General Winder being afraid That his militia would not stand, He sent away to crave the air Of a few true Virginians. Then up we rose with hearts elate, To help our suffering sister state, &c. When first our orders we received, For to prepare without delay, Our wives and sweethearts for to leave, And to the army march away. Although it griev’d our hearts full sore, To leave our sweet Virginia shore, We kiss’d our sweethearts o’er and o’er, And march’d like true Virginians. Adieu awhile, sweet girls adieu, With honor we’ll return to you. With rapid marches on we went, To leave our sweet Virginia shore,

In addition to the ballad discussed in the text, the battle of Baltimore inpired this much more enduring song, later known as “The Star Spangled Banner.” This broadside print, “Defence of Fort M’Henry,” may be its first publication. Collection of The New-York Historical Society.

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No halt was made, no time was spend, Till we arrived at Baltimore. The Baltimoreans did us greet, The ladies clapt their lilly white hands, Exclaiming as we passed the street, “Welcome ye brave Virginians! May heaven all your foes confound, And send you home with laurels crown’d.” We had not been in quarters long, Before we heard the dread alarms, The cannon roared, the bells did ring, The drum did beat, “to arms, to arms!” Then up we rose to face our foes, Determined to meet them on the strand, And drive them back from fair freedom’s shore, Or die like brave Virginians, In heaven above we placed our trust, Well knowing that our cause is just, &c. Then Ross he landed at North Point, With seven thousand men or more; And swore by that time next night, That he would be in Baltimore. But Striker met him on the strand, Attended by a chosen band, Where he received a fatal shot, From a brave Pennsylvanian— Whom heaven directed to the field, To make this haughty Briton yield, &c. Then Cockburn he drew up his fleet, To bombard Fort McHenry, A-thinking that our men, of course, Would take affright and run away. The fort was commanded by a patriotic band, As ever grac’d fair freedom’s land, And he who did the fort command, Was a true blue Virginian. Long may we have Brave Armstead’s name Recorded on the book of fame, &c. A day and a night they tried their might, But found their bombs did not prevail, And seeing their army put to flight, They weighed their anchor and made sail, Resolving to return again, To execute their former plan; But if they do they’ll find us still, That we are brave Virginians. And they shall know before they’ve done, That they are not in Washington. But now their shipping’s out of sight, And each man take a parting glass;

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Drink to his true love and heart’s delight, His only joy and bosom friend; For I might as well drink a health, For I hate to see good liquor stand, That America may always boast, That we are brave Virginians.109

This song from the War of 1812 reflects that early phase of U.S. history when its citizens still identified themselves as Virginians, Marylanders (Baltimoreans), or Pennsylvanians first, and Americans second. The events described in the song immediately precede and lead into a much better remembered phase of the conflict—the bombing of Fort McHenry on the night of September 13–14, 1814, by the British fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane (note correct spelling), the inspiration for Francis Scott Key’s immortal poem “The Star-Spangled Banner.” While the setting is in and near Baltimore, the focus is on the brave men of Virginia who came to the aid of their hapless Maryland neighbors (and earn the admiration of the ever-so-fair Baltimore ladies); the song’s author is not known, but it would not be unreasonable to presume he was a Virginian.110 Maryland, My Maryland The Rebel horde is on thy shore, Maryland, my Maryland! Arise! and drive him from thy door, Maryland, my Maryland! Avenge the foe thou must abhor, Who seeks thy fall, oh, Baltimore! Drive back the tyrant, peace restore, Maryland, my Maryland! Hark to a nation’s warm appeal, Maryland, my Maryland! And sister states that for thee feel, Maryland, my Maryland! Gird now thy sons with arms of steel, And heavy be the blows they deal, For traitors shall thy vengeance feel, Maryland, my Maryland! Thou wilt not cower in the dust, Maryland, my Maryland! Thy gleaming sword shall never rust, Maryland, my Maryland! Thy sons shall battle with the just, And soon repel the traitor’s thrust; For in their strength our state shall trust, Maryland, my Maryland! Come, for thy men are bold and strong, Maryland, my Maryland! Drive back the foe that would thee wrong, Maryland, my Maryland! Come with thine own heroic throng, And, as they army moves along,

M. Septimus Winner’s song, “Maryland, My Maryland,” was a pro-Union parody of the original proConfederate text. From the Library of Congress.

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Let UNION be their constant song, Maryland, my Maryland! Virginia feels the tyrant’s chain, Maryland, my Maryland! Her children lie around her slain, Maryland, my Maryland! Let Carolina call in vain, Our rights we know and will maintain, Our rise shall be her fall again, Maryland, my Maryland! I hear the distant battle’s hum, Maryland, my Maryland! I hear the bugle, fife and drum, Maryland, my Maryland! Thou art not deaf, thou art not dumb, Thou wilt not falter nor succumb, I hear thee cry, “We come! we come! Maryland, my Maryland!” Ten hundred thousand brave and free, Maryland, my Maryland! Are ready now to strike with thee, Maryland, my Maryland! A million more still yet agree, To help thee hold thy liberty, For thou shalt ever, ever be, Maryland, my Maryland!111

The words to “Maryland, My Maryland” were written in the night of April 23–24, 1861, by James Ryder Randall, a Baltimore native and professor of English literature at Poydras College, Pointe-Coupée, Louisiana. It was published in the New Orleans Sunday Delta on May 5 and garnered immense popularity, being frequently reprinted by other Southern newspapers. On May 31, it was reprinted in the South, a pro-Confederacy journal from Baltimore. A few days later, a group of music lovers who constituted the Baltimore Glee Club met at the home of two of their members and ardent Confederate supporters, the Cary sisters, Hetty and Jennie. Jennie was in charge of the musical program that night and, wanting to include some pro-Southern expressions of sentiment, thought of the recently published poem, “My Maryland.” But it lacked a tune; she recalled the college song her cousin, who attended Yale, had been singing: it was set to the Teutonic tune “Lauriger Horatius,” also the tune for the German Christmas carol “Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,” published in 1799. The song was copyrighted October 11, 1861, by Miller and Beacham of Baltimore, with the credit “written by a Baltimorean in Louisianna [sic]. Music Adapted & Arranged by C. E.” Beneath this was a shield proclaiming “Crescite et Multiplicamini” (the Latin translation of the Biblical “be fruitful and multiply”). On the first Confederate printing, January 22, 1862, words were credited to Randall and the music to “a Lady of Baltimore.” Somehow, the German connection was forgotten.112 Some early printings instructed the words be sung not to that familiar carol’s tune, but to “My Normandy.”113

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However, there’s another twist to this story: the previous text, published on many broadsides in the 1860s, is not Randall’s. The original text is very different: The despot’s heel is on thy shore, Maryland! His torch is at thy temple door, Maryland! Avenge the patriotic gore That flecked the streets of Baltimore, And be the battle queen of yore, Maryland! My Maryland! Hark to an exiled son’s appeal, Maryland! My Mother State! to thee I kneel, Maryland! For life or death, for woe or weal, Thy peerless chivalry reveal, And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel, Maryland! My Maryland! Thou wilt not cower in the dust, Maryland! Thy beaming sword shall never rust, Maryland! Remember Carroll’s sacred trust, Remember Howard’s warlike thrust, And all thy slumberers with the just, Maryland! My Maryland! Come! ’tis the red dawn of the day, Maryland! Come with thy panoplied array, Maryland! With Ringgold’s spirit for the fray, With Watson’s blood at Monterey, With fearless Lowe and dashing May, Maryland! My Maryland! Come! for thy shield is bright and strong, Maryland! Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong, Maryland! Come to thine own heroic throng, That stalks with Liberty along, And gives a new key to thy song, Maryland! My Maryland! Dear Mother! burst the tyrant’s chain, Maryland! Virginia should not call in vain, Maryland! She meets her sisters on the plain— Sic semper! ’tis the proud refrain

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That baffles minions back again, Maryland! Arise in majesty again, Maryland! My Maryland! I see the blush upon thy cheek, Maryland! For thou wast ever bravely meek, Maryland! But lo! there surges forth a shriek, From hill to hill, from creek to creek, Potomac calls to Chesapeake, Maryland! My Maryland! Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll, Maryland! Thou wilt not crook to his control, Maryland! Better the fire upon thee roll, Better the shot, the blade, the bowl, Than crucifixion of the Soul, Maryland! My Maryland! I hear the distant thunder hum, Maryland! The Old Line bugle, fife, and drum, Maryland! She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb— Huzza! She spurns the Northern scum! She breathes! She burns! She’ll come! She’ll come! Maryland! My Maryland!114

Most decidedly a very different set of lyrics and sentiments. The story behind these, Randall’s own words, started when President Lincoln ordered federal troops to Washington, D.C., to protect the capital. On April 19, the Union’s Sixth Massachusetts Regiment arrived in Baltimore. Since there was no rail line passing directly through the city, troops had to detrain at the train station at one end of the city and march across town to board a train to the capital. Confederate sympathizers in the city gathered in the streets to protest and try to block the troops. Rioters attacked the soldiers with bricks and stones and also pistols. Endangered soldiers fired back and riots followed, resulting in a dozen civilian deaths, including a friend of Randall’s.115 As Randall later wrote, In April, 1861, I read in the New Orleans Delta news of the attack on the Massachusetts troops as they passed through Baltimore. This account greatly excited me. I had long been absent from my native city, and the startling event there influenced my mind. That night I could not dismiss from my mind what I had read in the paper. About midnight I arose, lit a candle and went to my desk. Some powerful influence seemed to possess me, and almost involuntarily I proceeded to write the song of ‘My Maryland.’ I remember that this idea seemed to take shape as music in my brain—some wild air that I can not now recall. The whole poem was dashed off rapidly when once begun. It was not composed in cold blood, but under what may be called a conflagration of the senses, if not an inspiration of the intellect. No one was more surprised than I was at the widespread and instantaneous popularity I had been so strangely stimulated to write.116

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Very few of Randall’s original words clearly betray his identification with the Confederate cause. The reference to “despot” in the first line has been taken to mean Lincoln— but it is not ineluctable. Several other noted Marylanders are mentioned in the text: Samuel Ringgold (1796–1846) was the first casualty in the Mexican-American War; his father (same name) had been a U.S. Congressman. Lieutenant Colonel William H. Watson (d. 1846) commanded the Battalion of Baltimore and District of Columbia Volunteers in the Mexican-American War. He was killed in the Battle of Monterrey in September 1846. Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737–1832) was a lawyer and politician who represented Maryland as a delegate to the Continental Congress and later was a U.S. Senator. John Eager Howard (1752–1827) was a soldier and politician; Howard County, Maryland, is named for him.117 The later broadside text is more forthrightly supportive of the Union cause. It is puzzling, perhaps, that the broadsides still credit Randall with authoring the words that must have been contrary to his own sentiments. Who wrote the second set of words? Most likely the popular song writer and publisher Septimus Winner (author of “Listen to the Mockingbird”), who was credited on the broadside text given previously and also on sheet music published by him in 1862. In 1863 another set of words was published; the first lines were “Should traitor bands invade thy shore, Maryland! my Maryland / Thy sons will rally as of yore, Maryland! my Maryland.”118 In later years, the songs “Florida, My Florida” and “Michigan, My Michigan” were both modeled after the Maryland hit. The Maryland Martyrs They bore them to a gloomy cell, And barred them from the light, Because they boldly dared to tell The people what was right. They dared their feeble voice to raise, Against oppression’s power, To show, by truth’s unerring rays, The dangers of the hour. They called them by a traitorous name, And with a fiendish hate Heaped on their heads a load of shame, Such as on felon’s wait. They dragged them from their peaceful hearths Upon a despot’s word, Although the vilest man on earth Should by the law be heard. Thus they the men of lofty soul, Wielding a magic pen, Whose word the people would control, And sway the minds of men, Is by the tyrant Lincoln’s nod, Of liberty bereft, Struck by a base usurper’s rod— In dark confinement left. They shut them up, but could not chain Their free and fearless soul;

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The sacred chamber of their brain Was free from their control. They could not bind the eagle thought That from their mind took flight, Efface the lessons they had taught, Nor bar the truth from light. For tho’ within a dungeon damp, They shut them from the day, They could not quench truth’s airy lamp That burns with fadeless ray. But hark! upon the sea of life, What sound comes from afar? It is the harbinger of strife, Of red ensanguined war. It is the People’s voice that breaks Like wild waves on the ear; It is the People’s tramp that shakes The earth both far and near. Lift up thy head, O martyrs brave, Thy chains will broken be; The People come their friends to save— Look up, thou wilt be free!119

During the Civil War, Fort McHenry served as a detention camp for Confederate prisoners. As noted, there was considerable pro-Confederate sentiment among Marylanders. This song was probably meant to give moral support to the imprisoned Confederate troops and also to those Southerners who felt betrayed by Maryland’s Unionist stance. Wars often produce some immortal song lyrics, but the pompous tenor of these lines doomed them to evanescence: there is no evidence that the song was sung after the war’s conclusion. Down-Trodden Maryland Air—“Tom Bowling” Down-trodden, despised see brave Maryland lie, The noblest of all States; Up and to ransom her let each one try, To hasten the plans of the Fates. Her land is of the greatest beauty, That e’er the eye gazed on; Fearless she roused her to her duty, Nor paused she till ’twas done. From her, her Old Line has departed, With leaders true and brave; She’s been of all the truest hearted, Why suffer her to be a slave; She’s waited long with murmurs deep, Aye calling on ye oft; Still traitors on her insults heap. Still lies her hope aloft.

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But yet she hopes for better things, When Jeff who all commands, This wanton war to an end quick brings, With peace to our southeren lands. And when the South is free once more, Twill be her proudest boast, That forth the first her men did pour, To curb the invading host.120

A border state, Maryland remained in the Union but was home to many Confederate sympathizers. This song views the Northerners as invaders and traitors—a strange interpretation of the actual sequence of events. In November 1861, when it was written, the Confederate forces were holding their own against the Northern troops, and Southerners could still expect victory under their president, Jefferson Davis. The Maryland Battle Cry Hark! the trumpet calls to duty, See, our glorious Flag unfurl’d, The Stars and Stripes unite in beauty, The pride and envy of the world. Chorus: So let the Southerns do as they will, We are for the Union still; For the Union, for the Union, We are for the Union still. If we wish that Flag respected, We must answer honor’s call; Duty must not be neglected, Tho’ our dearest friends should fall. Chorus. Traitors have betrayed the nation, But we will by the Union stand; Let every patriot seek his station, With the gallant warlike band. Chorus. Tho’ the Rebels have exulted, In their treason and their shame; Yet the Flag they have insulted, Still retains its honor’d name. Chorus. Long its folds shall float above us, While we shout our battle cry; “We will fight for those who love us, But let every traitor die.” Marylanders to your station, Boldly meet the traitor foe; Fight as bravely for the nation, As you did in Mexico. Chorus. Then your names shall live in story, And echo’d be from strand to strand, Then fight for Liberty and Glory, The Union and your Native land. Chorus.121

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This example is offered to counterbalance the preceding song. Its sentiments are decidedly pro-Union. The broadside bears a woodcut between the first and second lines of the title. Though it is difficult to make out all the details, it depicts a female figure robed in classic garb, standing with a balance scale in one hand and a sword sprouting an olive branch in the other; at her feet seems to be a quiver of arrows; behind her are two barrels, and behind them, the mast of a ship. The nuances of this array of iconic images are difficult to parse. Maryland, My Home Sweet Maryland, thy groves are green, And sparkling are thy rills, And lovely are thy vales between, Thy fair and verdant hills. Though far away I plow the sea, Or in far countries roam, My heart with fondness clings to thee, Sweet Maryland, my home! Long years, have passed, since when a boy, I roamed thy fields with glee, Or on thy waters, bright with joy, Dashed outward to the sea. How fair, how bright those scenes to me, Thy skies, how bright above; At night’s pale hour I dream of thee, Sweet Maryland, my love! What joy to see thee yet once more, To hail thy favored land! How gladly would I leap on shore, To tread thy silver strand! And I will cross Atlantic’s main, When summer days shall come, To roam the woods and hills again, Of Maryland, my home!122

This love letter, treating Maryland with the passion of a long-absent lover, contrasts starkly to the militant songs that kept printing presses running overtime during the Civil War, of which several examples are gathered previously. None of the three broadside prints seen gives a clue to an author (save for his gender), which suggests the songs had already circulated for some while at the (unspecified) time of their publication. That there is no hint of conflict suggests an antebellum date, but that is only conjectural. It could also have been written in the 1870s as an attempt to bury the lingering bitter memories of the war. Baltimore Fire It was only though a fault by an error That I heard a cry I ever will remember The fire sent and cast its burning embries On another fated city of our land. Chorus: Fire, fire, I heard the cry, From every breeze that passes by,

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All the world was one sad cry of pity, Strong men in angry praise [anguish prayed?] Calling loud to heaven for aid While the fire in ruins was laying Fair Baltimore, the beautiful city. Amid an awful struggle of commotion The wind blew a gale from the ocean, Brave fireman struggled with devotion But the efforts all proved in vain.123

The Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 raged from 10:48 A.M. Sunday, February 7, to 5:00 P.M. the following Monday. More than 1,200 firefighters were required to bring the blaze under control. The fire was reported first at the John Hurst and Company building at 10:48 A.M. and quickly spread. By 1:30 P.M., units from Washington, D.C., were arriving. Efforts to halt the fire’s spread by dynamiting buildings around the existing fire proved unsuccessful. Contributing to the duration of the fire was the lack of national standards in firefighting equipment. Although fire engines from nearby cities (such as Philadelphia and Washington, as well as units from New York City, Wilmington, and Atlantic City) responded, many were useless because their hose couplings failed to fit Baltimore hydrants. As a result, the fire burned over 30 hours, destroying 1,526 buildings spanning 70 city blocks.124 The song transcribed previously was modified slightly from a song of 1872, written by Joe A. Gulick, about the great Boston fire of that year. The sections borrowed and modified for the later Baltimore disaster follow: Boston Fire It was only on the Tenth of last November That we heard the news we ever shall remember, That the fire-king had cast its burning embers O’er another fated city in our land. As the woeful tidings flashed along the wire, Of this other sad catastrophe so dire, That Boston, beauteous city was on fire, And sinking ’neath the fiend’s relentless hand. Chorus: Fire! fire! was heard the cry, In every breeze that passed us by, All the world did heave a sigh of pity; Strong men in anguish pray’d. Fervent prayers to Heaven to aid, Before the fire in ruins laid, Fair Boston, beauteous city. And all through the terrible commotion, The wind blew a gale from off the ocean, The brave firemen worked with all devotion, To laugh at their efforts yet it seem’d; And soared with fiery prayer still higher O’er chimney top, steeple and church spire, Till all was one vast flame of fire, And the light around the horizon gleamed. Chorus.125

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Charlie Poole (1892–1931), the North Carolina hillbilly musician who sang the text of “Baltimore Fire” for the Columbia Phonograph Corporation in 1930, was a hard-drinking rambling musician who traveled throughout North Carolina and adjacent states, making a living by his music. When he started making phonograph recordings in 1925, he and his band proved to be one of the most popular groups in the Appalachian region, and he enjoyed a successful musical career until his excessive drinking led to an early heart attack at age 39. Poole’s recording is the only one of “Baltimore Fire” until the 1950s. Then, other folk revival groups, entranced with the style of the North Carolina Ramblers, recorded many of their best hits, and “Baltimore Fire” gained a new career on recordings and in concerts. Unfortunately, Poole had a tendency to garble his words (alcohol is an effective solvent for syllables), and most transcriptions of his text give the first line as “It was by a silver falls by a narrow,” but with the written text as a guideline, his words can be deciphered.

NOTES 1. David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), in particular “Conclusion,” pp. 783ff. Population figures are from “Percent Distribution of the White Population, by Nationality: 1790,” in Historical Abstract of the United States: Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1961), Series Z 20; values have been recomputed excluding the “unassigned” population. See also Stephen A. Flanders, Atlas of American Migration (New York: Facts on File, 1998). 2. Taken primarily from Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-R edition. 3. Frank M. Warner, Folk Songs and Ballads of the Eastern Seaboard—from a Collector’s Notebook (Macon, GA: Southern Press, 1963), 40. 4. From Jonathan Pearson et al., A History of the Schenectady Patent in the Dutch and English Times; Being Contributions toward a History of the Lower Mohawk Valley, ed. J. W. MacMurray (Albany, NY: Joel Munsell’s Sons, 1883), 269–70. Patent in this context means a land grant. 5. From Rufus Griswold, Curiosities of American Literature (1841); published with I. C. D’Israeli, Curiosities of Literature (New York: World Publishing House, 1876), 32. 6. From The Forget Me Not Songster (New York: Nafis and Cornish, n.d.), 213–17, punctuation modernized. A recording by Stan Ransom is available on his CD, The Battle of Plattsburgh: Music from the War of 1812 (Plattsburgh, NY, 2001). 7. Edith E. Cutting, Lore of an Adirondack County (Elizabethtown, NY: Denton, 1944), 44. 8. The sheet was captioned “The Battle of Plattsburg: Tune . . .‘Banks of the Dee’: Together with the Siege of Plattsburg, sung in the character of a Black sailor—tune—‘Boyn-water.’ ” Printed and sold by Nathaniel Coverly, no. 16, Milk Street, Boston, [1814?]. The first line of “Battle of Plattsburg” is “Twas autumn, around me the leaves were descending.” Of greater historical interest is the second ballad, written in imitation of African American speech; the first line is “Back side Albany stan’ Lake Champlain.” Variously titled “The Battle of Plattsburgh” and “Backside Albany,” it was written by Micah Hawkins (1777–1825). A copy is owned by the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Massachusetts. Recordings of “Noble Lads of Canada” and “Backside Albany” as well as other ballads about the battle were made by Stan Ransom, the “Connecticut Peddler,” and can be heard on his CD, The Battle of Plattsburg: Music from the War of 1812 (Plattsburgh, NY, 2001). 9. “Battle of Plattsburgh” (n.p., ca. 1814), first line: “My countrymen what thanks we owe.” A copy is at Brown University’s Hay Library, catalog 1-SIZE HB23247. 10. From Pete Seeger, Frontier Ballads, Smithsonian Folkways LP FA 2175. Towpath is the ground path paralleling the canal along which mules, pulling the barge by ropes, were driven; nigh mule and off mule are the mules nearer to, and further from, respectively, the windy side; blind staggers are a disease of the brain and spinal cord affecting horses, mules, etc.; reef means “roll up”; royals are small, square, usually topmost sails; son of a gun was originally a child born at sea on

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a voyage long enough that wives were permitted on board. For another New York canal song, see Norm Cohen, Folk Music: A Regional Exploration (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005), 93. 11. For example, compare the following stanza: The cook, she being kind-hearted, she loaned us an old dress, Which we raised upon a setting-pole as a signal of distress” From The Forecastle Songster (New York: Cornish, Lamport, 1851), 271–75. 12. Carl Sandburg, The American Songbag (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1927), 180. 13. Called “Young Carlotta” by the singer of this text, Almeda Riddle, of Arkansas. Recorded in 1964 (Vanguard LP VRS 9158). Standard title is “Young Charlotte”; see Laws, Native American Balladry, 221 [G 17]. 14. Smith’s poem appeared in The Rover 2 (December 28, 1843): 225. Smith prefaced his text with the headnote, “The incident, from which the following ballad is woven, was given in the paper three or four years ago as a fact. It was stated, that a young lady in the country, while riding some distance to a ball on New Year’s evening, actually froze to death.” The ballad was the subject of investigation by Phillips Barry (1880–1937); see Helen Hartness Flanders, Elizabeth F. Ballard, George Brown, and Phillips Barry, The New Green Mountain Songster (Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associates, 1966), 111–15. 15. Phillips Barry, in Bulletin of the Folk-Song Society of the Northeast (Cambridge, MA, 1934), 8:17–19; text received from Mr. F. L. Tracy of Brewer, Maine, in 1934. Barry suggested it was folk poet, Alonzo Carter, who wrote the additional stanzas and first sang the ballad widely, setting it to an older, familiar tune. 16. From Delaney’s Song Book, no. 30 (New York: Delaney, n.d. [ca September 1902]), 24. No credits given; punctuation modified. A substantially different text was published on a broadside, “The Murdered Wife: or, the Case of Henry G. Green, of Berlin, Rensselaer County, N.Y.” A copy is held by Brown University’s John Hay Library, catalog no. HB 16182. A traditional version, recorded in the Ozarks from Charley Short on August 22, 1941, in Galena, Missouri, can be heard on Folksongs of the Ozarks, Rounder CD 1108. 17. For historical details, see Louis C. Jones, “The Berlin Murder Case in Folklore and Ballad,” Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association 34, New York History 17 (1936): 192–205. This article includes a reproduction of the broadside “The Murdered Wife . . .” 18. From a broadside published by Henry De Marsan, New York, n.d., ca. 1858. 19. New York Times, November 13, 1858, p. 4. 20. Another ballad, “Lament of James Rodgers . . .” (New York: Andrews, [1858]), can be seen on the Web site “America Singing: Nineteenth-century Song Sheets,” at http://memory.loc.gov. 21. For several examples, see James N. Healy, ed., “Execution Ballads,” in The Mercier Book of Old Irish Street Ballads, vol. 1 (Cork: Mercier Press, 1967), sect. 2. 22. From Delaney’s Song Book, no. 16 (n.d. [ca January 1898]), 25. The song was more usually called “Stokes’ Verdict” and was published as such on a broadside by H. J. Wehman. Another broadside, published by W. J. Schmidt of Baltimore, was titled “Jim Fisk Never Went Back on the Poor”—written and sung by W. S. Salmon, the rising young comic and “motto” vocalist. Brown University’s John Hay Library owns a broadside version titled “Stokes’ Verdict: A New and Original ‘Song of the Times,’ as Now Sung in the Principal Theatres,” catalog no. HB 22372. 23. Extracted from Norm Cohen, Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong, 2nd ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 91–92, which see for more details and references. 24. From a broadside published by E. Nason and Company, New York [1880–1889]; copy in the collection of the Center for Popular Music, catalog no. 002153-BROAD. 25. Reported by J. W. Green, whose mother used to sing the song in the 1880s, in Western Folklore 6 (July 1947): 278. 26. From Harper Brothers, Merry Folks Songster (Lockport, NY: Merchant’s Gargling Oil, n.d., ca. 1883), 23.

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27. Another traditional version (untitled) was sent to Robert W. Gordon by Malcolm Kingsberg in ca. 1927. It doesn’t mention Bottle Alley either, but places the Chinese laundryman’s shop at the corner of New York’s Mott and Pell streets (Gordon letter no. 3806). 28. From Ivan H. Walton and Joe Grimm, Windjammers: Songs of the Great Lakes Sailors (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002), 117. As sung by John W. Green of Beaver Island. 29. As sung by Riley Puckett, recorded April 11, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia; issued on Columbia 15448-D, 78 rpm, in November 1929. Repeated stanzas have been omitted. 30. For more details, see Cohen, Long Steel Rail, 415–22. 31. As sung at Gloversville, New York, by a former woodsman, and published in Harold W. Thompson, Body, Boots and Britches: Folktales, Ballads and Speech from Country New York (New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1939), 444 – 45. 32. The story has also been told in Charles Samuels, Death Was the Bridegroom (New York: Fawcett, 1955); in Craig Brandon, Murder in the Adirondacks: An American Tragedy Revisited (Utica, NY: North Country Books, 1966); and in Joseph W. Brownell and Patricia Wawrzaszek Enos, Adirondack Tragedy: The Gillette Murder Case of 1906 (Interlaken, NY: Heart of the Lakes, 1986). See also the recently republished [Grace Brown], Grace Brown’s Love Letters (Surry, NH: Surry Cottage Books, 2006). 33. As recorded by the Carolina Night Hawks in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 17, 1928. Issued on Columbia 15256-D, 78 rpm, in July 1928. Reissued on Music from the Lost Provinces, Old Hat 1001. Sugar probably means “sugar-head”—a slang term for moonshine whiskey. 34. From Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “New Jersey.” 35. Reprinted from Rufus W. Griswold, Curiosities of American Literature, where it was introduced with this note: “Numerous songs, odes, epigrams and pasquinades, commemorating this battle, appeared during the war. We have several loyal productions upon this subject; but they are too profane and corrupt for publication at the present time. The author of the one subjoined is unknown. The Earl Dorset’s lyric ‘Fire of Love,’ which was very popular at the period of the Revolution, is, probably, the song upon which this was modelled.” The text also appears in the Rough and Ready Songster, also titled The National Songster (New York: Richard Marsh, n.d., ca. 1846), 240–42, and in Frank Cowan, Southwestern Pennsylvania in Song and Story. With Notes and Illustrations. With an Appendix: The Battle Ballads and Other Poems of Southwestern Pennsylvania (Greensburg, PA: printed by the author, 1878), 342. 36. Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), 244. 37. Words by F. B. Johnson, to the tune of “Wait for the Wagon.” Text from a broadside published by Johnson, Printer, 7 North Tenth Street, Philadelphia, which bears the note, “Composed at Dividing Creek.” A copy is held at the Library of Congress in the Civil War Song Sheets collection and can be seen at http://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/. 38. Sung by Harry Ball, the “Yankee Vocalist,” at Hitchcock’s National Concert Saloon, 172 New Canal Street, New York. Air: K.Y.K. Text from a broadside published by H. De Marsan, 38 Chatham Street, New York. A copy is in the Library of Congress collection American Songs and Ballads and can be viewed at http://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/. 39. Sent to Robert W. Gordon by William D. Brandon, Attorney, Butler, Pennsylvania, ca. May 1926 (Gordon letter no. 1673). 40. From Jim Albertson, Down Jersey: Songs and Stories of Southern New Jersey, Smithsonian Folkways LP FS 5203/Cass 05203. 41. From Jim Albertson’s brochure notes to his LP/cassette album, Down Jersey. 42. From Herbert Halpert, “Ballads and Folk Songs from New Jersey,” Journal of American Folk-Lore 52 (1938): 67–68. Sung by Oliver Minney near Cookstown, New Jersey, October 11, 1936, and several times thereafter. He did not sing the verses in the same order on different occasions. 43. Cf. “It’s Hard Times in Lancaster Jail,” a New Hampshire song; also John A. Lomax and Alex Lomax, American Ballads and Folk Songs (New York: Macmillan, 1934), 138; John Harrington Cox, Folk-Songs of the South Collected under the Auspices of the West Virginia Folk-Lore Society

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(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925), 511; and W. R. Mackenzie, Ballads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia (1928), 148. 44. Jim Alberton, Down Jersey: Songs and Stories of Southern New Jersey, Smithsonian Folkways LP FS 5203/Cass 05203. 45. From Delaney’s Song Book, no. 25 (1900?), 4. Written by Larry Lavake. 46. From “Over 200 Perish In Burning Liners,” New York Times, July 1, 1900, p. 1. 47. From ibid., no. 30 (n.d. [ca September 1902]), 8. Written by Larry Lavake; air: “I’ll Be With You When the Roses Bloom Again.” 48. From a recording by Bill Cox, made February 26, 1935, and issued in May 1935 on Perfect 13123 and other labels; words credited to Bob Miller. Cox’s text is difficult to transcribe; some of the names he mentions do not correspond to anyone discussed in historical accounts of the trial. 49. For more information, see Lloyd C. Gardner, The Case That Never Dies: The Lindbergh Kidnapping (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004); Jim Fisher, The Ghosts of Hopewell: Setting the Record Straight in the Lindbergh Case (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999); and Noel Behn, Lindbergh: The Crime (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994). 50. From a recording by Ray Whitley made ca. September 17, 1934, in New York City but remade a week later and released on Conqueror 8383, 78 rpm, in November 1934; words credited to Bob Miller. 51. From http://www.wardline.com/morrocastle html. 52. From Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “Pennsylvania German.” 53. Sir William Howe commanded the British army, which entered Philadelphia on September 27, 1777. 54. The ellipsis conceals the name of the wife of Joshua Loring, a refugee from Boston, made commissary of prisoners by General Howe. 55. Sir William Erskine was a general in the British army. 56. From Griswold, Curiosities of American Literature, 38. 57. Frank Moore, Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1964), 209–10. 58. For more details, see Harold Krelove, “The Battle of the Kegs,” in Two Penny Ballads and Four Dollar Whiskey, ed. Kenneth S. Goldstein and Robert H. Byington (Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associates, 1966), 61–70. 59. Collected by Samuel Bayard and printed in George Swetnam, “Tragedy of the White Rocks,” in Pittsylvania Country (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1951), 59–68. The text was also printed in Lomax and Lomax, American Ballads, 159–60, but with several textual differences, the only significant ones being (1) that her age is given as 19 and (2) the first line of the penultimate stanza ends, “is the future of some snare,” which preserves a proper rhyme scheme. 60. Quoted in Lomax and Lomax, American Ballads, 159–60. 61. Cowan, Southwestern Pennsylvania, 403–10, prints two other contemporary ballads about the murder. 62. As sung by O. J. Abbott of Hull, Quebec, for Edith Fowke, and issued on Songs of the Great Lakes, Smithsonian Folkways FM 4018. For references to other collected versions, see G. Malcolm Laws Jr., Native American Balladry: A Descriptive Study and a Bibliographical Syllabus, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: American Folklore Society, 1964), [A 5]. 63. From an unidentified issue of the Williamsport Breakfast Table as reprinted in Wehman’s Song Book, no. 9 (1885?), 13. 64. From Forget Me Not Songster, 164–65. 65. A broadside was published by Leonard Deming of Boston between 1832 and 1837. 66. See Ozark Folksongs, Rounder CD 1108, for a version recorded in the 1940s, and the Helen Hartness Flanders Collection at Middlebury College, Vermont, for other collected renditions. 67. Published by J. Torr, 29 South Third Street, Philadelphia. 68. For more information, see Morison, Oxford History, 481–82; Agnes Repplier, “Riots,” in Philadelphia: The Place and the People (New York: Macmillan, 1898), 342–55; and John B. Perry and Henry Jordan, A Full and Complete Account of the Late Awful Riots in Philadelphia (New York: Nafis

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and Cornish, 1844), and the Web site http://www.irish-society.org/Hedgemaster%20Archives/phila delphia.htm. I am grateful to Lew Becker for bringing these ballads to my attention and making copies available to me. 69. Repplier, “Riots,” 343. 70. From Delaney’s Song Book, no. 8 (n.d. [ca September 1895]), 5. Words and music by Ned Yale, 1894. There were three closely related 78-rpm hillbilly recordings: “Down in the Tennessee Valley” by Emry Arthur (Vocalion 5208, 1928); “The Village Blacksmith” by Cecil Vaughn (Columbia 15465-D, 1929); and “The Tramp Song” by the Blue Ridge Entertainers (Columbia 15647-D, 1931). 71. From Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “Lehigh.” 72. For example, see George Milburn, Hobo’s Hornbook: A Repertory for a Gutter Jongleur (New York: Ives Washburn, 1930), 41–43. 73. Ibid., 41–58. 74. From Delaney’s Song Book, no. 7 (January 1895), 21, without attribution. 75. According to Korson, these were Thomas Williams of Plymouth and David Jones of Grand Tunnel, George Korson, Songs and Ballads of the Anthracite Miner (New York: Frederick H. Hitchcock, 1927), 131–39. 76. From James Taylor Adams, Death in the Dark: A Collection of Factual Ballads of American Mine Disasters (Big Laurel, VA: Adams-Mullins Press, 1941), 33–36. A similar text was published by Henry J. Wehman, Collection of Songs, no. 10 (April 1886?)—except that the number found dead in the penultimate stanza is 97. A recording by John J. Quinn can be heard on A Treasury of Library of Congress Recordings, Rounder CD 1500. 77. Korson, Songs and Ballads of the Anthracite Miner, 131–39; M. E. Henry, “More Songs from the Southern Highlands,” Journal of American Folklore 44 (1931): 113; Henry W. Shoemaker, Mountain Minstrelsy of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Newman F. McGirr, 1931). 78. A copy is held in the Middle Tennessee State University’s Center for Popular Music’s Goldstein collection, catalog no. 002539-BROAD. 79. From George Korson, Minstrels of the Mine Patch: Songs and Stories of the Anthracite Industry (Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associates, 1964), 265–67. Korson received a written copy of the text in 1836 from Barney Kelly, an Ashland minstrel. 80. Korson, Songs and Ballads, 187. 81. For more information on the Molly Maguires, see Wayne G. Broehl Jr., The Molly Maguires (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965). 82. Korson, Minstrels of the Mine Patch, 240–68. 83. From Delaney’s Song Book, no. 5 (May 1894), 19. Words and music by Joe Flynn, copyright 1889 by Chas. D. Blake and Co. For references to collected versions, see Laws, Native American Balladry, 219 [G 14]. A recording by Mark Moody can be heard on Brave Boys: New England Traditions in Folk Music, New World Records CD 80239. 84. From Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “Johnstown.” 85. From Jacob A. Evanson, “Folk Songs of an Industrial City,” in George Korson, ed., Pennsylvania Songs and Legends (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1949), 437–38. Collected from Andrew Kovaly at McKeesport in 1947. The song was recorded by Vivien Richman on Folk Songs of West Pennsylvania, Folkways LP FG 3568. 86. Evanson, “Folk Songs.” 87. Collected from Peter Haser at New Kensington, Pennsylvania, in 1940, by George Korson, and printed in Korson, Coal Dust on the Fiddle: Songs and Stories of the Bituminous Industry (Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associates, 1965), 405–6. 88. From Evanson, “Folk Songs.” 89. From Delaney’s Song Book, no. 2 (May 1893), 2. Words and music by Willie Wildwave; copyright by William W. Delaney on December 15, 1892. Olive Woolley Burt published a version (lacking the second stanza) she collected in 1922 in Embreevilla, Pennsylvania, in American Murder Ballads and Their Stories (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), 185.

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90. For a lengthy exposition of the events at Homestead and the songs they inspired, see Archie Green, “Homestead’s Strike Songs,” in Wobblies, Pile Butts, and Other Heroes: Laborlore Explorations (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), chap. 7. 91. See Walter B. Hayward, “I Cannot Sing the Old Songs,” New York Times, June 8, 1924; reprinted as “Songs of Their Day,” in the Grosvenor Library Bulletin 6 (June 1924): 1–5. 92. As recorded by Riley Puckett on September 29, 1937, for Decca records in New York City; released on Decca 5455, 78 rpm. Words by Fred tait-Douglas, music by Carson J. Robison, copyright 1926. 93. From Cohen, Long Steel Rail, 244. 94. Ibid. 95. From Phares H. Hertzog, The Favorite Songs, Sayings and Stories of a Pennsylvania Dutchman (Witmer, PA: Applied Arts, 1966), 14. 96. For other examples, see Cohen, Folk Music, 104–6. 97. From Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “Delaware.” 98. From a broadside in the collection of the Center for Popular Music, MTSU, catalog no. 001486-BROAD; “published and sung by James D. Gay of Philadelphia” in 1862–1866. 99. From the Web site for Fort Delaware State Park, http://www.visitthefort.com/historyx html. 100. “State Song” from E. O. Harbin, Phunology: A Collection of Tried and Proved Plans for Play, Fellowship, and Profit, rev. ed. (Nashville, TN: Cokesbury Press, 1923), 408–9. 101. Credited to writer Gordon Irving and recorded by Perry Como as “Delaware,” RCA Victor ep 47–7670, 45 rpm. 102. From Sam Hinton, brochure notes, p. 5, to his LP The Wandering Folksong, Smithsonian Folkways FA 2401. 103. From Marcia and Jon Pankake, Joe’s Got a Head Like a Ping-Pong Ball: A Prairie Home Companion Folk Song Book (New York: Penguin, 1990), 157. 104. From William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison, eds., Slave Songs of the United States (New York: Oak, 1965), quoted by Hinton, Wandering Folksong. 105. From Frank Stephens, Some Songs (Arden, DE: Arden Press, 1935), 36. 106. See http://www.theardens.com for more information. 107. Harold Studell, in Stephens, Some Songs, 31. 108. Taken mostly from Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe, CD-ROM ed., s.v. “Maryland.” 109. From Forget Me Not Songster, 17–19; punctuation modernized. 110. Another song commemorating the same event (though considerably more verbosely) was “The Battle of North Point,” in The American Songster (New York: John Kenedy, 1838), 223–30. 111. From a broadside published by A. W. Auner of Philadelphia, where it is credited to Sep. Winner, 1862. A copy is in the Brown University Hay Library, catalog no. HB 6281. 112. James J. Fuld, The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular and Folk, 5th ed. (New York: Dover, 2000), 355–56; E. Lawrence Abel, Singing the New Nation: How Music Shaped the Confederacy, 1861–1865 (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2000), 70–71. 113. Originally titled “Ma Normandie” by French poet and songwriter Frédéric Berat (1801– 1855). 114. This text is taken from James Ryder Randall, Maryland, My Maryland and Other Poems by James Ryder Randall (Baltimore: John Murphy, 1909). The text given in the Web site for the Maryland State Archive (http://www mdarchives.state md.us/msa/mdmanual/01glance/html/symbols/lyrics. html) is different in several lines. 115. For more historical details, see James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 284ff. 116. From the introduction to Randall, Maryland, My Maryland. 117. For biographical information on Ringgold, Watson, Carroll, and Howard, see the Web sites, http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/brush/ring htm; http://www.dmwv.org/honoring/baltimore htm; http:// www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/carroll htm; and http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodis play.pl?index=H000841, respectively.

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118. “Maryland! my Maryland!,” adapted by George Barker (A. C. Peters and Brother, 1863). A copy is held by the Center for Popular Music at MTSU, catalog no. 1741-SMVOL. 119. From Library of Congress American Song Sheets collection. It can be viewed online at http://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/. 120. This broadside, datelined Baltimore, November 18, 1861, is from the Library of Congress Collection of Civil War Song Sheets. It can be viewed online at http://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/. 121. From an undated, unattributed broadside in the Library of Congress. It bears the instruction, “Tune—‘Gay and Happy.’ ” It can be viewed online at http://www.loc.gov/rbc/amss/cw1/cw103540/ 001q.gif. 122. From a broadside held by the Library of Congress, published by McCoull and Slater of Baltimore (n.d.); it can be viewed online at http://memory.loc.gov/amss/as1/as108560/00q.gif. Another broadside of the same text, published in Philadelphia by A. W. Auner, is held by Brown University’s Hay Library, catalog no. HB 4936. 123. From a recording by Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Rambers, 1929, issued on Columbia 15509-D, 78 rpm. Reissued on Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers: Vol. 2—Old Time Songs Recorded from 1926 to 1930, County CD 3508. 124. For more information on the fire, see the Web site for the Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage, http://www.mdch.org/fire/. 125. From Cradle’s Empty, Baby’s Gone Songster (New York: A. J. Dick, 18—), 16–17. The identical text also appears in Wehman’s Universal Songster, no. 2 (1884?), 51, “as sung by William Scanlan.”

3 Upper South

Although Virginia’s Jamestown was initially settled by a private group, the London Company, the company failed in 1624, and Virginia became Britain’s first royal colony. Immigration was slow until the 1640s; then, in the next three decades, some 45,000 settlers (80% of whom were male, most of them aged 15–24) arrived, mostly from well-established families in England’s south and west. In 1653 former indentured servants and poor farmers from Virginia, unable to compete for land with the wealthy plantation owners, migrated south into present-day northeastern North Carolina. By 1700 the coastal tidewater areas were largely settled, and those seeking more land began to push west, first into the Piedmont (foothills) region and then, in the 1700s, through passages across the Appalachian Mountains. Four major natural passages were found: one, in the north along the Mohawk River; two across Pennsylvania; and the fourth, relevant here, through the Cumberland Gap. Kentucky and Tennessee were settled in this manner, but also by immigrations from the Mississippi River to the west. Through the Cumberland Gap went the Wilderness Road, continuing on to Harrodsburg and Louisville. A branch called the Tennessee Path was extended to the south, headed for Knoxville and Nashville; eventually it was extended (the Natchez Trace) all the way to Natchez, Mississippi.

VIRGINIA It was on Virginia soil that the first permanent British colony was established in North America—at Jamestown, in 1607. A dozen years later, the settlement earned the dubious distinction of being the first to bring African slaves to the colonies. Jamestown’s early inhabitants faced continued hardships—hunger, poor shelter, Indian hostility, and disease— and more than once, the colony was nearly abandoned.

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The governorship of Sir William Berkeley—begun in 1642, interrupted by Puritan rule from 1652 to 1660, and ended in 1677—witnessed the solidification of the colony. The many anti-Puritan cavaliers who fled to Virginia after 1649 added an important element to the population, much of which consisted of indentured white and black servants.1 Virginians played a preeminent role in the events leading up to the American Revolution and the convening of the first Continental Congress in 1774. Virginians Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were, respectively, primary author of the Declaration of Independence and commander in chief of the continental armies. In 1788 Virginia became the 10th state to ratify the Constitution. Just as it played a leading role in the American Revolution, Virginia led the way down the path leading to secession in 1861. Richmond, Virginia, became the capital of the new Confederacy, and Virginia soil became the major battleground throughout the war. In 1863 the state lost one-third of its territory when pro-Union mountaineers seceded to form West Virginia. In 1867 Congress placed the vanquished South under military rule, and Virginia was not readmitted as a state of the Union until 1870.2 The Virginian Maid’s Lament Hearken, and I’ll tell You a story that befell, In the lands of Virginia, O; How that a pretty maid For a slave she was betray’d And O but I’m weary, weary, O. Seven long years I serv’d To Captain Welsh, a laird, In the lands of Virginia, O; And he so cruelly Sold me to Madam Guy, And O but I’m weary, weary, O. We are yoked in a plough, And wearied sair enough, In the lands of Virginia, O; With the yoke upon our neck, Till our hearts are like to break, And O but I’m weary, weary, O. When we’re called home to meat, There’s little there to eat; In the lands of Virginia, O; We’re whipt at every meal, And our backs are never heal, And O but I’m weary, weary, O. When our madam she does walk, We must all be at her back, In the lands of Virginia, O; When our baby it does weep, We must lull it o’er asleep, And O but I’m weary, weary, O.

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At mid time of the day When our master goes to play, In the lands of Virginia, O; Our factor stands near by, With his rod below his thigh, And O but I’m weary, weary, O. But if I had the chance, Fair Scotland to advance, In the lands of Virginia, O; Never more should I Be a slave to Madam Guy, And O but I’m weary, weary, O.3

In 1828 Peter Buchan published one of the earliest collections of songs and ballads collected directly from the lips of the peasant folk of northern Scotland. For a while, some scholars questioned how faithfully he reported what he heard; there were suspicions that he might have edited some of his ballad texts silently. This simple song does not sound like it has been tampered with, so we are safe to accept it as a reliable reflection of a bitter period in English-Scottish history when, between the years of 1735 and 1753, children from northern Scotland were kidnapped from their parents and sold into slavery to the plantation owners of the colonies of Maryland and Virginia. A number of merchants of the city of Aberdeen were involved in this practice of hiring press-gangs to round up any unsuspecting children for deportation. When one returned slave, Peter Williamson, tried to publish his story so the good citizens of Scotland could learn what was happening under their eyes, he was punished, jailed, and threatened. One does not have to read much in today’s newspapers to find accounts of similar barbarisms taking place. How the author of this song made it back to Scotland Buchan does not tell us. The Vance Song Green grows the woods where Sandy flows. And peace dwells in that land. The bears there in the laurel lie, And red bucks rove the hills. But Vance no more shall Big Sandy behold, Nor drink of its crystal waves, The partial judge has pronounced his doom, The hunter has found his grave. The judge he said he was my friend, Though Elliott’s life he had saved. A juryman I did become That Elliott he might live. But the friendship I have shown to others Has never been shown to me; That humanity that belongs to the brave Does yet belong to me. It was by the help of James McFarlane Judge Johnston did me call; They took me from my native home— Confined me in a stone wall.

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My persecutors have gained their request, Their promise they have made good; They often swore they never would rest Till they got my heart’s blood. There’s Daniel Horton, Bob and Bill, A lie against me swore, In order to take my life away That I might be no more. But I and they shall meet again When the last trump shall blow; Perhaps I will be in Abraham’s arms While they roll in the gulf below. I killed a man, I don’t deny— He threatened to kill me; For this I am condemned to die, The jury all agree. But they and I together must meet Where all things are well known; If I have shed innocent blood, I hope there is mercy shown. Bright shines the sun on Clinch’s Hills, So soft the west winds blow; The woods are covered with blossoms gay, Perfumed with the wild rose. But Vance no more shall Big Sandy behold, Or breathe its delightful pefume; This day in death his eyes shall close, His body consigned to a tomb. Farewell, my friends and children dear, To you I bid farewell; The love I have for your precious souls No mortal tongue can tell. Farewell, my true and loving wife, To you I bid adieu; And if I reach fair Canaan’s Land, I hope to meet with you. I come, I come, you angels of light! To the worlds of joy I come; Celestial Dove, convey me Home, To the New Jerusalem.4

Several details concerning “The Vance Song” are sketchy, but the story centers around the murder of Lewis Horton in September 1817. According to oral history, Abner Vance was a hunter and Baptist preacher who lived on Clinch River in Russell County, Virginia. His daughter had had a sexual encounter with either Vance’s wealthy neighbor, Lewis Horton, or Lewis’s brother, Daniel. As a result, when they next met, Vance quarreled with the Hortons and ended up shooting Lewis off his horse at the Clinch River. Both Vance and his wife were tried in Russell County for the murder, but only Abner was convicted. After a series of appeals, the original conviction was upheld, and Vance was again sentenced, in May 1819, to be hanged in Abingdon, Washington County, in 1819.

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According to Vance’s great grandson, D. K. Vance, “The Vance Song” was composed by Abner Vance himself and sung while he awaited his execution; furthermore, a reprieve had been granted but the execution was carried out minutes before the message arrived. D. K. Vance had in his possession in 1925 a copy of the broadside printing of the song.5 The song was still known in Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky more than a century after Vance’s death. It has also been collected under the titles “Vance’s Song,” and “Vance’s Farewell.”6 There is an elegance in this farewell not often seen in southern American folk poetry, but then most of our familiar examples are from much later in the century. Vance, if honest, clearly believed himself innocent of the crime, and went to his death comforted by his religion. De Free Nigger Come all you Virginia gals and listen to my noise, Neber do you wed wid de Carolina boys; For if dat you do your portion it will be, Corn cake and harmony and Jango lango tea. Chorus: O mamsele Maria che bone cum saw, Mamselle Maria che bone cum saw. They will take you and place you on Jango lango hill, Dar de ill make you work and tary to your will; You work all day, your fingers to be quick, Den you trample over de ground like a crooked maple stick. We had a little cow and wee milk her in de gord, I put it in de corner and kivered it wid a bord; Dat am de way da used for to do, When I libed along wid de carlina crew. Buckskins and mockazins to a high degree, Den whe go a courting de prity gals to see; De first word da sez to us when whe do sit down, Why its hayse around de Joney its bake nice and brown. Some have mockazins and some haves none But he dat habs a pair of boots he tinks himself a man; Wid his big Brass butons and his long tail Blu Dem what we call de dandies of de carolina crew. When I was a slave some elebin years ago My master gib me spade shubil and a hoe; But I tell him rite smack it neber would do, For I was bound to shine among de carolina [crew?]. Now the carolina crew da are a bery large croud, They walks in de hubaras and dresses up so loud; And when da are on a spree mind I tell you, You had better meet de debil dan dat carolina crew.7

Apologies are necessary for printing a song whose title contains an epithet that many Americans find exceedingly offensive. Two remarks should be made: first, the song is presented for the historical record, with no intent to use it as a racial slur today. It would be

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dishonest to bowdlerize the text by contriving a socially acceptable euphemism. Second, it is fair to argue that the term was not always as negatively laden with contempt as it has been in the last several decades.8 In the mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, in parts of the country, the term was used neutrally. Whether it was understood that way by African American hearers is, of course, another matter. This song is an early piece from the blackface minstrel stage. The adjective blackface refers to the fact that the actors applied burnt cork to their faces to imitate the complexions of the African Americans. The makeup was so much a part of the minstrels’ outfit that when, during Reconstruction years, genuinely black actors began to participate in minstrelsy, they too felt obliged to use burnt cork makeup. White minstrel-stage entertainers continued to blacken their faces well into the 1930s. Early minstrel songs of this period (1841) were believed by its audiences (and probably its presenters) to be imitations of black slave music; whether the imitation was a form of flattery or of mockery continues to be argued vehemently by various writers. The text does not sound to modern ears like flattery was intended, yet it lacks the feeling of depicting the former slave as an object of derision or contempt. Rather than focusing on the ex-slave per se, the song poses a lighthearted rivalry between Virginians and Carolinians which, for the most part, could be nonracial. (It is remarkable that—in the lyrics—the slave under discussion was emancipated in the 1830s, long before the Civil War.) To a modern audience, that it was published without author credit would suggest either that its performer, R. W. Pelham, was borrowing from older traditional songs or that he was not proud of his creation. However, at the time, the practice was not that unusual. Pelham performed the song frequently and probably was so associated with it that other performers would have been reluctant to borrow it.9 Dick Pelham, by the way, was one of the four entertainers who, in 1843, founded the Virginia Minstrels, the first group to present a full minstrel show and thereby firmly establish blackface minstrelsy as a major American art form. Portions of the text are unintelligible to today’s readers—even with standardized spelling inserted. One wonders if it made more sense 16 decades ago. Is the chorus some nonsense refrain, or is it something meaningful that was badly jumbled? We can decipher “harmony” to be “hominy,” but what of “jango lango,” and “hubaras”? Some of the idiosyncratic spelling is challenging. Antebellum minstrel songs usually attempted to portray black dialect accurately, except in those instances where the theme of the song was the presumed intellectual pretentiousness of the African American dandy, and the text deliberately misused many polysyllabic words. This song falls into neither category neatly. The song serves us another purpose: when compared with some of its descendants, it illustrates the manner in which some folk songs are readily adapted by singers as they move from state to state. Among the traditional songs that can claim “De Free Nigger” as ancestor are the following: Title

First Line

West Virginia Gals Alsea Girls [Oregon] Arkansas Boys Arkansas Boys Arkansas Sheik

“Come all you West Virginia gals and listen to my noise” “Come, you Alsea girls, and listen to my noise” “Come all you pretty gals an’ listen to my voice” “Come all you Tennessee girls and listen to my noise” “Come all you Missouri girls and listen to my noise, Don’t you marry those” “Come all you Missouri girls and listen to my noise” “Come, all young girls, pay attention to my noise” “Come all you Mississippi girls and listen to my noise”

Texan Boys Kansas Boys Mississippi Girls

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The Carolina Crew Don’t marry the Mormon Boys Texian Boys Cheyenne Boys On the Road to California Illinois Gals

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“I had a little cow and I milked her in a gourd” “Come girls come and listen to my noise” “Lou’siana gals, come and listen to my noise” “Come all you pretty girls and listen to my noise” “Come all girls, pay attention to my voice” “Come on Illinois gals and listen to my noise”

Several of these variant texts are included elsewhere in this collection: all of them— whether taken from hillbilly recordings of the 1920s or field recordings—are (thankfully) completely devoid of any references to anything African American. Poor Goins Come all you young people, That live far and near, I’ll tell of a murder That was done on the Nine Mile Spur. They surrounded Poor Goins, But Goins got away. He went to Ely Boggs. He went there to stay. Ely Boggs, he foreknew him. His life he did betray, Saying, “Come and go with me, And I’ll show you a nigh way.” They started up Nine Mile Spur, boys. They made no delay, ’Till they came across the crossroads, Where Goins they did slay. When they got in hearing, They were lying mighty still. “Your money’s what we’re after, And Goins we will kill.” When they got in gunshot They did bid him for to stand. “Your money’s what we’re after. Your life is in our hands.” Sweet heaven, Sweet heaven, How loud he did cry, “To think of my companion, And now I have to die.” When the gun did fire, It caused his horse to run. The bullet failed to kill him. George struck him with his gun. After they had killed him, With him they would not stay.

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They drank up all his whiskey, And then they rode away. His wife, she was sent for. She made no delay. She found his grave dug Along by the way. “Go kill a man for riches Or any such thing. I pray the Lord have mercy Till judgement kills the stings.” Sweet heaven, sweet heaven, We heard her poor mourns. “Here lies his poor body. Where is his poor soul?”10

Alexander Goins was a horse trader who was killed in October 1844 by thieves in Wise County (at the time, Lee County). According to one account, Goins was ambushed by robber George Hall and others hiding along the trail, but he escaped to the house of Ely Boggs. Unfortunately for Goins, Boggs was in league with the highwaymen. Saying that he could show Goins another route out of the area, Boggs led Goins to where Hall’s men were hiding, and Goins was shot and killed. Another version of the tale has it that Goins himself was a horse thief and he was shot by outraged settlers. The song is attributed to Gabriel Church of Wise County. Born in 1825, Church reportedly wrote hundreds of songs, many of them religious, but this is the only one known to have survived.11 As a consequence of where the population was centered and where most of the battles were fought, the ballads from the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 were mainly confined to the northeastern corner of the country. In contrast, Civil War battles took place over a wider geographic region, and so the great abundance of Civil War music has left echoes in many parts of the country. Criminals are often found returning to the scene of their crime. Whether the same can be said of armies, the fact is that two Civil War battles were fought at Bull Run, near Manassas. The earlier battle, on July 21, 1861, was the first important encounter in the war and inspired many songs and poems, of which the following made the most lasting impression on the public memory. Manassa Junction (The Battle of Bull Run) In eighteen hundred an’ sixty one Way down in old Virginia; MacDowell marched with old an’ young, Horse-thieves and other villains. There was Tories there an’ dirty Dutch, An’ Hessians an’ Yankees bloody; With the regular troops from Tennessee United in one body. To crush the traitor was their plan, An’ then march on to Richmond;

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An’ handcuff every Rebel man As fast as they could catch ’em. But never was a ditch they dug More ready for the diggers; Nor did they by their false humbug Succeed in stealin’ niggers. Then General Scott from Chesterville Delivered his dispatches; While Beauregard on the battle field Cried, “Boys, pull down your hatches.” Then down they went on German Gulf, An’ stopped their blood and thunder; While Kirby with the Southern boys Put all their men asunder. An’ then the race for life begun, The Yankees seen us comin’; An’ every individual man Displayed his skill a-runnin’. The ladies who came out to see The rebel host defeated; They was themselves compelled to flee When all their men retreated. They lost, poor souls, their crimson fine, An’ all their ball equipage Was scattered o’er the battle line Like common soldiers’ baggage. They left upon the battle ground Their wounded, sick an’ dyin’; They never turned their faces round, So swiftly was they flyin’. Their ammunition, stores an’ guns, Provisions, mess an’ horses, The cowards left behind an’ run Before our Southern forces. No men on earth did fight more brave Than did our Southern soldiers; But many found a soldier’s grave, An’ there his body moulders. But still they will on memory’s page Live on in song an’ story; An’ honored both by youth an’ age, They fill their graves with glory.12

General Irvin McDowell of the North and General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard of the South led their respective ill-prepared armies to an encounter near Bull Run, a small stream about 30 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., and about 3 miles north of the

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Confederate camp at Manassas. Though the Union armies (some 39,000 after reinforcements arrived) outnumbered the Southerners (22,000), after five hours they were handily routed, suffering some 2,900 casualties to the rebels’ 2,000. One of the shining lights of the Confederate forces was General Thomas Jonathan Jackson, whose steadfast resistance of Union charges earned him the nickname of “Stonewall.”13 The battle occasioned many broadside poems and songs, but the one given here, though recovered several times in the Ozarks, seems not to have made it into wider circulation. Obviously written by a Confederate sympathizer (if not participant), the song is openly contemptuous of the Yankees. The references to Dutch, Tory, and Hessian troops harkens back to the adversaries in the Revolutionary War, though it was true that many Union soldiers in the west were of German ancestry. The poet was a person of some skill, alternating between deliberate homespun and genuine quality (as, for example, in the last quatrain). The Cumberland ’s Crew Now then shipmates, come gather and join in my ditty, Of a terrible battle that happened of late; When each Union tar shed a tear of sad pity, When he heard of the once gallant Cumberland ’s fate. On the eighth day of March told a terrible story, And many brave tars to this world bid adieu; Our flag it was wrapped in a mantle of glory By the heroic deeds of the Cumberland ’s crew. On the ill-fated day about ten in the morning, The sky it was clear and bright shone the sun; The drums of the Cumberland sounded a warning That told every seaman to stand by his gun. Then an ironclad frigate down on us came bearing, And high in the air the Rebel flag flew; The pennant of treason she proudly was wearing, Determined to conquer the Cumberland ’s crew. Then up spoke our captain with stern resolution, Saying, “Boys, of this monster now don’t be dismayed; We’ve sworn to maintain our beloved Constitution, And to die for our country we are not afraid.” Our noble ship fired, our guns dreadfully thundered, Our shot on the Rebel like hail did we pour; The people on shore gazed with terror and wonder, As the shots struck her sides and glanced harmlessly o’er. Now the pride of our Navy can never be daunted, Though the dead and the wounded our decks they did strew; “We’ll die at our quarters or conquer victorious,” Was answered in cheers by the Cumberland ’s crew. We’ve fought for the Union, our cause it is glorious, To the Star-Spangled Banner we’ll ever be true; Wherever we are we’ll make tyranny tremble, Or we’ll die by our guns like the Cumberland ’s crew.14

This ballad chronicles one of the great naval battles of the Civil War and a prologue to a sea change in maritime warfare. On March 8, 1862, off the coast of Newport News,

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Virginia, the Northern frigate Cumberland was engaged by the Confederate Merrimack, the first ironclad fighting ship and the secret weapon of the Confederacy. The Union men in the square rigger watched helplessly as their cannon fire bounced harmlessly off the iron sides of the strange-looking armor-plated vessel. The Merrimack closed in and rammed the Cumberland amidship, and the stricken vessel quickly sank. Over 100 sick and wounded, who could not be removed from the ship, perished. The following day, the Merrimack was in turn defeated by the Yankee ironclad Monitor. The ballad text is written in stanzas of eight lines, which corresponds to the doublelength melody. In what used to be a characteristic singing device in the northern states and Canada, the singer renders the last four words of the song declamando—that is, spoken rather than sung. “The Cumberland ’s Crew” concerns a battle in the Chesapeake Bay; nevertheless, the ballad is remembered primarily in the Northeast and around the Great Lakes, where maritime songs in general thrived best. The ballad became a widely known favorite; in particular, its melody was coopted for many later topical ballads. Monitor and Merrimac (Air—Yankee Doodle Dandy) I’m going to sing a song, I won’t detain you long, If you listen I will tell you how, so handy, O; The Monitor went smack up to the Merrimac, And upon her sides played Yankee Doodle Dandy, O. Chorus: Hip a dooden do, Jeff Davis, how are you? Our Monitor beat your Merrimac quite handy, O, Ericson he’s around, in the world there can’t be found A people like the Yankee Doodle Dandy, O. ’Twas on the Eighth of March the Merrimac slipped out From Norfolk, for to take a cruise so handy, O; She did not think she’d meet any thing in our fleet, Able to give her Yankee Doodle Dandy, O. She went rushing round, smashing every thing she found, Till the Monitor came sailing in so handy, O; And Worden stopped her fun, soon made her cut and run, While the shells they whistled Yankee Doodle Dandy, O. For the Yorktown and the other they’d be a little bother To smash and break them both up, so handy, O; For our gunboats they would do to rip them through and through, While the sailors they’d sing Yankee Doodle Dandy, O. The Merrimac was some, till the Monitor she come, And opened up her little ports so handy, O; Then the shot did fly till the Merrimac’s men did cry, Here’s the Devil, sure, or Yankee Doodle Dandy, O. To Jeff this ought to show that this monster is no go, And that Mechanics in the North are very handy, O; That he must surrender soon, or we’ll blow him to the moon, With inventions of our Yankee Doodle Dandy, O.

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Now, boys, let us cheer the men that don’t know fear, That worked that little battery so handy, O; They deserve well of us all, let us pray that none may fall, May they live long to sing Yankee Doodle Dandy, O.15

The Civil War naval battle between the Union’s Monitor and the Confederate Merrimack (renamed the Virginia after the Confederates rebuilt it) made naval history as the first between two ironclad warships. The Virginia, originally a wooden steam frigate called the Merrimack, had been sunk and abandoned by Union forces in the Elizabeth River off Norfolk, Virginia, in the spring of 1861. It was raised by Confederate forces a few months later and rebuilt as an ironclad vessel. Nevertheless, it was still sometimes called the Merrimack and the battle is usually referred to that of the Monitor and Merrimack. On March 9, 1862, the Monitor engaged the Virginia/Merrimack at Hampton Roads, off the Virginia coast, where on the previous day the Virginia had destroyed two Union ships (see the preceding song). Exchanges of fire produced insubstantial damage, but after a few hours of battle, the Virginia was forced to withdraw to Norfolk because of receding tides. The Battle at Hampton Roads (as it is often known) is thus generally considered a draw. The encounter, however, proved the effectiveness of the new ironclad ships, and it marked the beginning of modern naval engineering. Two months after the inconclusive battle with the Monitor, the Virginia was destroyed by Confederate forces when they evacuated the Norfolk Navy Yard.16 The Last Fierce Charge ’Twas just before the last fierce charge, Two soldiers drew their reins; With a parting word and a touch of the hand— For they never might meet again. One had blue eyes and curly hair, Nineteen but a month ago; He had rosy red cheeks and a downy chin For he was only a boy, you know. The other was tall, dark, daring and proud, His faith in this world was dim; He had only trusted in those whom he loved— They were all this world to him. They had ridden together in many a raid, They had marched for many a mile; But never before had they met their foe With a calm and peaceful smile. They gazed each other into the face With an awful and ghostly gloom; The tall dark man was the first to speak, Saying, “Charlie, my time has come. “We’ll ride together into the fight, But you’ll ride out alone; Oh, promise me a little more trouble to take, When I am dead and gone.

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“I have a picture upon my heart, I’ll wear it into the fight; Its mild blue eyes and curly hair— It’s like the morning light. “It’s like the morning light to me, It gladdens my lonely life; But little did I care for the frown on her face When she promised to be my wife. “Oh, write to her, Charlie, and tell her I am gone, Send back her fair, fond face; Oh, write and tell her how I died, And where is my resting place. “Oh, tell her I’ll meet her over the boundary line, With heaven and earth between; Oh, tell her I’ll meet her over there, It won’t be long, I mean.” There were tears in the blue eyes of the boy, His voice was low with pain; “I’ll do, my comrade, what you ask, If I ride out again. “But if you ride out and I am left, Will you do as much for me? For I have a mother to hear the news— Write to her tenderly. “One after another she has lost, She has buried a husband and two sons; And I was the last one of her boys, She cheered me and sent me on. “She is praying at home like a mortal saint, Her heart is worn with woe; Oh, tell her I’ll meet her over there, It won’t be long, I know.” Just then the order came to charge— In an instant hand touched hand; And into the thickest of the fight Rode that devoted band. They rode together to the crest of the hill, Where enemy poured shot and shell; Poured clouds of dust on the falling men, And cheered as they fell. Among the dead and dying lay The boy with the curly hair; And the tall dark man who rode by his side Lay dying by him there. There was no one left to write to the girl, The words her lover had said;

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Nor the mother who waits at home for her boy Will ever know that he is dead. She will never know his last fond thoughts To soothe her in her pain Till she crosses over the river of death And stands by his side again.17

Though there is nothing in the text that identifies the battle scene, in the Ozarks the song is usually called “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” so at least some of its singers identified it with that encounter. In fairness to other states, however, it has also been collected under the titles “Fight at Bunker Hill,” “The Battle of Gettysburg,” and “Custer’s Last Fight,” which would justify claims by Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Montana, respectively. It is a nonpartisan song, about neither manly warfare nor partisan politics nor abolition. It is about soldiers anywhere and everywhere and the domestic tragedy that lingers long after the dust on the battle ground has settled. Fredericksburg, Virginia, was, in mid-December of 1862, the site of one of the Confederacy’s early victories over the North. The contending armies were massive: the Union Army of the Potomac with 122,000 troops and 312 guns, under Ambrose Everett Burnside, and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia with 78,500 men and 270 guns, under Robert E. Lee. The Union army crossed the Rappahannock directly opposite Fredericksburg and launched frontal assaults against the Confederate troops encamped at heights overlooking the river. The attacks were repulsed by the Confederates, and the defeated Union army was compelled to retreat. Union losses—1,284 killed and 9,600 wounded—were more than double those suffered by the Confederates.18 Talt Hall Come all you fathers and mothers, Brothers and sister all. I’ll relate to you a story, The story of old Talt Hall. He’s breaking up our country And trying to kill us all. He shot and killed Frank Slayers, Was the commencement of it all. He left his ol’ Kentucky Virginia for to roam, Leaving his friends and loved ones Back in his Beaver Creek home. He roamed the streets of Wise and Norton Through the summer and the fall. He met with Enos Hylton, And poor Enos had to fall. The posse hunted for him Through valley, hill, and dale. They found him down in Memphis, And he had to go to jail.

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They arrested him in Tennessee. They brought him to Gladeville jail, Without any friends or relations, No one to go his bail. They built the platform, boys, Nearby the jailhouse side. He walked out on it and wrung his hands and cried, “If I hadn’t killed Enos Hylton, I wouldn’t have to die.”19

Desperado Talton Hall was born in Kentucky in about 1846, but much of his life of crime—and certainly its termination by his hanging in 1892—was effected in Virginia. Like many outlaws of his day, Hall had a career that was greatly exaggerated, and, like Jesse James, he was credited with many more crimes than he committed. During the Civil War, Talt Hall rode for the Confederacy with General Morgan. He was tried for murder in 1866, 1875, and again in 1883—each time eluding conviction by jurors too terrified to find him guilty. Finally, in July 1891, Hall killed Police Chief Hylton of Norton, Virginia. He fled to Memphis, Tennessee, and though there was a considerable reward on his capture, no one had the nerve to try. He was finally brought back to trial by “Doc” Taylor, his rival in crime. Upon conviction, he was hanged inside a specially built, covered gallows in Big Stone Gap. According to folklorist James Taylor Adams, “Old Talt Hall” was composed by Uriah N. Webb, a 10-year-old boy. The ballad has been reported in Kentucky and southwest Virginia.20 Carry Me Back to Old Virginny Carry me back to old Virginny, There’s where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow, There’s where the birds warble sweet in the springtime There’s where the old darkey’s heart am long’d to go, There’s where I labored so hard for old massa, Day after day in the field of yellow corn, No place on earth do I love more sincerely Than old Virginny, the state where I was born. Chorus: Carry me back to old Virginny, There’s where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow, There’s where the birds warble sweet in the springtime There’s where this old darkey’s heart am long’d to go. Carry me back to old Virginny, There let me live ’till I wither and decay, Long by the old Dismal Swamp have I wandered, There’s where this old darkey’s life will pass away. Massa and missis have long gone before me, Soon we will meet on that bright and golden shore, There we’ll be happy and free from all sorrow, There’s where we’ll meet and we’ll never part no more.21

“Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” was written in 1878 by James Allen Bland (1854– 1911), a New York–born entertainer and composer. A graduate of Howard University

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in Washington, D.C., in 1873, he turned to a career on the minstrel stage, achieving his greatest success in Britain between 1882 and 1901. He wrote more than 700 songs, mostly for minstrel shows, among them “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny,” “In the Evening by the Moonlight,” and “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers.” His latter years were spent in poverty and obscurity, and he died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He wrote “Carry Me Back” while visiting a friend in Tidewater, Virginia. Some of Bland’s songs—though all of considerable charm—share a mood that seems more attuned to the 1840s than the 1870s. In 1940 the song was adopted as the official state song, a distinction which it retained until 1977, when it was retired from service and declared the “emeritus” state song—whatever that means. With its rosily sentimental depiction of antebellum plantation life, Virginians decided that the lyrics were no longer appropriate for an official state song. ( The song is not to be confused with an 1847 work of the same title by Charles T. White.) The Wreck on the C & O Along came the F.F.V., the fastest on the line, A running on the C. and O. road, thirty minutes behind time. As she passed the Sewalls it was quarters on the line; And they received new orders to make up some lost time. Chorus: Many man’s been murdered by the railroad, railroad, Many man’s been murdered by the railroad And lain in his lonesome grave. When she arrived at Hinton the engineer was there, His name was Georgie Alley, with bright and golden hair. His fireman, Jackie Dickerson, was standing by his side, Waiting to get orders, both in the cab to ride. Georgie’s mother came to him with a basket on her arm, Saying, “Georgie dear, my darling son, be careful how you run; Many a poor man’s lost his life trying to make up all lost time, But if you hold your engine right, you’ll get there just on time.” “Oh, mother, I know your advice is good, to the letter I’ll take heed, I know my engine is all right, I know that she will speed; It’s over this road I mean to fly with speed unknown to all, And when I blow for the stock-yard gates they’ll surely hear my call.” Georgie stepped into his cab, the throttle he did pull, Off the engine darted like a fire in angry wool. “It’s o’er this road I mean to fly with speed unknown to all, And when I blow for Big Bend tunnel they’ll surely hear my call.” Georgie said to his fireman, “Jack, a little more extra steam, I mean to pull old No. 4 the fastest you ever seen. I mean to pull her through, my boy, with speed unknown to all, And when I blow for Clifton Forge they’ll surely hear my call.” Georgie said to his fireman, “Jack, a rock ahead I see! I know that death is waiting there to grab both you and me. From this cab now you must leap, your darling life to save; I want you to be an engineer when I’m sleeping in my grave.”

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“Oh, no, George, I will not go, I want to die with you.” “Oh, no, Jack, I’ll die for both me and you.” From the cab poor Jack did fly, New River it was high, And as he kissed his hand to George old No. 4 flew by. On the engine darted and against the rock she crashed, Upside down the engine turned, her tender body mashed, His head against the fire-box, the burning flames rolled o’er, “I am glad I was born an engineer to die on 44.” Georgie’s mother came to him, saying, “Son, what have you done?” “Too late, too late, mother dear, my race is almost run. But if I had a local train, the truth to you I’ll tell, I would run her into Clifton Forge, or drop her into hell.” The doctor said to Georgie, “My darling son be still, Your precious life may yet be saved if it be God’s blessed will.” “Oh, no,” said Georgie, “I want to die, I am ready now to go; I want to die with the engine I love, and that’s old 44.”22

This widely known and oft-recorded ballad from an accident near Clifton Forge, Virginia, in 1890, has all the attributes of popular drama: an heroic engineer, challenged to make up lost time, is cautioned by his dear mother to run his engine with care. The engineer promises her he will do so, but the reader knows that, just as in the fairy tales when the protagonist is warned not to do such and such, it will somehow be done. Sure enough, a rock on the tracks suddenly looms in his view and he knows he can’t stop in time; he tells his loyal fireman to jump while he remains at his post, and he dies in the performance of his appointed duty. Like most of the better-known railroad accident ballads, it focuses on the railroaders involved and not the passengers. This in part reflects the fact that most of these ballads were originally written by railroaders and published in railroad men’s journals to commemorate the tragic deaths of beloved comrades. The facts behind the story are well known, and the ballad writer has gotten most of them wrong. George Alley, born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1860, was killed on eastbound Number Four, the FFV (officially, Fast Flying Virginian) five hours after his engine struck a rock on the road on October 23, 1890. It was the fourth serious accident on the FFV since the C & O inaugurated its first luxury “name” train on May 11, 1889. To correct some of the text’s inaccuracies: Alley had straight black hair, not bright and golden; Jack Dickenson was not on the engine at the time; the fireman did not have time to wave good-bye to him, nor did he jump into the New River, which was on the other side of the cab; Alley’s mother did not appear at the side of the dying engineer; the engine was not Number 44, but 134 (the train was Number 4). The text is the earliest that can be dated with certainty; all other early printed texts are probably from the first decade of the twentieth century. There is thus no evidence to bring the song closer than a decade or more to the events it describes. If it is that much more recent than the accident, we might be able to account for so many factual errors.23 The Wreck of the Old 97 Steve Brady kissed his loving wife, By the rising of the sun; And he said to his children, “May God bless you, For your dad must now go on his run.”

Cover to the sheet music for “The Wreck of the Old 97.” Although the accident occurred in 1903, the sheet music was not published until 21 years later, after the appearance of phonograph recordings of the song. From the Library of Congress.

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’Twas the twenty-second day of that November, And the clouds were hanging low, He took Old Ninety-seven out of Washington Station Like an arrow shot from a bow. I was standing on the mountain that cold and frosty morning, And I watched curling smoke below; It was streaming from Old Ninety-seven’s smokestack Way down on that Southern road. Ninety-seven was the fasted mail train Ever run the Southern line; But when she reached into Richmond, Virginia, She was twenty-seven minutes behind. He received his orders at the Richmond station, Saying, “Steve you’re far behind; Now this isn’t Thirty-eight but it’s Old Ninety-seven, You must put her into Spencer on time.” When he read his orders he said to his fireman, “Do not obey the whistle or the bell; And we’ll put Old Ninety-seven into Spencer on time, Or we’ll sink her in the bottom pits of hell.” He saw the brakeman signal and threw back his throttle, Although his air was bad; And the signalman said when he passed Franklin Junction You could not see the man in the cab. Steve looked at his watch and said to his fireman, “Just throw in a little more coal, And when we reach those Cumberland Mountains, You can watch Old Ninety-seven roll.” He went over the grade making ninety miles an hour, And his whistle broke into a scream; He was found when dead with his hand on the throttle, And was scalded to death by steam. When the news went in o’er the telegraph wires, This is what the Western said: That brave, brave man that was driving Ninety-seven Is now laying in North Danville, dead. The people waited at the depot, Till the setting of the sun; It was hours and hours the dispatch was waiting For the fastest train ever run.24

The railroader’s biggest fear was of a train wreck, and over the years about 10 times as many railroad men died in train wrecks as did passengers. As noted, most of the songs and poems written about wrecks were from the railroaders’ perspective; it was never the number of people killed in a wreck that determined whether a song was written about it, or whether that song survived. The most popular wreck ballad was about an accident with only nine fatalities: “The Wreck of the Old 97.”

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Number 97 was a fast mail train on the Southern Railway that ran from Washington, D.C., to Atlanta, Georgia, between December 1902 and January 1907. On September 27, 1903, because of various delays, 97 reached Monroe, Virginia, 165 miles south of Washington, about an hour late. At that station the crew was changed; the fresh engineer was Joseph A. Broady, who had been with the Southern for only a month and was unfamiliar with Old 97’s route. Outside of Danville, Virginia, the tracks crossed Stillhouse Trestle, a wooden bridge spanning Stillhouse Creek. The trestle is preceded by a dangerous combination of curve and descending grade. Broady, trying to make up lost time, approached the trestle too fast and lost control of the train; the locomotive and the five wooden cars behind it flew off the rails and hurtled into the ravine below. Nine persons were killed and seven others injured. Seventeen-year-old Fred Jackson Lewey, who lived in Danville, was one of the first on the scene of the accident. A week or so later, he began writing a song about it. Other locals added verses to it, and the song gained some local currency. Several commercial hillbilly recordings after 1923 served to spread the ballad around the country, making it one of the best-known traditional train wreck ballads of all time. Lewey (and others who contributed other verses) used a melody that was already well worn by 1903: Henry Clay Work’s tune for his hit of 1865, “The Ship That Never Return’d.” But between Work’s composition and Lewey’s borrowing were several other songs about trains or individuals who set off on some mission never to be seen again. So much so that by 1903 it was an obvious choice for the foundation about a train wreck ballad. This ballad, popular for years after the wreck in Virginia and North Carolina, might have quietly died away had it not been for the advent of the phonograph record and a string of quirky events. Several hillbilly musicians recorded the song between 1924 and 1925, and one of those recordings captured the attention of popular singer Vernon Dalhart, who was looking for a new gimmick to jump-start his stalled recording career. Dalhart’s record producers were willing to try “Old 97” but told Dal that he needed another song for the reverse side of the record. He pulled together a song about a lovelorn prisoner (which he said he and his cousin had written—but that’s another story), called it “The Prisoner’s Song,” and recorded the pair of selections. As fate would have it, the latter piece became an enormous hit, selling close to a million records in a few years’ time (a remarkable achievement for the mid1920s). Naturally, the reverse side of the record saw the same distribution, and as a result, “Wreck of Old 97” became the best-known train wreck ballad since “Casey Jones.” Since the 1920s, the song has been recorded by folk, pop, jazz, blues, western, country, and bluegrass musicians.25 Henry Clay Beattie “Come on honey, let’s go for a spin, You won’t need a wrap, just jump right in; No, don’t take the baby, we won’t go far.” With these last words, he started the car. On a lonely road just out of town, He stopped the car and jumped to the ground; Then he placed a gun to his young wife’s head, And, pulling the trigger, he shot her dead. Here comes Henry Beattie in his automobile, He is coming so fast you can’t see his wheels;

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With rings on his fingers and a gun in his hand, He’s going to blame the murder on an innocent man. He placed her body at his side, And sat upon it during his ride; Back to his home he cried in fear, “A robber has shot my wifie dear!” Oh, Henry Beattie, it is a shame! Why did you blacken your honorable name? Bowed your parents’ heads in sorrow and care, For your lies and murder took you to the chair.26

The book published after the event proclaimed it the “most highly sensational tragedy of the century.” More temperate judges might think that 1911 was too early to propound such a sweeping assessment. On July 19 of that year, Henry Clay Beattie reported the murder of his wife while the two of them were out riding on the Midlothian turnpike the previous night. Beattie claimed that they had been driving along happily when, at about 10:45 P.M., a tall, bearded man appeared in the road in front of the car. Beattie brought the car to a halt

Two portraits, murderer Henry Clay Beattie and his secret paramour, Beulah Binford, from the book Full and Complete History of the Great Beattie Case (1911). Author’s collection.

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and exchanged some angry words with the pedestrian. The man, carrying a rifle, raised it to his shoulder and fired a shot, hitting Mrs. Beattie in the face. Beattie leapt out of the car and struggled with the assailant, wresting the gun from his grip. The attacker ran off into the woods. Beattie threw the gun into the backseat of the car and drove to his in-laws’ home, where his mother-in-law was tending the five-week-old Henry Clay Beattie III. Henry Clay Beattie Jr. was the son of a well-to-do and respected businessman. The younger Beattie began at an early age to lead a dissolute life, supported financially by his well-meaning father. Among his various affairs was one with Beulah Binford, not quite 14 when they began dating in about 1907. A child was born to Binford, of which Beattie was said to be the father, but proved sickly and died in 1910 when only a year old. In August of that year, Beattie married Louise Owen, a childhood friend, and a son was born to them nine months and a week after their wedding day. Beattie continued his contact with Binford, and although at the trial he denied that he ever loved her, he did admit to having been with her three or four nights a week for the two weeks preceding the murder. Her diary, disclosed after the trial, revealed that in spite of her unsavory reputation, her attachment to Beattie was genuine and deeply felt. Whether or not Beattie reciprocated her feelings—in court he claimed it was only because of generosity that he paid for her schooling, for the baby’s funeral, and for her to rent and furnish an apartment in Norfolk—could not be determined from the public record. He spent much of the evening preceding the murder with her. Almost immediately after the murder, suspicions grew that Beattie’s story was not truthful. Among the evidence was his cousin Paul Beattie’s confession to having purchased a shotgun on June 24 at Henry’s request and delivering it to him the following day. On September 8, after a trial of 16 days, the jury pronounced Beattie guilty of murder. On the day of his execution, November 24, Beattie confessed fully to his crime. The ballad quoted previously was widely sung in Virginia in years after the crime; in the 1960s and 1970s Virginians could still be found who could recall parts of the song. According to one of them, it was sung to the tune of “Casey Jones,” a pop hit of two years earlier. A completely distinct ballad about the murder was also circulated and recorded in 1927 by Virginia hillbilly singer Kelly Harrell.27 Claude Allen Claude Allen and his dear old father Have met their fatal doom at last; Their friends are glad their troubles are over, And hope their souls are now at rest. Claude’s mother’s tears will gently flow But the loss of the ones she loves so dear; It seems that none can tell her troubles, It seems no one can tell but her. Claude Allen had a pretty sweetheart, To mourn the loss of the one she loved; She hopes to meet beyond the river, A fair you face in heaven above. Claude was young and very handsome, And still had hopes until the last, That he might in some way or other Escape his death at the Richmond Pen.

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The governor being so hard-hearted, And not caring what his friends might say; That he finally took his sweet life from him, And they laid his body in the clay. High up on yonders lonely mountain, Claude Allen sleeps beneath the clay; No more we’ll hear his words for mercy, Nor see his face till Judgment Day. Come, all young men, you may take warning, Be careful how you go astray; Or you might be like poor Claude Allen, And have that awful debt to pay.28

The book cover to The Mountain Massacre (1930), a cheap publication telling the history of the escapades of the Allen clan. Author’s collection.

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Sidney Allen Come all you people, if you want to hear The story of a cruel mountaineer; Sidney Allen was a rounder, At Hatfield Court House he won his fame. Court called the jury at half past nine, Sidney Allen was a prisoner and he was on time; He mounted to the bar with his pistol in his hand, And he sent Judge Massie to the promised land. Just a moment later, and the place was in a roar— The dead and the dying, they were lying on the floor; With a thirty-eight special and thirty-eight ball Sidney backed the sheriff up against the wall. The sheriff saw that he was in a mighty bad place— The mountaineer was staring him right in the face; He turned to the window and then he said: “Just a moment later and we’ll all be dead.” He mounted to his pony and away he did ride, His friends and his neighbors—they were riding at his side— They all shook hands and swore they would hang Before they would give up to the Bolton gang. Sidney Allen wandered and he traveled all around, Until he was captured in that western town; He was taken to the station with a ball and chain, And they put poor Sidney on that east-bound train. They arrived at Sidney’s home about eleven forty-one, There he met his wife and daughters and two little sons; They all shook hands and began to pray, And they said, “O Lord, don’t take our papa away.” The people they all gathered from far and near, Just to see poor Sidney sentenced to the electric chair; But to their great surprise the judge, he said, “He’s going to the penitentiary instead.”29

The morning of March 14, 1912, was not a good time to be sightseeing at the Carroll County Courthouse in Hillsville, Virginia. Two days earlier, Floyd Allen had been arrested for interfering with police officers who were bringing his nephews back from North Carolina for some minor incidents of disturbing the peace. The original disturbance had taken place late in the summer of 1911. The Allens claimed only threats had been thrown up; officers asserted the Allens had used force. Floyd was tried and convicted in the courthouse and sentenced by Judge Thornton L. Massie to a year in the penitentiary. Floyd, having previously sworn he would rather die than go to prison, leapt up, drew a revolver from his pocket, and shot the judge dead. Almost immediately, other members of the Allen clan drew revolvers and fell to shooting law officers, jury members, and spectators. Sheriff Webb drew his own gun and shot Floyd, but an instant later he and also Attorney William Foster were both fatally shot. Floyd’s brother

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Sidna was also wounded. Pandemonium ensued, and people dashed madly for the doors and windows. The Allens fled town, leaving five dead and many others (including three jurors and three spectators) wounded. Eventually, all the Allens were rounded up and brought in for trial. Sidna Allen barricaded himself in his house with a copious supply of rifles and ammunition. On March 15, after a lively exchange of gunfire, the posse rushed his house and found his wife dead from gunshots, and Sidna himself seriously injured. Floyd was captured and locked up; he immediately whipped a pocket knife out of his pocket and slashed his own throat, from which injury he recovered. Some of the fugitive Allens were captured as far away as Iowa. Floyd Allen and his son, Claude, were tried separately, the former on May 18 and the latter on July 17, and both received the death penalty and were electrocuted on March 28, 1913. Friel Allen was given a prison sentence of 18 years. Sidna Allen was sentenced to 35 years but was pardoned in 1926. The “Claude Allen” song was circulating by 1914, and perhaps even earlier. It is fairly factual but overwhelmingly sympathetic toward the Allens, making no mention of any criminal activities except in the very generic moralizing last stanza. ( Note that neither of the ballads refers to the center of controversy, Floyd Allen). “Sidney Allen” (his name is invariably misspelled) was set to the tune of “Casey Jones,” which it parodies rather closely in some lines. “Casey Jones” was a major pop hit of 1911, and its tune became a workhorse for many subsequent songs. “Sidney Allen” has many inaccuracies; possibly it was penned very soon after the fracas, when there were still many conflicting (but plausible) accounts of what actually happened. Its tone is rather neutral toward the actions of the Allens, except that the final stanza implies a general expectation that “Sidney” would justly receive the death penalty. Peter Aceves published a study of the incident and the songs and, observing that no singer has recorded both songs, concluded that they represent two irreconcilable viewpoints of the community.30 Freeda Bolt Amid the Blue Ridge Mountains, There lived a maiden fair; Her life was pure as heaven, Her heart was free from care; She dreamed of love and romance, With heart so glad and free; No gloom within the future, Young Freeda Bolt could see. Nearby lived Buren Harmon, A boy she loved so well; And of these two young lovers, A story I will tell; Was late one Thursday evening, The stars were shining dim; When Buren called his sweetheart To come and go with him. He told her on the morrow, That they would surely wed; But little was she thinking, He’d take her life instead;

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They motored to Bent Mountain, A place so dark and lone; And there her form so helpless, He placed beneath a stone. Away from home and mother, And all she loved so well; The bitter pain and anguish, No mortal tongue can tell; Through tears she plead for mercy, But heeding not her cry; Young Harmon left his sweetheart In agony to die. Me thinks the God in heaven, In mercy heard her cry; And sent a band of Angels, To linger very nigh, And bear her spirit over To yonder happy shore, Where dying comes no never, And parting is no more.31

Pregnant Freeda Bolt left the Floyd County community of Willis with her sweetheart, Buren Harmon, on December 12, 1929, on what she happily thought was her elopement. Harmon had other plans. He bound and strangled the woman and hid her body under brush and rocks near the road. Harmon reportedly returned to the crime scene a day or so later, found Bolt still alive, and strangled her again. When Bolt was reported missing, Harmon was naturally the prime suspect. He was taken into custody but did not confess to the crime until after the body was found several days later. Floyd County officials feared that Harmon would be lynched, and the prisoner was removed to Roanoke County for trial. The trial, in which Harmon was portrayed by the defense as dimwitted and insane, held the attention of the public across the state. Even the New York Times mentioned the case. Harmon was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was pardoned after serving 18 years. “The Story of Freeda Bolt” was written by D. M. Shank, a local hymn writer, at the request of the Floyd County Ramblers, and the group recorded it for the RCA Victor Record Company in 1930. The Carter Family recorded it for Decca in 1938, and versions of the song were still being sung in the region in the 1970s. Gruver Meadows My name is Gruver Meadows, my name I’ll never deny, I’ve done a cruel murder and in prison I must die; Now listen my good people just listen to what I say, I killed my wife and Standon Dean on the eleventh day of May. ’Twas in the Blue Ridge mountains upon one fatal night, Around my little farmhouse the moon was shining bright; I crept right down that stairway with a thirty-eight pocket gun, And in that fatal moment the awful deed was done.

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I crept right up the stairway with the gun still in my hand, My wife was there to meet me and a trembling she did stand; “Oh, Gruver, dear, I love you,” she cried on bended knees, “I love you true my darling, don’t shoot me, Gruver, please.” My anger still a-raging, I caught her by the hair, I beat her and I bruised her—I did no longer care; To her I would not listen, she pleaded in despair, And then with that smoking pistol I shot and killed her there. I went to town next morning and I told what I had done, I surrendered to the sheriff and I then laid down my gun; They put me in the jailhouse, I tried to play insane, But the people were against me, alas, it was in vain. Oh, children, little children, come kiss your papa goodbye, I killed you mother and Stanton Dean and that I’ll never deny; It was my angry nature a sweet revenge did crave, And now your mother and Stanton Dean lie silent in the grave.32

Gruver Meadows and his wife of 13 years, Serena Meadows (she was also his second cousin), owned a farm and mill on Dean Mountain in Rockingham County, Virginia, when the events related in the ballad occurred. On May 11, 1925, they had been working in the woods and had some arguments, which flared up again in the evening after dinner. They lived with their six children and a hired hand, Staunton Dean, who was also distantly related to the Meadows. Gruver jumped out of bed in a rage, grabbed his .38 pistol, and ran downstairs to where Dean was sleeping and put two bullets through his head. He then returned upstairs and shot his wife several times. He then locked five of the children in a back room and, taking his oldest son, walked to Harrisonburg and surrendered to the sheriff. He was tried in June and found guilty and eventually sentenced to life imprisonment in the State Penitentiary. In January 1927, while attending a dance for prison inmates, Meadows escaped and fled to his mother’s house. Borrowing $250 from her and recovering $1,000 that he had hidden in the woods, he caught a train to Detroit. In May of that year, while returning to Virginia, he was seen and arrested. He was returned to Southwestern State Hospital, where he spent the remainder of his life. Friends and relatives told folklorist Charles F. Perdue Jr. that Meadows had been somewhat mentally unbalanced, stating on occasion that he was plagued by witches. Although the ballad about the murders was copyrighted and recorded by Andrew Jenkins, evidence that Perdue gathered indicates that the song was written by two young women, Nina Monger and Mildred Blose, at the local Blue Bell overalls plant on their lunch breaks. They showed their text (they had no tune for it) to the proprietor of the local record store, who said he would send it to New York; before long, their song turned up on a 78 rpm recording by “Gooby” Jenkins. Though Mildred (née Blose) Williams did not believe she was familiar with the ballad “Charles Guiteau,” their ballad follows the pattern of that earlier song closely, and Jenkins used that tune when he made his recording.33 The Cyclone of Rye Cove Oh, listen today in the story I tell, In sadness and tear-dimmed eyes;

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Of a dreadful cyclone that came this way, And blew our schoolhouse away. Chorus: Rye Cove (Rye Cove), Rye Cove (Rye Cove), The place of my childhood and home; Where in life’s early morn I once loved to roam, But now it’s so silent and lone. When the cyclone appeared, it darkened the air, Yet the lightning flashed over the sky; And the children all cried, “Don’t take us away, And spare us to go back home!” There were mothers so dear and fathers the same, That came to this horrible scene; Searching and crying, each found their own child, Dying on a pillow of stone. Oh, give us a home far beyond the blue sky, Where storms and cyclones are unknown; And there by life’s friends we’ll plant this glad hand, Our children in a heavenly home.34

On May 2, 1929, a violent storm in Scott County generated a devastating tornado through the Rye Cove Valley. The twister’s path crossed a two-storey, wooden schoolhouse, then occupied by 155 children and eight teachers. The tornado struck the school, shearing off its roof and reducing the rest to a pile of rubble. Almost immediately after, an overturned stove started a fire that torched the debris. Survivors and neighbors rushed to the scene and formed a bucket brigade to extinguish the blaze so that those trapped in the wreckage could be assisted. A special train was called out to Clinchport, six miles from Rye Cove, in order to bear the injured children to the nearest hospital in Bristol, Tennessee. Altogether, 13 children were dead and 54 others were treated for serious injuries. One of the witnesses to the event was Alvin Pleasant Carter, of the Carter Family. He had been arranging a concert booking in an adjacent valley when the tornado struck. As soon as news of the children’s plight reached him, he rushed to the scene to assist the rescue operation. With vivid memories fresh in his mind, he returned home to Mace Springs and composed “The Cyclone of Rye Cove.”35

WEST VIRGINIA The mountainous northwestern part of Virginia was settled by people of very different socioeconomic backgrounds from the more aristocratic settlers of the eastern seaboard (particularly after the influx of great numbers of Irish fleeing the potato famine of the 1840s), and as early as the 1820s, there were proposals to form a separate political entity. That urge did not reach fruition until the formation of the southern Confederacy: in 1861, after Virginia held a convention to decide secession, the denizens of northwestern Virginia refused to accept the action and chose instead to secede from Virginia so they could remain in the Union. In 1863 West Virginia became the Union’s 35th state. Nevertheless, Confederate sympathies remained strong in the southern and eastern counties, which endured pillaging guerrilla bands and families and friendships riven by conflicting loyalties. The late nineteenth century saw the rapid industrialization of the region, and West Virginia soon became one of the nation’s chief producers of coal, oil, natural gas, and lumber.

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To provide labor for these burgeoning industries, large numbers of immigrants arrived from Southern and Eastern Europe, especially Italy, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and Russia, and African American workers moved in from the southern states. The Battle of Point Pleasant Let us mind the tenth day of October, Seventy-four, which caused woe; The Indian savages they did cover The pleasant banks of the Ohio. The battle beginning in the morning— Throughout the day it lasted sore, Till the evening shades were returning down Upon the banks of the Ohio. Judgment proceedes [sic] to execution— Let fame throughout all dangers go; Our heroes fought with resolution, Upon the banks of the Ohio. Seven score lay dead and wounded, Of champions that did face their foes; By which the heathen were confounded Upon the banks of the Ohio. Colonel Lewis and some noble captains, Did down to death like Uriah go; Alas! their heads wound up in napkins Upon the banks of the Ohio. Kings lamented their mighty fallen Upon the mountains of Gilboa; And now we mourn for brave Hugh Allen Far from the banks of the Ohio. Oh! bless the mighty King of Heaven, For all his wondrous works below, Who hath to us the victory given Upon the banks of the Ohio.36

After the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, ending French influence in the area, Britain hoped to avoid difficulties with the Native Americans by barring colonial settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains—an edict that was widely ignored. Virginia’s governor, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, undertook a retaliatory action against Native Americans, who were raiding settlers in the prohibited area. The conflict, called Lord Dunmore’s War, ended on October 10, 1774, with a victory over the Shawnee people at Point Pleasant, now in part of West Virginia. Historian Henry Howe recounted how, “in the fall of 1844, while traveling over Western Virginia collecting historical materials, I stayed over night in the cabin of a mountaineer, named Jess Van Bibber, then an old man. I had sought him for information, because his family had been engaged in the border wars. This old man sung to me, in pathetic tones, the song of that battle, sometimes called by them ‘The Shawanese Battle.’ I wrote it down from his lips, and published it in my works on Virginia, and now reproduce it here.”37

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West Virginia Gals Come all you West Virginia gals and listen to my noise, Don’t you court the West Virginia boys, If you do, your portion will be. Corn bread and bacon you will see. (2) When you go a courtin’ they will set you a chair, The first thing they’ll say is “My daddy killed a deer”; Next thing they’ll say when you step down, “Mammy ain’t you bakin’ your johnny cakes brown?” (2) When they go to meetin’ I’ll tell you what they’ll wear, Scissor tail coat, all ready to tear; Old leather boots with the tops turned down, Pair o’ cotton socks that they wear year ’round. (2) When they go to store they take a turn of corn, Pat of salty butter right fresh from the churn; Storekeeper says, “You haven’t got enough For a plug of tobaccer and a bale of snuff.” (2) When they b’il molasses I’ll tell you what they do— Build a rotten furnace without any flue; Grind their cane around and around, (Will) stop molasses biler and they set it on the ground. (2) They build their houses with log poles, Don’t have windows, none that’s all; Clap board roof, an old slat door, Sandstone chimney and a puncheon floor. (2) Take you away to the Blackjack hills, There to live and make your will; There you’ll stay and carve and spade, That is the way of the West Virginia race. (2)38

“West Virginia Gals” is an offshoot of the 1841 song “De Free Nigger,” discussed among the songs of Virginia. The song has been modified remarkably in the intervening decades. Most notably, it is no longer a song about emancipated slaves, but now seems to be about mountain whites, and the age-old theme is the rivalry between the sexes. Many of the lines have been preserved from the 1841 song, but some of the obscure localisms have been pared away and a good deal more has been added. All in all, the text paints an image of an ignorant and socially graceless mountaineer. The group that recorded this song, Al Hopkins and his Bucklebusters, was also called “The Hillbillies,” and was the first group on records to use that soubriquet—possibly it was their band that gave the name to an entire musical genre in the 1920s. Though Hopkins and his colleagues used the term humorously, it has been regarded as pejorative by many southern mountain people, which was one reason why “hillbilly music” was renamed “country music.” The word meant an uncouth and ignorant southern mountaineer—much the sort of person described in the lyrics of this song. John Brown’s Body John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,

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John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, His soul’s marching on! Chorus: Glory, Hally, Hallelujah! Glory, Hally, Hallelujah! Glory, Hally, Hallelujah! His soul’s marching on. He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of our Lord. (3) His soul is marching on! John Brown’s knapsack is strapped upon his back. (3) His soul is marching on! His pet lambs will meet him on the way. (3) They go marching on! They will hang Jeff Davis to a tree! (3) As they march along! Now, three rousing cheers for the Union! (3) As we are marching on!39 Alternate verses: John Brown died on a scaffold for the slave, Dark was the hour when we dug his hallowed grave; Now God avenges the life he gladly gave, Freedom reigns today. Chorus: John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave; John Brown lives in the triumphs of the brave; John Brown’s soul not a higher joy can crave— Freedom reigns today!40

Connecticut-born John Brown (1800–1859) devoted much of his adult life to the education and freeing of American slaves. In 1855 he moved to the Kansas Territory, where a struggle raged between pro-slavery and antislavery factions. Brown was not above resorting to violence in the pursuit of his abolitionist goals, and in 1857 he determined to take action to free the slaves by armed force. He gathered a small band of supporters, and on October 16, 1859, they seized the U.S. arsenal and armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), and took control of the town. Within hours his force was surrounded by the local militia, reinforced on the following day by a company of U.S. Marines under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee. Ten of Brown’s men, including two of his sons, were killed in the ensuing battle, and Brown was forced to surrender. He was arrested, charged, and convicted of treason and murder, and was hanged in Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia), in December 1859. The details of the composition of the song about the late John Brown are obscure, but it was based, in tune and structure, on a Methodist hymn, originally copyrighted in 1858 by G. S. Scofield 41: Say, brothers, will you meet us? (3) On Canaan’s happy shore.

One broadside version of ca. 1861 specifies the tune as “Brothers, Will You Meet Me.”42 Several individuals had a hand in disseminating the tune, principally Patrick Gilmore,

Broadside, “John Brown” (1861). The unusual notation at the top, “Origin, Fort Warren,” suggests that this song about a soldier at that fort was already being associated with Brown, the martyred abolitionist. From the Library of Congress.

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bandmaster for the Union Army, who played it regularly at Fort Warren at Saturday night concerts. It spread widely from there and was an obvious vehicle a few years later for a simple, spiritual-like lyric about the hanging of the honored, though eccentric, abolitionist.43 However, perhaps the story is not so simple. The song “John Brown” quoted previously was copyrighted in 1861, words and music by C. S. Hall; note that the lyrics make no direct reference to John Brown’s raid, arrest, or hanging, nor to abolition. According to one authority, “It should be mentioned that the John Brown in the song was a Sergeant at Fort Warren, not the antislavery crusader famous for his raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859; however, the latter’s celebrity led to the parody.”44 The broadside published by C. S. Hall, unusual in that it contains music as well as text, bears the somewhat uncustomary notation “Origin, Fort Warren.” Both sheet music and broadsides appeared that year with various titles: “John Brown,” “The Popular John Brown Song,” and “John Brown’s Song.” Other songs commented more specifically on the abolitionist John Brown’s demise and afterlife. To quote from one broadside, “John Brown’s Entrance into Hell,” Come gentle muse and touch a strain, ’Twill echo back the sound again— On scenes that pass’d we now must dwell, When old John Brown arrived in Hell. When Pluto heard old Brown was hung Old Tophet with Hosannas rung; For well they knew the lying thief, Would make for them an honored chief. Brown to receive they now prepare, All eager in the joy to share; Old Satan from his throne came down And left his seat for Old John Brown. &c.45

No doubt which John Brown is meant with this caustic lyric. The question remains when it became John Brown the abolitionist whose soul was presumed to be marching on. One newspaper reference suggests it was established by mid1862. That didn’t leave very much time for John Brown the Fort Warren sergeant to put on mileage.46 John Hardy John Hardy was a brave little man, He carried a pistol every day; He killed a man in Shallow Town, ’Twas a sight to see John Hardy get away, Lord, Lord, ’Twas a sight to see John Hardy get away. John Hardy was standing at the gambling bar, And was not concerning the game; Up stepped a lady, threw down half a dollar, Said, “Deal John Hardy in the game,” etc. John Hardy picked up the half a dollar, And threw it against the ground,

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Saying, “The very first man that wins my money, I sure will blow him down.” A big buck nigger he won the money And picked it up from the ground; John Hardy he drew out his pistol, And shot that nigger down. John Hardy got on an old freight train, The old freight train was too late; And if the old train had n’t a-been behind time, John Hardy would have made his escape. John Hardy was a-standing at the station bars, So dark he could not see; Up stepped a policeman and took him by the arm, Says, “Johnny, come and go with me.” The policeman he arrested John And brought him on to jail; They no bail allowed for a murderer, And they locked John Hardy up in jail. John wrote for his father and mother to come And get him out on bail; They no bond allowed for murdering crime, So they kept John Hardy in jail. John’s father and mother crossed the deep blue sea, To get him out on bail; Says, “There’s no bond for a murdering man.” So they kept John Hardy in jail. John Hardy had a pretty little wife, She always went dressed in green; And coming down on the hanging ground, Says, “Johnny, you were always too mean.” John Hardy had a true little boy, He was all dressed in black; As coming down on the hanging ground, Says, “Papa, I wish that you were back.” John Hardy had a true little girl, She always dressed in red; As coming down on the hanging ground, Says, “Papa, I would rather be dead.” “I’ve been to the East and I’ve been to the West, I’ve been the wide world round; I’ve been to the river and I’ve been baptized, And now I’m on my hanging ground.”47

It was in Shawnee Camp in McDowell County, in the southwest corner of West Virginia in 1893. Two African Americans, John Hardy and Tom Bruce, were involved in a gambling game—either cards or dice—versions differ. Hardy was evidently a poor loser but a good

shot, and, laying his pistol on the gaming table, he threatened to shoot anyone who took his money. Tom did, and John did. Hardy fled, hiding out for a time, but was arrested. He escaped from custody and fled from the area, following railroad tracks, first east, and then west. But McDowell County Sheriff John Effler and his deputy, Tom Campbell, were clued in and followed Hardy, finally apprehending him. Hardy was arrested, tried, and found guilty by a jury and, on October 12, 1893, sentenced to hang. The final punishment was meted out on January 19, 1894, in Welch, on a gallows specially built for the event. By some accounts, Welch’s population of 300 swelled to 20 times that, as visitors packed the town to witness the execution. A ballad was written afterward. By whom and exactly when we don’t know; but within two decades, versions were being collected in West Virginia and adjacent regions. The text reprinted here, heard in Knott County, Kentucky, in the 1920s, preserves many factual details, but under the influence of traditional ballad refrains has got some facts wrong. The camp was Shawnee, not Shallow. Hardy did flee to the east and to the west, and possibly might have escaped if he had fled on a faster train. His mother did try to pay his bail—though she hadn’t crossed the sea to do it—but it wasn’t permitted for those accused of a capital offence. He was indeed married, but whether he had a son who spoke to him as the ballad says is not known; it’s certainly not unreasonable. Whether it was a lady who got him involved in the game is also unknown. The song is still widely sung in the southeastern states.48 Jay Legg Come all you true brave river boys, Some shocking tales to tell; We’ve lost one of our river boys, And the one that we love so well. Poor Jay went out one cold Friday morning, Those hotters [?] they came in, They fixed up a plot to kill poor Jay Just as soon as he came in. Poor Jay came in that cold Friday evening, He was tired and hungry too; He didn’t have time to set down and rest Till a bullet pierced him through. His little boy stood by his side, As mournfully did say, Unto his mommy he did ask, “What made you kill poor Jay?” “It was an accident,” she said, And she did not seem to care; She thought her own state’s evidence Would surely bring her clear. They had a curtains a-hanging by Which hung close by the cot, And with his own Winchester gun He received this fatal shot. Poor Jay lies down in his cold life’s blood As the last breath passed away;

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And “God in heaven,” he did ask, “Have mercy on poor Jay.” Poor Jay now’s a-sleeping in his new cold tomb, His trouble all is done; Poor Sarah she’s setting in the Clay County jail, And her trouble just begun.49 Jay Legg was shot and killed by his wife Sarah Ann on Elk River in northern Clay County, W. Va., 10 February 1904. The case caused something of a sensation in the area, partly because the slayer was a woman and partly because of the alleged circumstances. Sarah Ann Legg’s trial in April 1905 involved not only the charge of murder but the allegations and insinuations that she was unfaithful, that she plotted the murder, and that another party or parties were involved. Though she pleaded that the shooting was accidental, and though there were no reliable witnesses to the deed, she was convicted; but the conviction was overturned on appeal because of errors in the conduct of the trial.50

The ballad was known over a large portion of central West Virginia. The dialog between Sarah and the young son reflects accurately the testimony given at the murder trial. Legg himself was a lumberjack, and the opening stanza of the song as well as the tune and style reflect a shantyboy’s singing tradition. Lumbering had just become a thriving industry in West Virginia in the 1880s, and it is possible that the singing tradition was brought into the region by loggers who drifted in from the Northeast, where the woods had already been severely deforested. The singer of this version, Maggie Hammons Parker (1899–1987), came from a family with a rich musical tradition of fiddle and banjo tunes, ballads, play party songs, riddles, ghost and witch tales, and family anecdotes. The Explosion in the Fairmount Mines One bright morning, the miner just about to leave, Heard his dear child screaming in all fright. He went to her bed, then she looked up and said: “I have had such a dream, turn on the light.” Chorus: “Daddy, please don’t go down in that hole today, For my dreams do come true some time, you know. Oh, don’t leave me, daddy, please don’t go away, Something bad sure will happen, do not go.” “Oh, I dreamed that the mines were burning out with fire, Every man was fighting for his life. And some had companions and they prayed out loud, ‘Oh God, please protect my darling wife.’ ” Chorus. Then her daddy bent down and kissed her dear sweet face, Turned again to travel on his way, But she threw her small arms around her daddy’s neck, She kissed him again, and he heard her say, Chorus. Then the miner was touched, and said he would not go; “Hush, my child, I’m with you, do not cry.” There came an explosion and two-hundred men Were shut in the mines and left to die. Chorus.51

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The title alone makes this a West Virginia song. With its misspelling of Fairmount, it recalls one of the greatest industrial accidents in the country, the Monongah, Marion County, disaster of December 6, 1907. It took place in the Fairmont Coal Company’s mines; the official death count was 362 men and boys, largely Italian and Polish immigrants. Few miners survived the underground blast. Investigators attributed the disaster to gas ignited by open lights or to coal dust ignited by electric arcs.52 The singer of this song (and doubtless its arranger), Blind Alfred Reed (1880–1956), was born in Floyd, Virginia, and died at Cool Ridge, West Virginia. Among the 21 selections he recorded for RCA Victor were several topical ballads and moralistic songs of his own composition. Reed’s “Fairmount Mines” is a minor reworking of a song by Reverend Andrew (Blind Andy) Jenkins, “Dream of the Miner’s Child,” recorded several times in 1925 by Vernon Dalhart. Jenkins unknowingly based his own song on an earlier British piece, “Don’t Go Down in the Mines, Dear Dad,” published in 1910 with words by Robert Donnelly and music by Will Geddes. The West Virginia Farmer Oh, the West Virginia hills, with their many rocks and rills, Where the farmer has to scratch away to see his gra’ry filled, In the morning up he jumps, and among the rocks and sumps, All along the hot and sultry day he hums. Chorus: Scratch away, scratch away, on the hot and sultry day. In the hot and sultry evening scratch away, And when the day is done, at the setting of the sun, He can feed his horse a little bite of hay. In the early days of spring, to his clearing he must cling, And never think of pleasure-time or any such a thing; He must chop and split and burn, and make every crook and turn, To see his patch of ground a crop of gray. Chorus: Work away, work away, in the hot and sultry day, In the hot and sultry evening work away; And when the day is done, at the setting of the sun, He can feed his horse a little bite of hay. When the sun is shining hot and of rest he thinketh not, He swings his scythe with vigor in his stony meadow lot; Till a “jacket” pops his nose, and to double size it grows, Then he stops a while to rub the itching spot. Chorus: Rub away, rub away, in the hot and sultry day, All the balance of the evening rub away, And when the day is done, at the setting of the sun, He can feed his horse a little bite of hay. In the early days of fall, that bring vigor to us all, When the farmer pulls his punkins and his hogs begin to call; When he finds them sick and dead with the cholera in the head, Then his happy dreams of sausage turn to gall. Chorus: Call away, call away, on the frosty autumn day, With tears in his peepers hear him call;

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And when the day is done, and he hath not found a one, He concludes he hasn’t got a pig at all. Now the winter’s come at last, brings the snow so thick and fast, That this foolish farmer thinks that he will get some rest at last; But he very quickly sees he must get some wood or freeze, There’s work again, and summer days are past. Chorus: Work away, work away, on the cold winter day, On the cold winter evening work away; And when the sun has set, and his nose and chin have met, He can feed his horse a little bite of hay.53

Farmers struggling in the rocky regions of West Virginia or Vermont must have looked with envy at their competitors in fertile settings like California’s central valley. We don’t hear many songs from the latter laborers extolling the ease with which they earned their daily bread, but we certainly hear complaints from farmers who toiled by the sweat of their brows to make a living. Patrick Gainer, who collected and published this song, gave no indication of its authorship; it has not appeared elsewhere. Billy Richardson’s Last Ride Through the West Virginia mountains came the early mornin’ mail, Old Number Three was westbound, the fastest on the rail; She pulled right into Hinton, a junction on the line, With a Baldwin Mountain engine they made the run on time. Billy Richardson at Hinton was called to take the run, To pull the fastest mail-train from there to Huntington; His fireman he reported for duty on the line, Then reading their train orders, left Hinton right on time. Then Billy told his fireman that he would happy be, If he could die while pullin’ a train like Number Three; “I want to die on duty, right in my cab,” said he, “While pullin’ east-bound Number Four, or west-bound Number Three.” The fireman then said, “Billy, you know you’re old and gray, Your name is on the pension list, you should retire some day.” But Billy said, “Dear fireman, the truth I’m tellin’ you, I must die right in my engine cab, and nothing else will do.” Then pulling down New River came west-bound Number Three, By Thurmond, then by Cotton Hill, no danger could he see; His head then struck a mail-crane while pullin’ down the line, He’ll never pull his train again to Huntington on time. He pulled the fastest time freight, he pulled the U.S. mail, He pulled the fast excursion to the music of the rail; He lost his life on duty in his engine cab so free, While pullin’ in Montgomery on west-bound Number Three. Now ladies, if your husband is a railroad engineer, You know he is in danger and death is ever near; You know he loves you dearly when he is by your side, Remember well that his next run may be his farewell ride.54

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Most railroad accident ballads concern collisions or derailments. Engineer Billy Richardson met a different fate in an unlikely freak accident. On December 14, 1910, Richardson had taken the FFV train out of Hinton as usual. At 12:30 P.M., as he approached the mail crane at Scary, 20 miles west of Charleston, he blew the whistle for mail, leaned out of the cab to look back, and was struck on the temple by the crane. Fireman Cecil S. Lively took the train into Huntington, where an ambulance was waiting to take Richardson to the hospital, but it was in vain. Richardson died without regaining consciousness shortly after entering the hospital. He had been railroading for almost 46 years. Though the accident occurred in 1910, the ballad was not written until 1926. That year, Cleburne C. Meeks, a railroader for the Norfolk and Western from 1922 to 1967, heard Vernon Dalhart’s recording of “The Wreck of the Old 97.” As Meeks told it, I bought a Victor recording of that song and liked it so well that I set out to learn the address of the singer as I thought I could write the words to a song, and if so, I might have Mr. Dalhart record it for me. I happened to think about an old engineer that I knew when I was a small boy. His train No. 3 passed by my home every other day, and I liked the idea of being in the yard where I could see him and wave at him when he passed by my home. His name was Billy Richardson. Sure enough, I did write the lyrics to that song and Vernon Dalhart accepted it and had his partner Carson J. Robison write the music.55

And so it came to pass. Dalhart recorded the song—not once, but half a dozen times for different record companies. Through his numerous recordings, other singers learned the song, and it entered oral tradition in the Southeast. Meeks’s account is a counterexample to the usual assumption that a song about an historical event was written very soon after the event it describes. When there are commercial media involved, writers and performers may search their memories for material that can serve as the foundations of new compositions. Longing for the Spring The hills are very bare and cold and lonely; I wonder what the future months will bring. The strike is on—our strength would win, if only— O, Buddy, how I’m longing for the spring! They’ve got us down—their martial lines enfold us; They’ve thrown us out to feel the winter’s sting; And yet, by God, those curs can never hold us, Nor could the dogs of hell do such a thing. It isn’t just to see the hills beside me, Grow fresh and green with every growing thing; I only want the leaves to come and hide me, To cover up my vengeful wandering. I will not watch the floating clouds that hover Above the birds that warble on the wing; I want to use this GUN from under cover— O, Buddy, how I’m longing for the spring! You see them there below, the damned scab-herders! Those puppets on the greedy Owners’ String; We’ll make them pay for all their dirty murders— We’ll show them how a starveling’s hate can sting!

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They riddled us with volley after volley; We heard their speeding bullets zip and zing, But soon we’ll make them suffer for their folly— O, Buddy, how I’m longing for the spring!56

Olive Woolley Burt included this song in her collection of American ballads about murder, and murder emerges as its subject as the song unfolds. The song was written during a bloody coal miners’ strike in West Virginia in 1911–1912, during which many striking miners were killed or wounded. The song, composed in the depths of a bitter winter, expresses a wistful hope for spring—both meteorological and social. It is relatively literary for the genre and owes little to traditional poetry and songs. Whether it achieved any widespread popularity, even locally, is not known. Bluefield Murder I was born in Bluefield, a city you all know well, Brought up by good old parents, this story to you I’ll tell; My name is Walter Summers, the name I’ll never deny— I’m now behind the prison walls to stay until I die. My mother used to plead with me, my dear old father too, To quit this wild and reckless life and bad things not to do; But, alas, one fatal evening I roamed out in our town, To the house of Ethel Sullivan, I shot that poor girl down. The policeman came and got me and locked me in their jail, My friends all then turned me down, I could not get no bail; The jury found me guilty, I heard the old judge say, “I give this young man ninety nine years in the state penitentiary.” Now I’m sad and lonely, how sad nobody knows, The only song that cheers my heart is “Convict and the Rose.”57

The names mentioned in this murder ballad suggest that a true crime lies behind the story, but the details have not been learned. Presumably the town referred to is Bluefield, West Virginia, not the contiguous town of Bluefield, Virginia. Roy Harvey, who probably wrote the song,58 recorded it in 1928, so the events, if factual, likely occurred a few years before then. Harvey (or whoever wrote the ballad) used lines from similar traditional ballads as his model, in particular “The Boston Burglar” (see the section on Massachusetts songs in chapter 1) and “Ninety-nine Years,” a popular hillbilly ballad written by Bob Miller in 1932. The song mentioned in the last line was written by Ballard MacDonald and Robert King in 1925 and was quite popular in the southeastern states in the 1920s. For more information about Roy Harvey, see the notes to “The Virginian Strike of ’23,” discussed later. West Virginia Lad I’m a West Virginia lad, raised on ramps and mush and bread, With some meat of the rarest, purest kind; I know I am no fool, though I never went to school Nor had a peep inside of any college.

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I’m a West Virginia lad, raised on ramps and mush and bread, With some meat of the rarest, purest kind; With some possum and some beef to bring a sweet relief And give rest to the weary, weary, mind. Our girls they can’t be beat, they’re good looking, kind and sweet, They are smart, cute, industrious, full of life; If a lad will do his part and has won his lassie’s heart, He is sure to have a pleasant, happy life. With his honey and his bee in this country he is free; He has honey of all the different kinds; With some ’possum and some beef to bring a sweet relief And give rest to the weary, weary, mind.59

Male readers of this song will certainly be tempted to rush to relocate in West Virginia. They are advised to check whether all the first-rate West Virginia lasses are still available, and still ensconced in the hills of West Virginia. The Virginian Strike of ’23 In the dear old town of Princeton in the year of ’twenty-three, Five hundred railroad employees were as happy as can be; Enjoying the highest prosperity, and nothing to worry them at all, But they believed in Satan and quit their jobs that fall. They were told from every corner and given good advice, But they would not listen, and now they’ve paid the price; They’ve roamed to every country, a-waiting for a call, To report at the Princeton roundhouse, and they’ve waited six years this fall. The trains are moving nicely, from Princeton, east and west, With men of good ability, while the poor boys take their rest; Their homes will ever be silent to the call boy’s daily call, Unless the Virginian Railroad will call them back this fall. I was one among the number that made the sad mistake, And left my good old railroad job, my engine did forsake; And now I’m sure downhearted, for I have no job at all, But I’d like to run an engine on the Virginian again this fall.60

On November 8, 1923, some 4,000 or 5,000 of the Virginian Railway’s engineers, or two-thirds of the crews, went on strike. They had several grievances. The strikers were threatened with dismissal if they were not back on duty by Saturday morning, November 10. At the time of the strike, the railroad and the union had been negotiating over differences for nearly a year. The Railroad Labor Board had asked both parties to appear at a hearing on November 14 and requested that the union not strike, but this request went unheeded. Within two months after the walkout, the Virginian had hired other engineers from other railroads to replace the strikers. Some of the new engineers had never handled a train in mountainous country, and the company suffered financial losses for a while and experienced four serious accidents, in three of which the blame was placed on unqualified engineers at the throttle.

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Roy Harvey (1892–1958) loved railroading and worked for the Virginian for years. A loyal member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, he walked off his job when the union struck in 1923. His family moved from Princeton to Beckley, West Virginia, and he worked as a salesman in the Beckley Music Store, gradually becoming interested in phonograph records. Between 1926 and 1930 he made numerous recordings, mainly with Charlie Poole’s very popular string band, the North Carolina Ramblers. Harvey’s song about the strike reflects bitter disillusionment with the union. Like many railroad men, he felt the union had misled them in the causes for the strike. Harvey wrote and recorded his song in the hopes that it would win him his job back, but it didn’t work. In 1942 he moved to Florida and took a job with the Florida East Coast Railway, where he remained until his death.61 The Wreck of the Virginian Come all you brave, bold railroad men and listen while I tell, The fate of E. G. Aldrich, a good man we all loved well; This man was running on a road known as Virginian line, He was a faithful engineer and pulled his train on time. He was the oldest on the road, we always called him Dad, He loved his engine very much, he was the best we’ve had; Frank O’Neal was his fireman, he was faithful, true, and brave, He stayed with Dad, he died with Dad, and filled a new-made grave. It was a bright spring morning on the twenty-fourth of May, The train crew was at Roanoke, they were feeling fine and gay; Train Number Three had left Roanoke en route for Huntington, These poor men did not know that they were making their last run. Dad pulled his train, a pleasing smile on his bright face did beam, He did not have to grumble, Frank sure kept him lots of steam; At eleven-fifty-two that day they’d just left Ingleside, An eastbound freight crushed into them; they took their farewell ride. It seems that all good engineers to duty always sticks, Dad entered into service in the year nineteen and six; He did not have to work to live, they begged him to retire, But Dad would not give his consent—to run was his desire. Dear ladies, if your husband runs an engine on the line, You may expect a message of his death most any time; All railroad men should live for God and always faithful be, Like Dad and Frank, they soon may pass into eternity.62

It was, as the ballad relates, on the morning of May 24, 1927, when just before noon, two Virginian Railway trains, a passenger and a freight, collided head to end, killing 2 and injuring 29. The accident was caused by the passenger train crew’s failure to obey a meet order. In the early years, trains in both directions used the same track, obliged to pass one another at specified points where there was a short passing track available. A meet order specified the location where an available siding would allow one of the trains to pull off the main line so the other could pass safely. The crew of the electric freight escaped serious injury, but engineer “Dad” Aldrich and fireman Frank O’Neal of passenger train Number 3 were scalded to death by steam from

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the burst pipes. “Dad” had been with the railway since 1906 and lived not far from the Virginian’s Roanoke yard office. It was said that he was financially able to retire, but the love of his engine kept him on active duty. This ballad was written and recorded by Blind Alfred Reed, a fiddler, singer, and Methodist minister who was born in Floyd, Virginia, in 1880.63 Reed based his story on newspaper accounts that his wife read to him. Not long after his recording was issued, the Victor Company withdrew it from the catalog at the request of the Virginian Railway. Two other hillbilly musicians, both West Virginians, wrote and recorded their own songs about the accident.64 The Crime at Quiet Dell A widow and her children three at Parkridge Illinois, Was happy and contented with two daughters and her boy; And all was well until one day a letter to her came, Which said she would be wealthy if she’s only change her name. Chorus: She’d only change her name. (2) Which said she would be wealthy If she’d only change her name. Then came the stranger to her home and told her of his love; And promised her that life would be like heaven up above; This winsome stranger she believed, and with him then did go, To meet a fate so horrible no one on earth will know. ’Mid hills of West Virginia fair, near village Quiet Dell, A foul crime was committed there that shocked the depths of hell. Upon this scene a place was built away from sight and sound; With gallows in the upper part and prisons under ground. The prisons four without a door, devoid of air and light, With deadly gas jets on the walls presents a gruesome sight. The blood stain on the prison floor, the graveyard just outside, When taken altogether tells just how the victims died. Upon this fatal summer night, the crime-bent coward crept, Toward the prison down below where little Harry slept. Then took him to the floor above, up through the crude trap door; But little did he realize his life would soon be o’er. The poor boy’s mother next he brought, and as the trap door banged, He said, “Now boy, I’ve brought you up to see your mother hanged.” The cruel rope went round her throat, and as she dangled there, A scream from little Harry came that rent the midnight air. With tearful eyes the poor lad cried, “My own life I will give; Please have some mercy, Mister, let my own dear Mamma live.” The demon seized a hammer near, and struck with all his brawn, And as his life blood ebbed away, a little soul passed on. The poor starved sisters next were brought upon this horrid scene, To see their murdered loved ones, and to face their captor mean. Upon their knees they pleaded, but he heeded not their wails; And answered, “No, you two must go, when dead, you’ll tell no tales.”

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The other widow fifth in turn, was soon to learn her fate, To be mourned by her loved ones up in Massachusetts state. And when the sun arose next day, in splendor o’er the land, It shone upon five shallow graves wrought by a murderous hand. This fiend by fate came to our state, and brought with him a shame, To dear old West Virginia, shedding blood on her good name. This unjust name she don’t deserve, intelligence can tell; ’Twas too unjust to people there, who live at Quiet Dell. The stealthy fiend in human form from justice felt secure, But when confronted with the truth his nerve could not endure. The monster of this heinous crime now ponders in his cell, And shudders at the fate he’ll meet for deeds at Quiet Dell. This is a solemn warning then, to all the ladies fair, Do not confide in strangers that you meet from everywhere. A moral lesson this should teach, for one can never tell; Lest you be lured unto your doom like those at Quiet Dell.65

In around 1930, an ad appeared in various midwestern newspapers, reading, in part, “man, 38 years of age, 5' 5" —175 lbs., college graduate. Worth $150,000 or more. Has income of $400 to $3000 per month. . . . My business enterprises prevent me from making many social contacts. I am, therefore, unable to make the acquaintance of the right kind of woman. . . . Own a 10 room home . . . my wife would have her own car and plenty of spending money. Cornelius O. Pierson, P. O. Box 277, Clarksburg, West Virginia.” Though it would doubtless be read with great suspicion today, at the time, Mr. “Pierson” received 10 –20 replies daily. Mr. Pierson was in reality Harry Powers (born Herman Drenth in Holland in about 1892). After some shady dealings and a sojourn in prison, Powers moved to Clarksburg and married a divorcee, Louella Blanch Strother Kinsley. In late 1930 or early 1931, Mrs. Powers gave her husband $700 to have a storage shed built on property that had been her childhood home. Powers explained that the one room above, with four separate tiled rooms below (each with a gas jet), were to be used for storing vegetables. Powers’s lonely hearts letter brought him in contact with Mrs. Asta Buick Eicher, a Park Ridge, Illinois, widow with two daughters and a son, and concurrently with Mrs. Dorothy Pressler Lemke of Northboro, Massachusetts, an older divorcée. On August 26, 1931, Powers was taken into custody by local police, who had been asked by Park Ridge officials to look into the disappearance of Mrs. Eicher and her children. Residents in the neighborhood of Powers’s vegetable shed had noticed strange comings and goings at night and a rather putrid odor from the stream running past the property. Investigators searching the premises found the strangled bodies of Mrs. Eicher and her daughters and the bludgeoned body of her young son. Mrs. Lemke’s strangled remains were also recovered. Powers was arrested and charged. First he claimed he had been hired to drive the Eicher family to the scene of the crime by another man, who had committed the murders; then he confessed (he had been beaten in the interrogations); then he denied the crimes. Powers was nevertheless tried and found guilty and hanged on March 19, 1932, at the Moundsville penitentiary. He left the warden a letter, to be opened after his death, reaffirming his innocence. Two ballads were written and recorded; one of the songs was aired frequently on the local radio. Both songs are full of details that no one but the murderer could have known, and if Powers was steadfast in his denials, one wonders whence they came.66

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At the bottom of the sheet music, following the lyrics, is the following: Note: While the horrible murders committed at Quiet Dell, are deplored all over the United States, they are especially so in West Virginia, happening as they did in our fair state. Neither the murderer nor his victims were natives of West Virginia. The composers of this song are very fully aware of the fact, that the detail of these horrid murders are not an inspiring “THEME” on which to build a song, and it was not written to appeal to the morbid fancies of some at all, but altogether to the contrary. (The scene has been carefully viewed by the writers, and every possible detail of the gruesome crime learned on the ground at first hand.) It is intended to put right the idea that some people in other states may possibly entertain, that West Virginia is not a good State. No state can possibly prevent crimes from being committed within its border, all together by any means, no matter how vigilent [sic] their officers may be. This song is also intended to serve as a warning to some that it is folly to listen to the alluring wiles and extravagant promises of total strangers, and also to again remind some of the old MORAL, “CRIME DOES NOT PAY.” The composers and publishers of this song, trust that the general public will take it in the light it is intended. Leighton D. Davies A. H. Grow Jack Rock Song Well there’s a little toy used to strike, you see, Made by elves in a hollow tree, It ain’t very big or expensive to make, But if you’re a scab you’ve made a big mistake. This little toy, he’s a sharp little guy, And if you cross him up, well, he’ll make you jump high, He ain’t very pretty, don’t need to be smart, But he can cripple a coal truck before it even starts. He’s made with two nails put together at night, And he’s a union weapon when he’s handled just right; He’ll help you, he’ll hurt you, if he’s made with good stock This little homemade weapon little toy called a jack rock. You can plant him in the ground and he won’t grow And just who thought him up, well, I don’t even know He just kind of lays there lookin’ up at you And if you’re haulin’ non union, he’s gonna catch you. Now he’s more dangerous than a loaded gun And you’ll go to jail if you’re caught usin’ one But the scabs shoot rifles and don’t have to stop But there’s a big reward out for who’s makin’ them jack rocks. Now they ain’t never caught him, and they won’t, you see, You can’t catch little elves in a hollow tree But you can catch scabs and I’ll bet you a dollar If you showed him a jack rock, he’d jump and he’d holler.

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Woe is me, woe is me, I hate little elves in a hollow tree They’re breakin’ the law and I wish they’d stop Because I have nightmares about them jack rocks.67

We seem to be living in an age in which terrorism, violence, and civil disobedience have become common responses to political disagreements. But in most cases where citizens resort to such tactics, whether in the United States or abroad, whether in the twenty-first or the eighteenth century, the perpetrators are convinced that they have no satisfactory alternative recourse. This song comes from a labor dispute in an industry that has suffered violence and conflict for the better part of a century: the coal industry. In 1989 the Pittston Coal Company, Virginia’s largest coal producer, with mines also in West Virginia and Kentucky, decided to withdraw from industry-wide workers’ health and welfare plans. Negotiations, disputes, and accusations finally resulted in the United Mine Workers (UMW) declaring a strike, which lasted for 10 months before a mediator appointed by the secretary of labor was able to bring about an agreement. By then, the union faced more than $7 million in fines on charges that some of the picketing had violated contract agreements; that strikers had engaged in unlawful, violent activities, including rock throwing and destruction of mining equipment; and that miners had illegally blocked access to the mines. One of the unlawful actions some miners engaged in was the subject of this song written by Elaine Purkey, a West Virginia songwriter who grew up in a coal-mining community and has been an ardent union supporter for many years. Purkey commented on her song thus: In 1988 and ’89 there was a $20,000 reward offered by Pittston Coal for information leading to the arrest of whoever was making “jack rocks.” Jack rocks are a tire-flattening device made by cutting the heads off two nails, bending them in 90 degree angles, crossing them and welding them together in the middle. No matter how you throw them, they land with a point up. They cause slow seepage of air from a tire—not blow-outs. The coal company hired guards dressed in full riot gear and trained for terrorist activity—guns and bombs against jack rocks. That really balances the scales, doesn’t it? A friend . . . said that there had never been a song written about a jack rock, so I wrote one!68

The song is written in the form of a so-called talking blues, a style that dates back at least to the 1920s. Strictly speaking, it is not a blues; rather, it is a rhymed chant set to musical accompaniment—in some ways a predecessor of today’s rap music. When Purkey introduces her song, she points out that the slow leaks caused by the jack rocks do not threaten lives, but only impede the transport of the coal. Nevertheless, not all miners approved of violent tactics, and the UMW officially tried to distance itself from such actions. There is no simple answer to the appropriateness of violence in civil disputes. One can only hope that one day, it will be completely unnecessary.69

NORTH CAROLINA The European history of North Carolina began with explorations in the sixteenth century: first a French expedition (1524), then Spanish visits (in particular, Hernando de Soto, 1540), and finally English contacts—notably Sir Walter Raleigh, who established a colony at Roanoke Island in 1585. That colony did not survive long—nor did a second settlement established a few years later. In 1629 King Charles I split off the portion of the Virginia

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Colony south of Albemarle Sound to create a new colony, named, in his honor, “Carolana,” and offered it to his attorney general, Sir Robert Heath. Heath never made it to the New World, and King Charles II in 1663 renamed the land Carolina and granted the area to eight lords who had helped him regain the English throne. Not until the end of the seventeenth century was a portion of the Carolina colony set apart as North Carolina. Geographically, North Carolina consists of three principal regions: (1) easternmost is the Atlantic Coastal Plain, including the Tidewater bordering the ocean; (2) the Piedmont (“foothills”), lying between the coastal plain and the mountains; and (3) the Appalachian mountain region, bounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains on the east and the Great Smoky Mountains on the west. Lying just offshore is a group of low sand dunes (barrier islands) that are together called the Outer Banks. Early settlement of North Carolina took place mainly in the easternmost regions. North Carolina’s early history was marked by sectional strife—first between the coastal north and coastal south, and then between the united coastal east and the western piedmont regions. The colony’s first capital was placed at the eastern city of New Bern (originally a Swiss settlement)—over western objections. In 1768 westerners organized the Regulator movement to oppose what they perceived as unfair political practices of the dominant east—a movement that contributed some of the region’s earliest folk song lore. The treasonous rebellion ended in an out-and-out battle between Regulators and the state militia in 1771. In 1789 North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, and the following year, the new state ceded to the federal government its westernmost regions— which later became the state of Tennessee. North Carolina hosted few battles during either of the two wars with England or the Civil War; hence there are not many traditional songs commemorating those conflicts. When Fanning First to Orange Came When Fanning first to Orange came He looked both pale and wan, An old patched coat upon his back An old mare he rode on. Both man and mare wa’nt worth five pounds As I’ve been often told But by his civil robberies He’s laced his coat with gold.70

In the 1760s many western North Carolinians were outraged by some of the practices of the courts, in particular, excessive taxes, dishonest sheriffs, and unreasonable legal fees. A movement, called the “Regulation,” began to swell, which, by 1768, had grown to a substantial civil uprising. Numerous songs were written espousing the Regulators’ cause; some 40 were said to have been written by one individual, Rednap Howell, who taught school in Chatham County. The preceding fragment is possibly one of his works. Edmund Fanning was born on Long Island and began his North Carolina career as an attorney, becoming successively “a county colonel, clerk of the superior court, member of the assembly, and a favorite of Governor Tryon. A man of fine address and ability, he regarded public office in the province as a means to enrich himself.” He was indicted by the Regulators in a Hillsboro court “for extortion in six cases, he was found guilty in all . . . and was fined, in each case, one penny.”71

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Poor Naomi Come all you good people, I’d have you draw near, A sorrowful story you quickly shall hear; A story I’ll tell you about N’omi Wise, How she was deluded by Lewis’s lies. He promised to marry and use me quite well; But conduct contrary I sadly must tell, He promised to meet me at Adams’s spring, He promised me marriage and many fine things. Still nothing he gave, but yet flattered the case, He says we’ll be married and have no disgrace Come get up behind me, we’ll go up to town, And there we’ll be married, in union be bound. I got up behind him and straightway did go To the banks of Deep river where the water did flow; He says now, Naomi, I’ll tell you my mind, Intend here to drown you, and leave you behind. O pity your infant and spare me my life; Let me go rejected and be not your wife. “No pity, no pity,” this monster did cry; “In Deep river’s bottom your body shall lie.” The wretch then did choke her, as we understand, And threw her in the river, below the milldam. Be it murder or treason, O! what a great crime, To drown poor Naomi and leave her behind. Naomi was missing, they all did well know, And hunting for her to the river did go; And there found her floating on the water so deep, Which caused all the people to sigh and to weep. The neighbors were sent for to see the great sight, While she lay floating all that long night; So early next morning the inquest was held, The jury correctly the murder did tell.72

An early recording by G. B. Grayson and Henry Whitter concludes with stanzas that carry the story further: John Lewis was took a prisoner and locked up in the jail, Was locked up in the jail around and was there to remain a while. John Lewis he stayed there six months or maybe more, Until he broke jail, into the army he did go.73

It is remarkable that a murder that occurred in about 1807 or 1808 in Randolph County, North Carolina, should still be widely sung in the southeastern states two centuries later. The circumstances of the ballad’s history are as interesting as the historical facts themselves—and both are subject to considerable uncertainty. Most accounts of the murder of

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Naomi Wise are based on the story recounted by Braxton Craven, at one time president of Trinity College (in Randolph County). Craven wrote his account probably in 1851, and it was reprinted many times. His story was concluded with the ballad text given, which he claimed was well known in that part of the country (implying it dated from the time of the events themselves). In brief, Craven’s version of events was that young Naomi Wise was a lovely 19-year-old orphan living at the Adams’ house. One of her frequent visitors was Jonathan Lewis. Lewis was in love with Naomi, but his mother had higher aims for him and urged him to pursue Hettie Elliott, the sister of Benjamin Elliott, his employer. Lewis tried to woo Miss Elliott but was still in love with Miss Wise. As sometimes happens, an indiscretion was committed, and Naomi became pregnant. She told Lewis, and urged him to fulfill his previous promise to wed her. Lewis procrastinated as long as possible. Finally, one evening, he asked her to meet him at the spring and he would take her to a magistrate. When their wagon was crossing the river, Lewis revealed his plans and then drowned Naomi. A neighbor heard screams and came to investigate, but too late: the murderer had fled and the victim was not to be seen. A search the following morning revealed wagon tracks and horse footprints, and then a body was found, “marks of the ruffian’s fingers” on her neck. Lewis was suspected and found the following day. He was incarcerated though the evidence was circumstantial: the footprints near the river fitted his horse; a fragment of clothing found matched Lewis’s garments. Somehow, however, Lewis managed to escape his jail in Asheboro and fled—rumor had it that he went west to Ohio, where eventually he settled down, married, had a child, and prospered. Several years later, the citizens of Randolph County decided that Lewis should be brought back to justice. Three men were properly commissioned (one of them was a Colonel Craven—perhaps related to Braxton Craven?); they found Lewis, brought him back, and he was tried in 1815 but acquitted—though according to the court records, “that he was guilty of the act has never been doubted.” In the 1980s an English professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) found, in a commonplace book that had been donated to UCLA’s library in 1952, a long narrative poem titled “A True Account of Nayomy Wise.” The poem had no direct connection with the traditional ballad, but, written (evidently) by a young girl who had been born in 1801, it is reasonable to assume it had been indited not long after the events described. This poem introduced some very different elements to the story. In contrast to Craven’s description of Naomi as a loving, lovely young girl, the poem related that she had had two children out of wedlock before her involvement with Jonathan Lewis: In Eighteen hundred Six the year She was over come a gain we here And by a lewis was defiled And a third time became with Child A sprightly youth a lively man Sutch was accounted Jonathan He held himself of high degree But too fond of Carnality Although her case was Surely Sad The girl it Seems apeard glad . . .74

In trying to reconstruct the actual events (court records or newspaper accounts have not been found), it is well to remember that neither Craven’s history and ballad nor the poem “A True Account” can be taken as wholly reliable. We are left with these facts: Naomi Wise

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probably was murdered by Jonathan Lewis in about 1808. A ballad was written about the event, but whether soon after or more than four decades later by Braxton Craven (or in between), we can’t say. We can say that from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century, the ballad has thrived in oral tradition, having been recovered from more than 100 traditional singers—so that the editors of the North Carolina Ballads from the Frank C. Brown Collection have considered it “North Carolina’s principal single contribution to American folk song.”75 Frankie Silvers This awful dark and dismal day, Has swept my glory all away; My sun goes down, my days are passed, And I must leave this world at last. Judge Daniels has my sentence passed, These prison walls I’ll leave at last; Nothing can cheer my drooping head Until I’m numbered with the dead. His feeble hands fell fently down, His chattering tongue soon lost its sound; This strikes a terror to my heart, To see his soul and body part. This awful ghost I know I’ll see, Gnawing its flesh and misery; With flaming eyes it will say to me, “Why did you take my life away?” [Awful] indeed to think of death, In perfect health to lose my breath; But little time to pray to God, Now I must try that awful road.76

On the evening of December 22, 1831, while her husband, Charles Silver, was dozing, Frances (“Frankie”) Stewart Silver (not Silvers) dispatched him with an axe, then dismembered the body, burning some parts and squirreling away others under the floor of the cabin or outside in a hollow sourwood tree. When his absence was noted, she suggested that he had gone to buy his Christmas whiskey, and must have had some mishap on his way home. Eventually, suspicious neighbors and officers uncovered the truth—and the body parts. Frankie was tried in March 1832 in Morgantown, found guilty, and hanged on July 12, 1833—the only white woman in the state to have been convicted of a capital offense. Lore about Frankie Silver has thrived in North Carolina ever since the execution. Part of the community contended that Frankie had been abused badly by Charlie, and might have been exonerated had the truth been known. There were persistent rumors that she either confessed before her hanging; that she sang a song; that she was going to confess, but her father yelled to her, “Frankie, keep it in you!” The story has been told and retold in numerous formats and in recent years has inspired several treatments, including a fictionalized account,77 a scholarly study of the local stories,78 and a documentary video.79 The Silver cabin remains a tourist attraction, and there are still folks who believe that Frankie’s ghost can be seen or heard at night.

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The author of the ballad, written in the form of a criminal’s last goodnight confessional, is not known (surely it was not Frankie herself ). It may have been written in the 1830s, but the earliest version known is a text of 13 stanzas printed in the Lenoir ( North Carolina) Topic in 1886. Earlier speculation that the Frankie Silver story was the basis for the ballad “Frankie and Johnny” is without foundation. As I Went Down to Newbern As I went down to Newbern, I went down there on the tide; I just got there in time, To be taken by Old Burnside. Old Burnside tuck me prisoner, He used me rough, ’tis true; He stole the knapsack off my back, And he did my blanket too. And we’ll lay five dollars down, Count them one by one; And every time we fight them, The Yankees they will run.80

New Bern, in the far eastern part of North Carolina, was established by Swiss immigrants in 1710 and was an early provincial capital. Union troops under the command of General A. E. Burnside captured New Bern on March 14, 1862. The unidentified author of this ditty was probably a solder in the Confederate Army commanded by General Laurence O’Brien Branch, who tried unsuccessfully to defend the city. One imagines there was once more to this song, but it has eluded preservation. What remains offers a snapshot of a military engagement at the level of the foot soldier, leaving any interpretations of the grander import of the events to other pens. Tom Dooley Refrain: Hang your head Tom Dooley, hang your head and cry, Killed poor Laura Foster, you know you’re bound to die. You took her on the hillside as God all-mighty knows, Took her on the hillside and there you hid her clothes. Refrain. You took her by the roadside where you begged to be excused, Took her by the roadside where there you hid her shoes. Refrain. Took her on the hillside to make her your wife, Took her on the hillside where there you took her life. Refrain. Take down my old violin, play it all you please, This time tomorrow it’ll be no use to me. Refrain. I dug a grave four feet long, I dug it three feet deep, Throwed cold clay o’er her, and tromped it with my feet. Refrain. This world and one more then where you reckon I’d be, If it hadn’t been for Grayson I’d ‘a’ been in Tennessee. Refrain.81

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In local Wilkes County tradition, the love triangle involving Thomas C. Dula, Laura Foster, and Ann Melton was classically simple. According to that tradition, Dula, a Confederate veteran who had served with distinction, was in love with Foster, who was a sweet, lovely girl. Ann Melton, a jealous friend, induced Dula to murder Foster—or assisted him in so doing. Dula was arrested, tried, convicted, and hanged. His last act was to write a note exonerating Melton. She was tried separately afterward and acquitted, on the strength of his note. For decades it was locally believed that she was exculpated because she was so incredibly beautiful and because the jury consisted only of men. The reality was somewhat different. In about 1866, 23-year-old Dula became intimately involved with both Laura Foster and Ann Foster Melton. (It is possible the two women were related.) Melton at the time was married and had two children, but Dula became a regular visitor to the Meltons’ cabin (and to Ann’s bed). In fact, Dula seems to have been a man of considerable sexual appetites: he had intimate relations with a veritable cocktail of neighborly women, including Foster, Pauline Foster—Ann’s cousin, who was living with the Meltons—and probably others. Dula contracted syphilis—he believed from Foster—and transmitted it to Ann Melton. (It is more likely that he contracted the disease from Pauline, who was being treated for it at the time she came to the Meltons, and then transmitted it to both Foster and Melton.) At one time he swore he would kill the person who gave him the disease. In his anger, he and Melton concocted a plan for Foster’s murder, which was carried out on April 30 of that year. Dula had told Foster they were going to get married; he led her off, stabbed her, and buried the body (perhaps with Melton’s assistance). A few days later, Dula fled on foot to Tennessee, where he asked for employment on the farm of Colonel James Grayson, about 10 miles from the Tennessee–North Carolina state line. He remained there long enough to earn sufficient money for new shoes and then continued on his way. A few days later, deputies from Wilkes County, North Carolina, came looking for him. Grayson joined them, and they soon caught up with Dula, arrested him, and brought him back to North Carolina. Dula was held in jail for two months until the body was discovered around September 1. He was subsequently tried and convicted in January 1867. Dula (via his lawyer) appealed the decision twice and was denied both times; finally, he was hanged on May 1, 1868. In the opinion of a modern North Carolina attorney, Dula may have been guilty, but he was illegally arrested, illegally transported across the state line, unconstitutionally incarcerated, and convicted on circumstantial evidence.82 After these grim events, at least three songs were written that survived into the twentieth century; possibly there were others that were never preserved. The fullest narrative was “The Murder of Laura Foster” and was collected several times in North Carolina. The text given previously is representative of the second song; it is looser in structure and preserves fewer historical details—except, notably, the name of the Tennessean Grayson to whose farm Dula fled. This version, by the outstanding Wilkes County (North Carolina)–born fiddler-singer Gilliam Banmon Grayson (1888–1930), was the first commercial recording of the song ever made. In 1938 folk song collector Frank Warner recorded “Tom Dooley” from Frank Proffitt in northwestern North Carolina—and then again on a subsequent visit in 1940. This version was published by John A. and Alan Lomax in 1947 in a folk song anthology that contributed significantly to the repertoire of the folk song revival of the 1950s and 1960s.83 This collection provided the source for the Kingston Trio’s 1958 recording, which sold some 3.5 million copies before the records stopped spinning.

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The Fate of Ellen Smith Come all you good people a story to hear, Of what happened unto me in June of this year. Poor Ellen Smith and how was she found, She was shot through the breast lying cold on the ground. Lying cold on the ground with her hands on her breast, The sheriff and his blood hounds they gave me no rest. They picked up their rifles they hunted me down, They found me eloping around near town. They took me to Stanton a trial to stand, To live or to die as the law may demand. If I could go back home I’d stay when I go, Around Ellen’s grave pretty flowers I would strow. Pretty flowers I would strow, pretty flowers I would strow, ’Round poor Ellen’s grave pretty flowers I would strow. So now I’m on the scaffold am compelled for to die, To my friends and relation I must say goodbye.84 Peter De Graff was convicted of the murder of Ellen Smith in the August 1893 term of Forsyth Superior Court, Judge Winston presiding. When he appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court, on several technicalities, the verdict of the lower court was affirmed. The opinion of Chief Justice Shepherd alludes to the flight of the prisoner to Roanoke and New Mexico and his subsequent return to North Carolina, and to a letter found in the bosom of the dead woman, alleged to be in the handwriting of the prisoner.85

In The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore is a much fuller text of 24 couplets, taken from a manuscript of 1911. Like the short one here (and other versions), it is presented as if written by the convicted De Graff, who protests his undying love for the murdered Ellen Smith and his complete innocence. No evidence has surfaced verifying (or disproving) De Graff’s authorship. All versions reported are sung to the tune of the hymn “How Firm a Foundation,” a hymn published in 1787, music by Joseph Funk (1832). Widely popular in America, it was sung at the funerals of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Robert E. Lee.86 Song of Emma Hartsell In eighteen ninety-eight Sweet Emmer Hartsell met an awful fate It was on one holy sabbath day When her sweet life was called away. It sets my brains in an awful whirl To think of that poor little girl, Who rose that morning fair and bright; They found her body in a mangled sight. It caused a many of a heart to grieve To think of that great horrible deed;

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Her friends they shed a many of tears, Her throat was cut from ear to ear. Just as the wind did cease to blow, They caught the men, it was Tom and Joe; The sheriff he drove in such dash, To get by the crowd, he couldn’t hardly pass. They got to town about half past seven, Their necks were broken before eleven. The people there were a sight to see; They hung Tom and Joe on a dogwood tree. Fathers and mothers, take warning from me, Never leave your children by their self you see; Take them with you wherever you go, And remember the crime of Tom and Joe.87

On May 30, 1898, young Emma Hartsell of Cabarrus County, four miles from Concord, was assaulted and murdered. News of the outrage was first reported by 24-year-old African American Joe Kiser. Kiser was held, handed over to authorities, and incarcerated. Very soon, another African American, Tom Johnson, 20, was arrested and jailed. Newspaper accounts did not reveal what, if any, evidence was gathered in support of the guilt of the two men. During the night a mob stormed the jail, broke the cell lock, and dragged the suspects out. The two were hanged from a single tree, continuing to protest their innocence. There was never a trial held (though it strains credulity that the perpetrator of the deed would be the one to reveal it). The episode followed an all-too-common pattern of lynchings in the South.88 J. E. Mainer (1898–1971), the singer of the preceding text, was born in Buncomb County, North Carolina, and lived most of his life in Concord, where he ran a record shop, led a string band, and performed frequently. The Hamlet Wreck See the women and children going to the train. Fare-you-well, my husband, if I never see you again; The engineer turned his head when he heard so many were dead; So many have lost their lives. Chorus: Ain’t it sad, ain’t it sad? Excursion left Durham, going to Charlotte, North Caroliny. Ain’t it sad, ain’t it sad? So many have lost their lives. Some of us have mothers standing at the train. “Farewell-well-well, my daughter, I may never see you again.” And the train began to fly, and some didn’t come back alive; So many have lost their lives. The Fireman said to the Engineer, “We are something late; We don’t want to meet up with the local freight.” The local was on the line, and they could not get there on time; So many have lost their lives.

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When the news got to Durham, some said it was a lie, But there was some in the hospital almost ready to die. And their poor old mothers, you know, they were running from door to door. So many have lost their lives. Now, colored people, I will tell you to your face, The train that left Durham was loaded with our race. And some did not think of dying when they rode on down the line. So many have lost their lives. They put the dead in their coffins and sent them back to town, And then they were taken to the burying ground. You could hear the coffin sound, when they let those bodies down. So many have lost their lives.89

The annual excursion of the St. Joseph’s African Methodist Episcopal Sunday School of Durham turned from pleasure to horror on July 27, 1911, when their special train from Durham to Charlotte collided with a freight train. The manifest consisted of 912 holidaybound African American passengers—men, women, and children. Eight passengers were killed and 60 more seriously injured. A broadside ballad was written and published by the Reformer Publishing Company, an African American print shop in Durham. The editors of the volume including the preceding text do not say so specifically, but presumably the text is that of the broadside.90 It is an interesting example of African American balladry, and a typical one, in that—unlike most of the other ballads in these volumes—it is devoted more to comments on the events than to a chronological recitation of the accident as such. The chorus is reminiscent of ballads about the sinking of the Titanic, which occurred the following year, and both were derived from earlier gospel songs. The Marion Massacre A story now I’ll tell you Of a fearful massacree; Which happened down in Dixie On the borders of the sea. ’Twas in Marion, North Carolina, In a little mountain town; Five workers of the textiles; In cold blood were shot down. Tis e’er the same old story With the leaders of our land; Their ruled by mighty power And riches they command. It started over money, The world’s most vain desire; Yet we realize the laborer Is worthy of his hire. These men were only asking Their rights and nothing more; That their families would not suffer, With a wolf at every door.

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Why is it over money These men from friends must part; Leaving home and loved ones With a bleeding, broken heart. But some day they’ll meet them On that bright shore so fair; And live in peace forever There’ll be no sorrow there. There’ll be no sorrow there, There’ll be no sorrow there; In heaven above where all is love, There’ll be no sorrow there.91

In April 1929, three young textile workers at the Marion Manufacturing Company in Marion, North Carolina, approached the United Textile Workers’ Union of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and asked how they might obtain a union. After some discussions and planning, a preliminary organization was formed, and the leaders sent a petition to mill president R. W. Baldwin asking for the work shift to be reduced to 10 hours. He refused, and the workers struck on July 11. The strike collapsed in September, but the union did manage to obtain some concessions, including a workweek reduced to 55 hours (with corresponding pay decreases). Unrest continued, however, and in October, Baldwin asked the sheriff to assemble his deputies—a band of notorious local thugs—to protect the plant. The deputies entered the mill, drinking and goading workers, until at 1:30 A.M., one worker turned off the main power and called the workers out on strike. A crowd gathered outside the gates the next day to notify the day shift about the strike. The sheriff and his men were also present, and, uneasy, fired a tear gas bomb into the crowd. A 57-year-old handicapped worker assaulted the sheriff with his cane and was promptly shot by one of the deputies. Chaos erupted, the crowd broke and ran, and the deputies fired at the unarmed, fleeing men. Six men died, all shot in the back.92 The Lawson Family Murder It was on last Christmas evening, A snow was on the ground; ’Mid his home in North Carolina, Where this murderer he was bound. His name was Charlie Lawson, And he had a loving wife; But we’ll never know what caused him To take his family’s life. They say he killed his wife at first, And the little ones did cry; “Please, papa, won’t you spare our lives, For it is so hard to die.” But the ragin’ man could not be stopped, He would not heed their call; And kept on firin’ fatal shots, Until he killed them all.

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And when the sad, sad news was heard, It was a great surprise; He killed six children and his wife, And then he closed their eyes. “And now farewell kind friends and home, I’ll see you all no more; Into my breast I’ll fire one shot, Then my troubles will be o’er.” They did not carry him to jail, No lawyers did he pay; He will have his trial in another world, On the final Judgment Day. They all were buried in a crowded grave, While the angels watched above; Come home, come home, my little ones, To the land of peace and love.93

Charles Davis Lawson, born in 1886 near Lawsonville, Stokes County, North Carolina, was a successful farmer in 1928 with a wife and six children (and a seventh on the way). He and his wife were well known and respected for the aid and comfort they gave to the less fortunate members of the community. In that summer, Lawson was starting to dig a foundation for a new storage cellar. As he swung his mattock, he failed to notice the taut wire fence; the mattock hit the wire, sprang back, and struck him forcefully in the head, nearly killing him. Though the visible injury was slight, his wife, Fanny, later began to notice some changes in Charlie’s behavior. Then, on Christmas Eve 1929, while the family was gathered for dinner, Charlie picked up his 12-gauge shotgun and killed his eldest daughter, Marie, and his wife. He struck the infant Mary Lou with the butt of the gun and did likewise to her brothers James, 4, and Raymond, nearly 3. The two other daughters, Carrie, 12, and Maybell, 7, ran from the house toward the home of their uncle Elisha for help. Charlie picked up his .25–20 rifle and ran in pursuit, catching them in a field, where he shot them both. He laid out the bodies in a tobacco barn, placing a stone under each one’s head and closing their eyes. He then returned home, laid out the other bodies, reloaded his shotgun, walked about a quarter of a mile from the house, and shot himself. An autopsy revealed a large brain tumor, probably caused by the mattock incident, and possibly the cause of temporary insanity. Virginia recording artist Walter “Kid” Smith read newspaper accounts of the incident and composed a ballad, which he and his musical companions recorded the following March. Others, especially in North Carolina, learned the song either from the recording or from hearing Smith himself, who often gave lectures at the Lawson home, where he told the story of the murder and concluded by singing his own composition.94 Chief Aderholt Come all of you good people and listen while I tell The story of Chief Aderhold [sic], the man you all know well; It was on a Friday evening, the seventh day of June, He went down to the Union Ground and met his fatal doom. They locked up our leaders, they put them into jail, They shoved them into prisons, refused to give them bail;

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The workers joined together, and this was their reply, “We’ll never, no we’ll never let our leaders die.” They moved the trial to Charlotte, got lawyers from every town, I’m sure we’ll hear them speak again upon the union ground; While Vera she’s in prison, Manville Jenckes in pain, Come join the Textile Union and show them you are game. We’re going to have a union all over the South, Where we can wear good clothes, and live in a better house; No, we must stand together, and to the boss reply, “We’ll never, no, we’ll never let our leaders die.”95

The first textile mill in Gastonia, in southwestern North Carolina, was built in 1848; in later decades, the city became one of the largest textile manufacturing centers of the nation. Several militant songs were created there during the bitter textile mill strike in 1929. A strike was called for September 14. A truck carrying union members to a meeting was stopped by a mob and overturned. When union members emerged and dispersed, they were fired upon. Union organizer Ella May Wiggins was shot in the breast and killed. Other unionists were convinced that she had been singled out because of her powerful union songs. One particularly effective composition focused on the killing of police chief O. F. Aderholt. The tune and language (in particular, the first stanza and the recurring last line of the second and fourth stanzas) borrow heavily from “Floyd Collins,” a popular song recounting the death of a cave explorer in 1925 (see the discussion of Kentucky, later). The strike was depicted in several novels, including Mary Heaton Vorse’s Strike! (1930) and Grace Lumpkin’s To Make My Bread (1932). I’m Going Back to North Carolina I’m (a)-going to take a train in the morning (3) For I never expect to see you any more. I’m going to cross the Rocky Mountains (3) For I never expect to see you any more. I’m going back to North Carolina (3) Lord I never expect to see you any more. How she cried when Mockten (?) left her (3) For she never expect to see him any more. One sweet kiss and I must leave you (3) For I never expect to see you any more. I’m (a)-going to spend my days with my momma (3) Lord I never expect to see you any more.96

Variations of this folk lyric have turned up with different titles, including “My Home’s in Charlotte, North Carolina,” “My Own True Love,” and “My Home’s across the Blue Ridge Mountains.” As it happens, the singer of this version, Crockett Kelly Harrell (1889–1942), was born in Wythe County, southwest Virginia, not far from the border with North Carolina. The North Carolina Hills Oh, the North Carolina hills, How majestic and how grand,

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With their summits bathed in glory Like our Prince Immanuel’s land; Is it any wonder, then, That my heart with rapture thrills As I stand once more with loved ones On those North Carolina Hills? Chorus: Oh, the hills, the beautiful hills, How I love those North Carolina hills! If o’er sea or land I roam, Still I think of happy home, And the friends among the North Carolina hills. Oh, the North Carolina hills, Where my childhood hours were passed; Where I often wandered lonely And the future tried to cast. Many are our visions bright Which the future ne’er fulfills; But how sunny were my day-dreams On those North Carolina hills! Oh, the North Carolina hills, How unchanged they seem to stand; With their summits pointing skyward To the great Almighty’s land! Many changes I can see, Which my heart with sadness fills, But no change can be noticed On those North Carolina hills. Oh, the North Carolina hills, I must bid you now adieu. In my home beyond the mountains I will ever dream of you; In the evening time of life, If my Father only wills, I shall still behold the visions Of the North Carolina hills.97

This song has been found nowhere save this contribution to the North Carolina collection; the editors of the volume where it was published suspect that the contributor, O. L. Coffee, was its author. There is no tune provided; the style is certainly not traditional. We have, then, an example of an item that is called a folk song on the shakiest of grounds. But as a heartfelt tribute to the writer’s home state, it deserves to be remembered—especially by North Carolinians.

KENTUCKY In 1750 Thomas Walker, an explorer from Virginia, found a pass through the part of the Appalachians called the Cumberland Mountains west to what became Kentucky. This pass, called the Cumberland Gap, became the main passageway to the west, trod by such illustrious long hunters (so called for the duration of their travels, not the length of their

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rifles) as Daniel Boone in the winter of 1767–1768. Boone followed a Native American trail called the Warrior’s Path, eponymously renamed Boone’s Trace and, still later, widened to become part of the Wilderness Road from Virginia to Kentucky. Others followed in the 1770s. Petitions to the Continental Congress for colony status were ignored, and by the time of the Revolutionary War, Kentucky was still a county of Virginia. Statehood was granted in June 1792, when Kentucky became the 15th state of the Union. During the divisive Civil War, Kentucky tried to remain neutral, a position that was respected by neither side, nor by contentious internal factions pushing one way or the other. Its land was the site of numerous battles. Hunters of Kentucky As sung by Mr. Ludlow, in the New Orleans and Western Country Theatres Ye gentlemen and ladies fair, who grace this famous city, Just listen, if you’ve time to spare, while I rehearse a ditty; And for the opportunity conceive yourselves quite lucky, For ’tis not often that you see a hunter from Kentucky. Refrain: Oh, Kentucky, the hunters of Kentucky, the hunters of Kentucky. We are a hardy free-born race, each man to fear a stranger, Whate’er the game, we join in chase, despising toil and danger; And if a daring foe annoys, whate’er his strength and forces, We’ll show him that Kentucky boys are “alligator horses.” Refrain. I s’pose you’ve read it in the prints, how Packenham attempted To make old Hickory Jackson wince, but soon his schemes repented; For we with rifles ready cock’d, thought such occasion lucky, And soon around the general flock’d, the hunters of Kentucky. Refrain. You’ve heard, I s’pose, how New Orleans is fam’d for wealth and beauty— There’s girls of every hue it seems, from snowy white to sooty. So Packenham he made his brags, if he in fight was lucky, He’d have their girls and cotton bags in spite of old Kentucky. Refrain. But Jackson he was wide awake, and wasn’t scared at trifles, For well he knew what aim we take with our Kentucky rifles; So he led us down to Cypress swamp, the ground was low and mucky, There stood John Bull in martial pomp, and here was old Kentucky. Refrain. A bank was raised to hide our breast, not that we thought of dying, But that we always like to rest unless the game is flying; Behind it stood our little force, none wish’d it to be greater, For ev’ry man was half a horse and half an alligator. Refrain. They did not let our patience tire, before they show’d their faces— We did not choose to waste our fire, so snugly kept our places; But when so near to see them wink, we thought it time to stop ’em, And ’twould have done you good, I think, to see Kentuckians drop ’em. Refrain. They found, at last, ’twas vain to fight, where lead was all their booty, And so they wisely took to flight, and left us all our beauty, And now, if danger e’er annoys, remember what our trade is, Just send for us Kentucky boys, and we’ll protect ye, ladies. Refrain.98

“The Hunters of Kentucky” is featured with two other songs on this New York broadside of around the 1820s. The woodcut depicts Gen. Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans. From the Library of Congress.

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Strategically placed at the mouth of the great Mississippi River, the city of New Orleans was the site of prominent battles in both the War of 1812 and the Civil War. The former encounter took place on January 8, 1815, between some 6,500 American troops, commanded by General Andrew Jackson, and a British force of about 8,700 soldiers under the authority of General Sir Edward Packenham. Packenham had led a fleet of 50 ships into the Gulf of Mexico in the fall of 1814, with New Orleans in his eye. Jackson found out and quickly led his forces to the city’s defense on December 1. The Americans built such effective barricades and earthworks that the actual fighting lasted only half an hour before the British withdrew, suffering considerably more casualties than the Americans (more than 2,000 against only 71). As it happened, the battle was of no political consequence; peace talks had already been under way at Ghent for some time, and a treaty had been signed on December 24, but news, traveling slowly by boat, did not reach the fighting troops until after the battle’s conclusion. Several songs were written in commemoration of the great American victory, including “Hunters of Kentucky” by Massachusetts poet Samuel Woodworth (1784 –1842), who was already well known for his poem “The Old Oaken Bucket,” set to music in 1826 by G. F. Kiallmark to become one of the best-loved songs of the century. Woodworth’s lyrics credit the martial skills of the Kentucky riflemen for the unexpected American victory. More likely, it was the fact that the British, trying to cross a muddy plain and storm the American fortifications, were sitting ducks for the riflemen, who could hardly see well enough in the dense smoke and haze of the battle to shoot with great precision.99 It stands to reason that Woodworth would have penned his poem while the smell of gunsmoke was still thick in the moist New Orleans air. However, the good poet must have had his mind on more ethereal matters, inasmuch as he did not deign to leave any early tangible evidence (in the way of copyright or publication or other printed reference) of the poem’s genesis: the earliest dated publication is in the 1826 edition of his collection Melodies, where it appears with the instruction, “Air—Miss Bailey.”100 Where was it before then? As theatrical performer Noah Miller Ludlow (1795–1886) recalled much later, he was in New Orleans when, in May 1822, his brother had sent him a clipping from the New York Mirror with the text of Woodworth’s poem “Hunters of Kentucky.” Ludlow was about to give a benefit performance, and Woodworth’s poem struck his fancy, and he costumed himself “in a buckskin hunting-shirt and leggins, which I had borrowed of a river man, and with moccasins on my feet, and an old slouched hat on my head, and a rifle on my shoulder, I presented myself before the audience.” Ludlow’s performance was stunningly successful; in fact, he had to perform it two or three times over at every one of his appearances. Unfortunately, Mr. Ludlow’s recollections nearly six decades later must be somewhat befuddled here (as they have been shown to be elsewhere). The New York Mirror, and Lady’s Literary Gazette commenced publication on August 2, 1823, with Samuel Woodworth as its first editor until July 24, 1824. It stands to reason the poem, if published in the Mirror, would have appeared in that interval and no earlier. Nevertheless, Ludlow’s account was that he performed “Hunters” in New Orleans in May and then in Nashville during the summer of 1822, four times each week.101 To muddy waters further: musicologist S. Foster Damon wrote that Woodworth wrote his poem specifically for the performer Mr. Petrie.102 Indeed, the earliest sheet music, published (without date) by George Willig of Philadelphia, is captioned as follows:

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The Hunters of Kentucky, written by S. Woodworth, as Sung in Character by Mr. Petrie with unbounded applause at Chatham Garden Theatre, the Symphonies and Accompaniments by William Blondell.103

“Miss Bailey” is not mentioned, but the music provided by Mr. Blondell is certainly that well-known tune. Sheet music authority and publisher Harry Dichter, who reprinted the sheet music, tentatively dated it 1824, which others have accepted as reliable. Dichter may have based his date assignment on the fact that the new building, named the Chatham Garden Theatre, opened on May 17, 1824, and continued intermittently until 1828. (Mr. Petrie must have been one of the New York stage’s lesser luminaries; George Odell mentions his last name several times in his monumental Annals of the New York Stage, but never supplies a first name.) Although some anthologies date the song to 1815, the year of the events it concerns, the available evidence puts the song in the period 1822–1824,104 and the poem itself possibly earlier. In any event, the song’s wild popularity contributed significantly to pro-Jackson sentiment in 1828, when he ran successfully for president of the United States, and Wolfe suggested that, in fact, the song was written in support of Jackson’s earlier unsuccessful presidential campaign of 1824.105 Whatever the true genesis of Woodworth’s creation, it has long enjoyed a well-deserved popularity, owing as much to the poet’s consummate metrical pattern and perfect feminine rhymes as to the felicitous choice of tune. Colonel Sharp Come, gentlemen and ladies, and listen unto me, About a sad transaction which I will sing to thee; ’Tis of a brave young lawyer that lived in Kentucky state, And a true lover upon whom he patiently did wait. She said that she would marry him if he would avenge her heart Of an injury that had been done her by one named Colonel Sharp; She said that he had wronged her and brought her spirit low, And without satisfaction no pleasure could she know. He said, “My loving sweetheart, that’s pleasing talk to me, To kill a man that’s injured you I truly do feel free; For I never could expect you to become my wife, Unless I would protect you and surely take his life.” He made his preparations and unto Frankfort went, To kill this valiant colonel it was his full intent; He took him out to one side and gave to him a knife, But Sharp said I can’t fight you if this lady be your wife. He made a great endeavor to see him the next day, And hunted over Frankfort, but Sharp had gone away; He then returned to his love and told her what he had done, And they together both agreed to let him longer run.

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Within a few months after this couple they were wed, And then came thoughts of the colonel more strongly in their head; He said, “I’ll kill him secretly, then to my love I’ll return, When we’ll betake ourselves from here, in some other land sojourn.” She made a mask of black silk and put it on his head, That he might seem a negro as to the deed he sped; He moved along quite cautiously to get to Colonel Sharp, Then called him from his bedchamber and stabbed him to the heart. The lawyer made good his escape unto his loving wife, And told her how successfully he’d taken the colonel’s life; “As no one saw me do it and I made such haste to run, They cannot prove against me the deed that I have done.” She said, “My loving husband, you did just as you please, You’ve relieved me from much trouble and set my heart at ease, It is a great satisfaction for what the colonel done, And now we shall be happier, my best love you have won.” But justice followed on his track, they took him back again, Which turned the lady’s happiness and pleasure into pain; He was tried by judge and jury, and guilty he was found, Then taken to the prison house and in it he was bound. “Oh, my dear old father, do not troubled be, And you, my tender mother, give way to grief for me; For the laws of old Kentucky say that I must surely die, And leave my friends and kindred to meet my destiny. “And you, my own, my dearest wife, come stay a while with me, For soon I shall be called away into eternity; May heaven kindly bless you while here on earth you stay, And all my friends protect you and help you on your way.” She cried, “My dear, good husband, how can it ever be? And this our greatest trouble was caused by me; I always will be with you while on this earth you stay, And when the horrid deed is done, lie with you in the clay.” She had prepared a trusty knife, and made it very sharp, And while they thus together talked she stabbed it to her heart; Then gave it to her husband to follow the same course, But as he made a second thrust she warded off its force. The hour was drawing on apace, the execution near, While in his arms close folded he held the wife so dear, Bewailing the sad fortune which had become her part, While steadily the life blood was flowing from her heart. At last the appointed hour arrived—he from the gallows swung, And all around his friends deplored the crime that he had done; Had been the cause of misery to all in him concerned, To prove his tenderness to her for whom his bosom yearned.106 The killing on which this ballad is based occurred in Frankfort in 1824. . . . Jereboam O. Beauchamp, a young student of law living in Glasgow, Ky., learned from a fellow-student that Col. Sol. P. Sharp,

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under whom Beauchamp expected to study law, had been guilty of seducing Miss Ann Cook. He conceived at once a contempt for Sharp, and through sympathy for the girl sought her acquaintance. He soon fell in love with Miss Cook, and asked her to marry him. She made one condition, that he kill Sharp. He agreed to the condition and tried to make Sharp fight. Sharp refused and kept out of Beauchamp’s way. Beauchamp made all his neighbors believe that he and his wife (the two had married in the mean time) were going to move to Missouri. He arranged that just before his proposed departure urgent business should take him to Frankfort, where Sharp held the position of attorneygeneral. Beauchamp, having disguised himself as a negro, called Sharp out of his home at night and killed him. He then sunk his disguise in the river, and, having put on his own clothes again, slipped back into his hotel. On the next day he returned to his home; but he was suspected, arrested, and convicted. He and his wife both tried to commit suicide by drinking poison. The wife died of the poison one hour after the husband was executed for his deed.107

The author of the ballad is not known, nor is Wehman’s source for the text given here; this suggests that a broadside copy was in circulation in the nineteenth century. The ballad follows the facts fairly closely, except in the significant detail of the chosen manner of suicide. Two other ballads about the affair were collected in Kentucky in the early 1900s.108 While in prison, Beauchamp wrote a lengthy confession.109 Several pieces of American literature were based on this episode, including Edgar Allen Poe’s fragmentary tragedy “Politian” and Robert Penn Warren’s novel World Enough and Time.110 My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night! The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home, ’Tis summer, the darkies are gay; The corn top’s ripe, and the meadow’s in the bloom. While the birds make music all the day. The young folks roll on the little cabin-floor, All merry, all happy and bright; By’n by Hard Times comes a-knocking at the door: Then, my old Kentucky home, good-night! Chorus: Weep no more, my lady, Oh! weep no more to-day! We will sing one song For the old Kentucky home, For the old Kentucky home, far away. They hunt no more for the possum and the coon On the meadow, the hill and the shore, They sing no more, by the glimmer of the moon, On the bench by the old cabin-door. The day goes by, like a shadow o’er the heart, With sorrow, where all was delight; The time has come, when the darkies have to part: Then, my old Kentucky home, good-night! Chorus. The head must bow and the back will bend, Wherever the darkey may go: A few more days, and the trouble all will end In the field where the sugar-canes grow.

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A few more days for to tote the weary load, No matter, ’twill never be light, A few more days till we’ll totter on the road, Then my old Kentucky home, good-night! Chorus.111

Stephen Collins Foster (1826–1864) was America’s most successful popular songwriter of the nineteenth century and the composer whose songs remain more familiar, a century

This sheet music to Foster’s “My Old Kentucky Home” (1853) was labeled number 20 in the series, Foster’s Plantation Melodies. Author’s collection.

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and a half after his early death in a hospital charity ward from fever, alcohol, and depression, than any others of that century. Born in what is now Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Foster was thoroughly a Northerner (in spite of one trip he made to the South), but his lyrics capture the ethos of antebellum Southern culture as did no one else’s. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that his lyrics created the ethos of a culture, rather than simply reflecting it: Foster’s South was the land Anglo Americans desperately wanted to believe in—where “darkies” were faithful to and loved their masters, and their masters, in turn, treated them as they would their own children—with only love and respect. “My Old Kentucky Home” speaks of hard times, of the end of the good old days—but it is not an end brought about by emancipation or abolition: his song was written in 1853, when the storm clouds of war were scarcely predictable. In fact, “My Old Kentucky Home,” “Old Folks at Home,” and possibly others were inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s powerful and influential novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. His first draft of the song is titled “Poor Uncle Tom, Good Night,” and the chorus reads Oh good night, good night, good night Poor uncle Tom Grieve not for your old Kentucky home Your bound for a better land Old Uncle Tom.112

Foster soon realized that the sentiments of his song had nothing in common with the spirit of Stowe’s story, and he obliterated the tenuous connections. Kentucky has honored Foster’s memory by making this the official state song. Cumberland Gap The first white man in Cumberland Gap, Was Doctor Walker, an English chap; Refrain: Lay down boys and take a little nap, They’re raising hell in Cumberland Gap. Daniel Boone on the Pinnacle Rock, He killed Indians with an old flint lock. Refrain. Cumberland Gap is a noted place, There’s three kinds of water to wash your face. Cumberland Gap with its cliffs and rocks, Home of the panther, bear and fox. Me and my wife, and our little chap, All made a living in Cumberland Gap. September morn in Sixty-two, Morgan’s “Yankee” all withdrew. They spiked Long Tom on the mountain top, And over the cliffs they let him drop. They burned the hay, the meal and meat, And left the rebels nothing to eat. Braxton Bragg with his rebel band, He run George Morgan to the bluegrass land. The rebels now will give their yell, They’ll scare the niggers all to hell.113

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This common banjo and fiddle tune was widely known in the Southeast, especially around Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Harvey Fuson, who published the preceding version, considered it a square dance tune. Simple as it is, musically and textually, it holds a fair amount of early history of the Cumberland region. Located near the meeting place of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee, between Middlesboro, Kentucky, and Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, the gap was the principal passage from across the Alleghen