Tag Archives: Minnesota

31 Oct

Young Monroe

Come all you jolly shanty boys, wherever you may be,
I hope you’ll pay attention and listen unto me,
Concerning a young shanty boy so manfully and brave,
It was on a jam at Garray’s rocks where he met with a watery grave.

It was on a Sunday morning as you will quickly hear,
Our logs were piling mountain high, we could not keep them clear,
When the boss he cries, “Turn out, me boys, with hearts devoid of fear,
To break the jam on Garry’s rocks and for Eagantown we’ll steer.”

Some of them were willing, while others they hung back,
To work upon a Sunday they did not think was right,
Until six of our young Canadians they volunteered to go,
And break the jam on Garry’s rocks with their foreman, young Munroe.

They had not rolled off many logs when the boss to them did say,
“I would have you to be on your guard, for this jam will soon give way.”
Those words were scarcely spoken when the jam did break and go,
And carried away those six young men with their foreman, young Munroe.

When the rest of those young shanty boys they came, the news to hear,
In search of their dead bodies for the river they did steer,
When one of their lifeless bodies found to their sad grief and woe,
All cut and mangled on the rocks was the form of young Munroe.

They took him from his watery grave, combed down his coal-black hair,
There was one fair form among them whose cries did rend the air;
There was one fair form among them, a girl from Saginaw town,
Her tears and cries would rend the skies for her lover that was drowned.

Miss Clara was a noble girl, likewise a raftsman’s friend,
Her mother was a widow living by the river’s bend,
The wages of her own true love the boss to her did pay,
And a liberal subscription she received from the shanty boys next day.

They took and buried him decently, being on the tenth of May,
And the rest of you young shanty boys, it’s for your comrade pray!
It is engraved on a little hemlock tree, close by his head it does grow,
The day and date of the drowning of this hero, young Munroe.

Miss Clara did not survive long to her sad grief and woe;
It was less than two weeks after she, too, was called to go,
It was less than two weeks after she, too, was called to go,
And her last request was granted her, to be laid by young Munroe.

Now, any of you shanty boys that would like to go and see,
On a little mound by the river side there grows a hemlock tree;
The shanty boy cuts the woods all round, two lovers here lie low,
Here lies Miss Clara Dennison and her lover, young Munroe.

This month marks the 100-year anniversary of Irish-Minnesotan singer Michael Cassius Dean sending a copy of his song book, The Flying Cloud, to song collector Robert Winslow Gordon. Accompanied by a brief note on a postcard featuring Virginia, Minnesota’s 10-year-old high school building, this parcel led to one of the earliest audio recordings of traditional music in Minnesota. Twelve months later, inspired by this collection of 166 songs from Dean’s repertoire, Gordon went in search of Dean with his wax cylinder recording machine in tow.

Dean’s version of “Young Monroe” was one of the songs recorded by Gordon in September 1924 and the above transcription is my own made from the Gordon recording. The full text above comes from Dean’s book.

“Young Monroe,” often titled “The Jam at Gerry’s Rocks,” was one of the most widely sung come-all-ye type songs about logging work. Versions were collected all over the US and Canada. For a nice recording, check out this one of Ted Ashlaw. Ashlaw lived in a similar part of northern New York to where Dean grew up and his melody, though similar to Dean’s, has some nice twists to it.

31 Oct

Ye Noble Sons of Canardie

Come all you loyal Britons I pray you lend an ear,
Draw up your loyal forces and then your volunteers,
Oh we’re going to fight those Yankee boys, by water and by land,
And we never will return till we conquer swords in hand.
Oh you noble sons of Canardie, come to arms boys come.

O now the time has come, my boys, to cross the Yankee 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.
Oh you noble sons of Canardie, come to arms boys come.

I’d rather fight the biggest fleet that ever crossed the seas,
Than twenty of those Yankee boys behind their stumps and trees,
For from hedges and from ditches and from every tree and stump,
You can see those sons of b—— those cursed Yankees jump.
Oh we’ve got too far from Canardie, run for life, boys, run.

O Prevost 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’ll flog us two to one, I think we’d better run.
Oh we’ve got too far from Canardie, run for life, boys, run.

The old ’76s marching forth, on crutches they do lean,
With their rifles leveled at us with their specs they take good aim,
And you know there’s no retreat for those who’d rather die than run,
Make no doubt that these are those that conquered John Burgoyne.
Oh we’ve got too far from Canardie, run for life, boys, run.

We’ve reached the British ground, my boys, we’ll have a day of rest,
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,
If ever I fight the Yankees more, I’ll surely stay at home.
Now we’ve got back to Canardie, stay at home, boys, stay.

A health to all the British troops, likewise general Prevost,
A health to all our families, and the girls that we love most,
To MacDonough and Macomb, and to every Yankee boy,
Now boys fill up your tumblers for I never was so dry.  
Now we’ve got back to Canardie, stay at home, boys, stay.

For this month’s song, we revisit the repertoire of the Phillips family of Chamberlain, Minnesota for a song about the Battle of Plattsburg during the War of 1812. Collector Robert Winslow Gordon recorded three verses (verses 1, 3 and 5 above) from the Phillips family in September 1924. Interestingly, he chose to record just one verse a-piece from brothers Reuben and Seymore and Reuben’s son Israel. The melody above is my transcription based on the three recordings which are quite similar in melody. Verses 2, 4, 6 and 7 above were taken from an 18 verse printed broadside of the song.

“Canardie” is a poetic reworking of “Canada” and the Phillips family had a close connection to the British invasion, via Canada, of northern New York during the War of 1812. According to Early History of the Town of Hopkinton [NY], Seymour and Reuben’s maternal grandfather Samuel Goodell (1778-1822) was briefly taken prisoner during a British Army raid on Hopkinton, New York’s ample flour supply in February 1814. The nearby Battle of Plattsburgh described in the song proved to be the decisive Yankee victory in the war. The song, though told from the British perspective, is clearly a Yankee composition.

The final verse mentions the two Irish-American military leaders credited with the Plattsburgh victory: US Army Brigadier General Alexander Macomb and naval Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough. Macomb’s father was from Ballynure, County Antrim and Macdonough’s great-grandfather hailed from Leixlip, County Kildare.

Broadside woodcut courtesy of Toronto Public Library’s Digital Archive Ontario
13 Jun

Jack Rogers

Come, all you tender Christians, I hope you will lend ear,
And likewise pay attention to those few lines you’ll hear,
For the murder of Mr. Swanton I am condemned to die,
On the twelfth day of November upon the gallows high.

My name it is Jack Rogers, a name I’ll ne’er deny,
Which leaves my aged parents in sorrow for to cry,
It’s little did they ever think, all in my youthful bloom,
That I would come unto New York to meet my awful doom.

My parents reared me tenderly as you can plainly see,
And constant good advice they used to give to me,
They told me to shun night walking and all bad company,
Or state’s prison or the gallows would be the doom of me.

But it was in play houses and saloons I used to take delight,
And constantly my comrades they would me there invite,
I oft times was told by them that the use of knives was free,
And I might commit some murder and hanged I ne’er would be.

As Mr. Swanton and his wife were walking down the street,
All in a drunken passion I chanced them for to meet,
I own they did not harm me, the same I’ll ne’er deny,
But Satan being so near me, I could not pass them by.

I staggered up against him, ’twas then he turned around,
Demanding half the sidewalk, also his share of ground,
’Twas then I drew that fatal knife and stabbed him to the heart,
Which caused that beloved wife from her husband there to part.

It was then I went to Trenton, thinking to escape,
But the hand of Providence was before me, indeed I was too late,
It was there I was taken prisoner and brought unto the Toombs,
For to die upon the gallows, all in my youthful bloom.

I am thankful to the sheriff, who has been so kind to me,
Likewise my worthy counsellors, who thought to set me free,
And also to the clergyman, who brought me in mind to bear,
For to die a true penitent I solemnly do declare.

The day of my execution it was heartrending to see,
My sister came from Jersey to take farewell of me,
She threw herself into my arms and bitterly did cry,
Saying, “My well beloved brother, this day you have to die.”

And now my joys are ended, from this wide world I must part,
For the murder of Mr. Swanton I’m sorry to the heart;
Come, all you young ambitious youths, a warning take from me,
Be guided by your parents and shun bad company.

Sometimes doing the research into an old song’s background unlocks emotional weight that is hard to access from the words and melody alone. I found that to be the case with this grim ballad that was sung by Minnesotan Michael Dean, printed in his 1922 songster The Flying Cloud and subsequently recorded from Dean’s singing by Robert Winslow Gordon in 1924.

When I first came across it, it seemed like a tragedy in the form of a classic Irish come-all-ye like “The Croppy Boy” but without a noble cause behind the punished crime. It turns out that “Jack Rogers” describes a real and widely-publicized New York City murder from October 1857. Though there is no worthy motive here, the song sheds light on the hard and sometimes violent culture of Irish immigrant youths who came to New York in the wake of the Great Hunger.

Newspapers of the time reported that the “respectable old gentleman” John Swanston was returning from a market on a Sunday evening with his wife when they met three young Irish “loungers about the corners” at the corner of 10th Avenue and 21st Street. One of the three, 19-year-old Irish immigrant James Rodgers, allegedly provoked Swanston by letting his elbow stick out and hit him. An altercation ensued in which Swanston was fatally stabbed. Rodgers fled to a sister’s home in New Jersey but was apprehended and jailed in The Tombs – the Manhattan House of Detention of that time. After many appeals and much publicity, Rodgers was sentenced and hanged at The Tombs on November 12th, 1858.

Rodgers maintained throughout his captivity that he remembered nothing of the crime. This was generally attributed in the press, and in the subsequent ballad, to his being heavily intoxicated under the encouragement of his two friends. The song’s admonition to “shun bad company” sums up the newspapers’ take on the crime and the song could well have been written by someone who had access to the November 13th, 1858 New York Herald which lays this all out in detail.

Articles also talk about how exceptionally young, gentle and handsome Rodgers was and that he was always restrained and, if anything, sad when interviewed. He was well-loved by his family and the newspaper descriptions of their heartbroken hysteria at his execution are painful to read 115 years later. It is easy to see how the story inspired public sympathy. A prominent author of the time, Caroline Kirkland, even lobbied New York’s governor in hopes of staying the execution. In the end, Rodgers’ fate was held up as a warning to other potentially violent young men on New York’s streets.

The Library of Congress has a broadside ballad sheet of “The Lamentation of James Rodgers” that is clearly a match for the version sung by Michael Dean. Dean’s version (where the names have changed somewhat) is one of only a couple found in circulation among US singers. Another version was collected in Newfoundland and, interestingly, two versions turned up in Ireland. Sam Henry’s unpublished collection has one from the north and a snippet of a version from Kerry can be heard via the Muckross House Research Library site online.

Also, this is a good blog post about the James Rodgers crime and execution.