Farewell, old boat, and precious freight, McKay and his staunch, strong crew, No more at home shall the cargo wait, For loved ones to come with you. The work she did no other would do, Success would the effort crown, But oh! the anguish of waiting hearts, When the Manistee went down.
CHORUS: Oh! God, it must have been dreadful, To freeze and then to drown, In a storm on Lake Superior, When the Manistee went down.
Fond memory oft will picture here still, Her cabins and decks grow dear, In a storm that made every fiber thrill, McKay spoke words of cheer. Farewell, old boat, and gallant crew, Love will your memories crown, Bot, oh! the darkness, pain and grief, When the Manistee went down.
Another scene of horror, Came when this deep, cold lake, The schooner M. A. Hulbert, with, Twenty brave, strong men, did take. It was next they should lie beneath the wave, When her ballast above were o’er, But we long the helpless ones to save, Whose voices we hear no more.
We have another song this month from the pen of James J. Somers who came to Duluth at age 17 from the Georgian Bay region of Ontario. He was in Duluth in November 1883 when the packet steamer Manistee left Duluth harbor for Ontonagon, Michigan never to return. Tragedy struck again that December when the schooner Mary Ann Hulbert, also out of Duluth, sank near St. Ignace Island at the northern end of Lake Superior.
As with most other songs in Somers’ book, he left us no melody for this one. Andy Irvine’s version of Pat Reilly came into my head when I was looking at Somers’ text so I have tried to adapt it to that melody here. I made a few edits to Somers’ words. The original, along with the rest of his book “Jim’s Western Gems” is available in digital form via archive.org.
To tell the truth I came to Duluth in eighteen eighty-two, The Windsor was the best hotel on Superior Avenue, I walked right in to the lion’s den, the Gilbreths kept the joint, Then nix come arouse to the Cap Norris house or Minnesota Point.
It may seem queer but I did not hear of any iron range, But the big pine trees, bent to the breeze; oh, mister, what a change, No ore docks then but now, gentlemen, look up along the bay, See the docks of ore, hear the whistles roar, as the big boats steam away.
No big flour mills high as the hills; no Duluth Board of Trade, Just two elevators and no speculators—the wheat was just one grade, No electric light, to daze the sight; no monster areal bridge, No electric railway across St. Louis bay; no incline up the ridge.
No Lester park to spoon in the dark; no big automobiles, Not even a bike—every man did hike; them days we eat [ate?] square meals, A restaurant or boarding house looked good, but by the way, They are now out of date—we all want to eat at the St. Louis big, swell cafe.
Just one main road was all we had, and the scally to St. Paul. Every man used an axe; we had no whalebacks—McDougall and Hill looked small. But Jim Hill has growed [sic], he controls [sic] each road, down east and way out West, And they tell me he controls the sea—ask Jim, he can tell you best.
I remember quite well and in song I tell how the Manistee went down, With Catain [sic] McKay and crew that sailed from the Zenith Town, And the Hulbert too sank with her crew far out from any shore, In the water’s deep they all do sleep—we shall never see them more.
I miss each one of my old friends gone, tho [sic] many still remain, Soon we shall meet each other to greet [sic], tho we must part again, This spring I’ll call and see you all and view your city grand, They say you’ve growed beyond Herman town road and you are still annexing land.
We return this month to this fascinating 1913 book of songs and poems by James J. Somers for one of his several lyrics set in Duluth. Like “The Zenith of the West” that I wrote about a couple months ago, “Duluth in Eighty-Two” is chock full of interesting details about Duluth in the late 1800s. We have Lester Park and the aerial bridge here again along with the “incline”—Duluth’s dramatic Incline Railway that was built in 1891 and gave easy access to the city’s beautiful Superior view.
The tragic shipwrecks of the Manistee and Hulbert both happened in 1883, soon after Somers arrived in town (he wrote another song entirely about the wrecks that I’ll share later). The Captain [Michael] Norris, mentioned in the first verse here, was a survivor of the 1874 Superior shipwreck of the Lotta Bernard.
“Duluth in Eighty-Two” also presents some unfamiliar slang. I haven’t figured out what the “scally to St. Paul” might have been (train? stagecoach?). “Nix come arouse” in the first verse was new to me too. Fred L. Holmes, in Old World Wisconsin, writes that, in German Milwaukee “’nix come erous’ is a customary byword for [the German] ‘nichts kommt heraus.’” The September 23, 1937 Perry Daily Journal of Perry, Oklahoma translates the original German phrase “nichts kommt heraus” as “nothing comes forth” but says that in the early 1800s the phrase became vulgarized in German America to “nix come erous” with the meaning shifting to “there’s nothing to it.” H.L. Mencken, in The American Language called nix come erous a German loan-phrase “in decay” that (in 1921) was “familiar to practically all Americans.”
Since Somers’ book does not provide any melodies, I used a tune collected by Franz Rickaby in 1920s Eau Claire from Elide Marceau Fox who used it for the song “Johanna Shay.” I think it fits “Duluth in Eighty-Two” quite well.
By trait I’m a raftman, where the white waters roll, My name is engraved on each rock and sand stone, From Greenvill to Grandvill I am very well known, My name is Jack Hagidy the pride of the town.
My troubles I will tell you without any delay, Of a dear little damsel my heart stole away, She was the black’s Smith only daughter by the flat River side, And I always intended for to make her my bride.
I dressed her in jewels embroiderys and lace, And the costliest velvet her eyes could embrace, I took her to dances to parties and Balls, And Sundays boat riding where the white waters roll.
I worked on the River till I made quite a stake, I was sturdy and steadfast neither gambled nor drank, I gave her my wages the same to keep safe, I begrudged that girl nothing that I had on this earth.
One day in Plat River a letter I received, Saying defy all good promises, my self I realise, She was married to another not long delay, And the next time I saw her she would ne’er be a maid.
Her mother Jane Tucker I lay all the blame, She has caused her to leave me and blackened my name, She has cast off the rigens that God soon would tie, And have left me a rambler untill the day that I die.
Not it is here in Plat River for me there’s no rest, I will sholder my Pevie and I will go West, I will go to mont Sagin [?] toward the red setting sun, Leave behind me Plat River and the false hearted one.
Now come all ye bold Raftmen with hearts brave and true, Don’t depend on a women for your left if you do, And when that you see one with chestnut brown curls, Just think of Jack Hagidy and the Plat River girl.
Over the last 17 years I have performed Minnesota-sourced folksongs in over a hundred venues spread over 32 counties in Minnesota, primarily with Randy Gosa as The Lost Forty. I love bringing these songs back to the communities they came from and, occasionally, an audience member will share a story of music in their own family with me after the show.
In 2022, Eleanor Hall of Clearbrook, Minnesota found me after a performance in Shevlin to tell me about a handwritten songbook kept by her mother Alma Pitsenburg Doten. Alma was born in 1904 in Moose Creek Township, 12 miles west of where I grew up on Grant Lake west of Bemidji! This April, I was able to meet up with Eleanor and make scans of her mother’s fascinating book. There are over one hundred songs written in pencil in an old ledger book kept with love and reverence all these years.
Alma Pitsenburg Doten. Photo courtesy Eleanor Hall.
I was delighted to find a few lumberjack ballads in Alma’s book. “Jack Haggerty” was the first song in Franz Rickaby’s 1926 book Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy. Rickaby wrote that the song “is native to the Flat River in southern Michigan” and that it “was a great shanty favorite and is still widely met with in the Lake states.” Rickaby printed four versions of the song including two collected from Bemidji-based singers. Alma called the song “By Trait I’m a Raftman.”
First page of “By Trait I’m a Raftman as it appears in the Alma Pitsenburg Doten book.
Above, I have transcribed Alma Pitsenburg Doten’s text complete with some irregular spellings found in her songbook. I matched it with a rather unique (and nice!) variant of the song’s melody recorded by Helen Hartness Flanders from the singing of Jack McNally at Stacyville, Maine in 1942. The McNally recording is available online via archive.org.
