Minnesota - evergreentrad

23 Aug

Just Twenty Years Ago

I wandered to the village, Tom, and sat beneath the tree,
Upon the school house playing ground, that sheltered you and me,
But none were there to greet me, Tom, and few were left to know,
Who played with me upon the green, just twenty years ago.

The grass is just as green, dear Tom; barefooted boys at play,
Were sporting just as we were then, with spirits just as gay,
But the master sleeps upon the hill, which, coated o’er with snow,
Afforded us a sliding place, just twenty years ago.

The river’s running just as still, the willows on its side,
Are larger than they were, dear Tom, the stream appears less wide
The grape vine swing is ruined now, where once we played the beau,
And swung our sweethearts—pretty girls—just twenty years ago.

The old school house is altered some, the benches are replaced,
By others very like the ones our penknives had defaced,
The same old bricks are in the walls, the bell swings to and fro,
Its music’s just as sweet, dear Tom, as twenty years ago.

The spring that bubbled ‘neath the hill, close by the spreading beach,
Is very high—’twas once so low—that I could scarcely reach,
And stooping down to get a drink, dear Tom, I started so!
To see how much that I was changed, since twenty years ago.

Close by this spring, upon an elm, you know I cut your name,
Your sweetheart’s just beneath it, Tom, and you did mine the same,
Some heartless wretch has peeled the bark, ’tis dying sure, but slow,
Upon the graves of those we loved, just twenty years ago.

My heart was very sad, dear Tom, and tears came in my eyes,
I though[t] of her I loved so well, those early broken ties,
I visited the old churchyard, and took some flowers to strew,
Upon the graves of those we loved, just twenty years ago.

Some now in that churchyard lay, some sleep beneath the sea,
But few are left of our old class, excepting you and me,
And when our time shall come, dear Tom, and we are called to go,
I hope they’ll lay us where we played, just twenty years ago.

Roud no: 765

We return this month to the book Jim’s Western Gems, a collection of songs and poems self-published in Minneapolis in 1913 by James J. Somers, a second-generation Irish-American born in the Georgian Bay region of Ontario. I shared five of Somers’ own compositions last year but the (text-only) book also includes some traditional songs including the above text.

Edward “Sandy” Ives collected the nostalgic “Twenty Years Ago” from John Banks of Prince Edward Island in 1968 and published that version in the book Drive Dull Care Away. Banks used a version of the “Banks of the Nile” melody for the song. “Banks of the Nile” was sung in Minnesota by Michael Dean so, above, I have wed the Somers text with Dean’s melody for a fully Minnesotan version!

The song is likely of American origin and it appears in published song books at least as early as 1859.

22 Aug

Once More A-Lumbering Go

Come all you sons of freedom in Minnesot-i-ay,
Come all you roving lumberjacks and listen to my strain,
On the banks of the Rum River where the limpid waters flow,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go,

And once more a lumbering go,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go.

With our cross-cut saws and axes we will make the woods resound,
And many a tall and stately tree will come crashing to the ground,
With cant-hooks on our shoulders to our boot tops deep in snow,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go,

And once more a lumbering go,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go.

You may talk about your farms, your houses and fine places,
But pity not the shanty boys while dashing on their sleigh,
For around the good campfire at night we’ll sing while wild winds blow,
And we’ll range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go,

And once more a-lumbering go,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go.

Then when navigation opens and the water runs so free,
We’ll drive logs to St. Anthony once more our girls to see,
They will all be there to welcome us and our hearts in rapture flow,
We will stay with them through summer then once more a-lumbering go,

And once more a-lumbering go,
We will stay with them through summer, then once more a-lumbering go.

When our youthful days are ended and our stories are growing old,
We’ll take to us each man a wife and settle on the farm,
Enough to eat, to drink, to wear; content through life we go,
We will tell our wives of our hard times, and no more a-lumbering go,

And no more a-lumbering go,
We will tell our wives of our hard times, and no more a-lumbering go.

I am working this month with St. Paul playwright Jeremiah Gamble of the Bucket Brigade Theater on a new play called Shanty Boys of Pine County that will feature songs and stories from my research. One song we were considering for the play is “Once More A-Lumbering Go” (sometimes called “The Logger’s Boast”) as recorded by Alan Lomax in St. Louis, Michigan in 1938 from the singing of Carl Lathrop. I learned Lathrop’s version years ago. It features place names of the Saginaw area and, as I am always drawn to Minnesota-specific songs, I stopped singing it at some point.

Much to my delight, when I started looking around for other versions, I came across a fragment localized to the Rum River here in Minnesota! It turns up in an intriguing article published April 27, 1947 in the Minneapolis Journal about the establishment here of a Folk Arts Foundation of Minnesota. The article references the Finnish and Scots Gaelic songs recorded by Sidney Robertson in northeastern Minnesota (see Laura MacKenzie’s wonderful From Uig to Duluth project!) and calls for more field recording to be done in Minnesota.

The article includes a fragment of “Once More A-Lumbering Go” submitted by Elizabeth Sadley of Minneapolis. Sadley writes:

…I am sending you the words, as far as I can recall, of a lumberjack song that my mother used to sing.

My mother has been dead several years, and the verses here are only a fragment of the entire song. Perhaps some one of my mother’s generation can complete the words. The tune is very simple.

My family moved to Princeton, Minn., about 1875. My father operated two grist mills and supplied the lumber camps in the Mille Lac lake area. This song was sung by the lumberjacks who floated the logs down both branches of the Rum river to the saw mills.

Sadley’s fragment is lines 3 & 4 of the first and last verses above along with the chorus of verse one. I created lines 1 & 2 of the first and fourth verses to further localize the song to the Rum River story and transcribed the rest of the text and melody from Lomax’s recording of Lathrop.

01 Sep

Mickey Free

I’m from the town of Bangor
Down in the state of Maine,
A native American Irishman,
That spakes the English plain;
I landed in Stillwater town
In the year of fifty-three,
Me arm was strong, me heart was warm,
And me courage bould and free.

It’s on the Boom I sarved me time—
Wid corporation fare,
Plenty to eat sich as it was,
And something I had to wear;
And I’ve worked the Namekagon
In ould Schulenburg’s employ,
And on the Clam and Yellow rivers
For the valiant Bob Malloy.

And I’ve camped among the wigwams,
On Totogatic’s shore,
Where I held me own with Whalen,
Jim Crotty and George Moore;
And I worked wid Pease and Jackman
In the year of seventy-four,
And when ould Dan, he shelled the Pease,
I heard the cannons roar.

And on the Namekagon drive
With Tom Mackey I have been,
Where I fought the great Tom Haggerty—
While Bill Hanson stood between;
And I fought with big John Mealey—
And might have won the day,
If bould Jake Resser had been there
And seen I had fair play.

And I’ve been at stoppin’ places,
When travellin’ on my way,
Where gray backs big as June bugs
Were thick as flowers in May;
And I’ve been with ould man Greeley
Upon the St. Croix drive;
Where misketeys big as hummin’ birds—
Used to ate the min alive.

And I might have been a partner
With Ike Staples in the mill,
Or at least a boss for Louie
Or ould New Brunswick Bill;
But I’m always weak with wimmin—
Let them be wives or maids,
They may be fair and pretty
Or black as the ace of spades.

And they’ve broke me heart entirely—
Nary a cint’s forninst me name,
I may work for Dunn or Crotty
It’s always just the same,
But I’m thinkin’ to turn farmer
And forget me early days,
Take “homestead” up in Bashaw
Where I’m sure to mend me ways.

This song tells the story of St. Croix Valley timber cruiser Ed Hart (~1830-1900). Born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, Hart moved to Bangor, Maine as a young man before continuing to Stillwater, Minnesota where he became a cruiser (someone who surveyed timberlands for lumber companies). The song was written by William Young, a US government agent sent to the St. Croix in the 1870s to investigate illegal logging. Young befriended Hart, who took him along on his timber cruising trips where they traveled 30 miles a day on snowshoes and slept out under the stars in the middle of winter. Young was so impressed by his rugged friend that he composed this ballad based on Hart’s life.

The text above is taken word-for-word from James Taylor Dunn’s book The St. Croix: Midwest Border River complete with its many “Irish-American dialect” words (ould, misketeys, etc.) It is unclear what Dunn’s source was for the song though he says it “made its first known appearance at Taylors Falls early in 1878 and was widely repeated up and down the valley.” I also found proof of the song entering the oral tradition in the St. Croix. In an interview at the Minnesota Historical Society, Maggie Orr-O’Neill, whose father owned camps on the Wisconsin side of the Valley, remembered hearing local “red shirts” (river drivers) sing the verse about “mosquitoes big as hummingbirds.”

I sang a version of this song for my Minnesota Lumberjack Songs album where I skipped verse four and changed the end of verse six. (I sing: “The fair ones and the cruel ones with hearts as black as spades.”) The crass racial undertones at the end of verse six as printed by Dunn could have stemmed from songwriter Young’s discomfort with Ed Hart’s Ojibwe wife Me-dwe-a-shi-kwe. Hart and Me-dwe-a-shi-kwe married in 1871 and, as the last verse says, homesteaded in Bashaw, Wisconsin where they raised a family.

The Namekagan, Clam, Yellow and Totogatic are all rivers and streams in northwestern Wisconsin. Schulenburg, Bob Malloy, old man Greeley (Elam Greeley), Ike Staples (Isaac Staples), Louie (Louis Torinus) and New Brunswick Bill (William Chalmers) were a sort of who’s who of the mid-1800s logging industry in the St. Croix. “Dan he shelled the Pease” is a pun on a violent dispute between Dan E. Smith and the Pease and Jackman logging company in 1874. Graybacks are bedbugs.

I have been unable to find the original melody for this song and I have tried a few different options over the years. Above, I have married the text to a melody used by Newfoundland singer Mike Molloy for a popular north woods song called “My Good-Looking Man.”