Ontario - evergreentrad

22 May

Lost Jimmie Whalen

Slowly and sadly I strayed by the river,
A-watching the sunbeams as evening drew nigh,
All alone as I rambled I spied a fair damsel,
She was weeping and wailing with many a sigh.

Sighing for one who is now lying lonely,
Mourning for one who no mortal can save,
As the dark foaming waters flow sadly around her,
As onward they roll o’er young Jimmie’s grave.

“Jimmie,” said she, “won’t you come to my arms,
And give me sweet kisses as oft times you gave?
You promised you’d meet me this evening my darling,
O come dearest Jimmie, love, come from the grave!”

Slowly there rose from the depths of the river,
A vision of beauty far fairer than sun,
While red robes of crimson encircled around him,
Unto this fair maiden to speak he’s begun.

“Why did you rise me from the realms of glory,
Back to this place where I once had to leave?
To clasp you once more in my fond loving arms?
To see you once more I have come from my grave.”

“Jimmie” said she, “why not stay on earth with me,
Don’t leave me here for to weep and to rave,
But if you won’t mind me and bide here beside me,
Oh Jimmy take me to your cold silent grave.”

“Darling to me you are asking a favor
That no earthy mortal can grant unto thee.
For death is the dagger that holds us asunder,
And wide is the gulf, love, between you and me.”

“One fond embrace, love, and then I must leave you
One loving kiss, pet, and then we must part.”
And cold were the arms he encircled around her,
While cold was the bosom she pressed to her heart.

Then straightway the vision did vanish before her,
Straightway to the sky he then seemed to go,
Leaving his loved one distracted and lonely,
Weeping and wailing in sadness and woe.

Throwing herself on the banks of the river,
Weeping and wailing her poor heart would break,
Sighing “My loved one, my lost Jimmie Whalen,
I will lie down and die by the side of your grave.”

Norah Rendell and I have been singing this beautiful song for several years but somehow it has never made it onto Northwoods Songs!

It is one of two songs that commemorate the tragic drowning of a raftsman named James Phalen around 1878 in Ontario. Collector Franz Rickaby, who prints both songs in his book Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy, corresponded with multiple informants who knew the details of the Phalen drowning. It happened at King’s Chute on Ontario’s Mississippi River–a tributary of the Ottawa where the rafting crew was working for a boss named Peter McLaren who went on to be a senator. Phalen and two others were attempting to break a log jam at the “Upper Falls” section of the Chute. Phalen fell in and was swept under the logs.

Rickaby’s informants told him that the other popular “Whalen” song, “Jim Whalen,” was definitely based on the Phalen tragedy (apparently the name was pronounced “Whalen” in that part of Ontario). They said it was written and sung “with much pathos” by a local songsmith in Lanark, Ontario named John Smith.

Rickaby was not certain that the ghost-visiting narrative of “Lost Jimmie Whalen” referred to the same drowning victim as the more journalistic “Jim Whalen.” Rickaby collected only a three verse fragment “Lost Jimmie Whalen” from Will Daugherty of Charlevoix, Michigan in 1919. A version collected in the 1950s in Ontario from Martin Sullivan by Edith Fowke clearly makes the Phalen connection by including an additional verse:

“Hard, hard were the struggles on the cruel Mississippi,
But encircled around her on every side,
Thinking of you as we conquered them bravely,
I was hoping some day for to make you my bride.”

The above-transcribed melody comes from yet another Great Lakes region singer named Robert Walker who lived in Crandon, Wisconsin (Walker’s version appears on this wonderful Folkways album). Walker’s melody, a relative of the one frequently used for “Lass of Glenshee,” is similar to that used by Sullivan but I prefer the way Walker sings the opening bar. The text above is primarily from Walker with a few lines borrowed from the Daugherty and Sullivan versions and a couple changed of my own in the sixth stanza.

15 Sep

The Farmer’s Boy

Oh the sun it sank behind a hill across the dreary moor,
Poor and lame there came a boy up to a farmer’s door,
Saying, “Please, will you tell me a man about here that would me employ,
To plough, to sow, to reap and to mow, to be a farmer’s boy?”

“My father’s dead, my mother lives with her five children small,
And what is the worst for mother dear, I’m the eldest of them all,
Although I am small, I fear no work if you’ll only me employ,
To plough, to sow, to reap, and to mow, to be a farmer’s boy.”

“Oh well,” says the farmer, “we’ll try the lad, no longer have him seek,”
“Yes, dear Papa,” his daughter cried, as the tears rolled down her cheek,
“For a man that can work, it’s hard for him to want, and to wander for employ,
Don’t send him away, but let him stay, and be your laboring boy.”

Well the years went by, the boy grew up and the good old farmer died,
He willed to the lad the farm that he had, and his daughter for a bride,
Now the lad that was once; he’s a farmer now. He often thinks with joy,
On the happy, happy day he came that way, to be a farmer’s boy.
—————–

This month’s song comes from Edith Fowke’s 1957 recording of Ottawa Valley singer Oliver John (O.J.) Abbott (1872-1962). Abbott was born in Enfield, England and came to Ontario as a 12-year-old with his brother but without their parents. As a young man in the Ottawa area, he boarded with and worked for two Irish families, the Whalens and the O’Malleys. He learned many songs from Mrs. Whalen and Mrs. O’Malley and more from his winter work in lumber camps. After being “discovered” by Fowke in his mid 80s, Abbott went on to appear alongside Pete Seeger at multiple folk festivals as a representative of the rich tradition of “woods” singing found in the Ottawa Valley region (here he is being interviewed by Ewan MacColl). “The Farmer’s Boy” must have resonated strongly with Abbott as someone who, himself, was taken as a “farmer’s boy” as a vulnerable young man.

Versions of this song were collected all over the US including in Wisconsin where it was sung by Crandon singer Warde Ford (I substituted Ford’s opening line for Abbott’s above). It has also been found throughout England where it likely originated as a mid-19th century broadside. The song must also be known in Ireland for, after singing it once in Chicago, Sligo-born flute legend Kevin Henry remarked “Where did you get ‘The Farmer’s Boy?’ I haven’t heard that since I was a boy!”

09 Dec

Kettle River

On the banks of Kettle River, among swamps and bogs,
We’ve been busy all winter getting out logs,
To stay through to springtime it is our design,
And the firm that we work for is called the O’Brien.

Refrain: Fol the diddle eye doh right fol the dol day

There’s Billy and George, they are well known to all,
And that ragged old veteran named Old Man MacColl,
There’s two gangs of swampers whose names I don’t mind,
But I’ll never forget the name Johnny O’Brien.
Refrain

Noble Wilson is our foreman, we all know him well,
He runs through the woods, he curses like hell,
Turns us out in the morning in rain or sunshine,
And works us like blazes for Johnny O’Brien.
Refrain

He’ll pull out his watch and look up to the sun,
Saying, “Hurry up boys, let’s get this work done,
Pitch in there you sawyers and down with the pine,
We’ll all go to Hinckley when we’re done with O’Brien.”
Refrain

Charley Olson is our cook, boys, I’m telling no lies,
He’s a dandy at putting up puddings and pies,
He’ll fill you with grub till your bellies will shine,
You never go hungry when working for O’Brien.
Refrain

Hurry up boys and let’s get it all done,
The job’s nearly completed, we’ll soon all be gone,
But in years to come we will all bear in mind,
The years that we worked for old Johnny O’Brien.
Refrain

_________

In addition to the “come-all-ye” type ballads so popular in northwoods lumber camps, shanty-boys (lumberjacks) also enjoyed lighthearted, extremely localized songs celebrating, and often lampooning, the personalities found in their particular camp. Collector Edith Fowke documented numerous examples of these “camp songs” in Ontario.

The above is my own adaptation of a rare Minnesota-based camp song that originated in an 1881 camp on the Kettle River near Hinckley, Minnesota. “Kettle River” was sung “lustily” by an 88 year-old John Stewart of Port Wing, Wisconsin, for historian Agnes Larson in 1932. In her 1949 book The White Pine Industry in Minnesota, Larson wrote that “somehow the old camp came back to life in [Stewart’s] soul as he sang.” Unfortunately, some of the words did not come back to Mr. Stewart so I added a few here and there to flesh out his version. Since Larson’s book included no melody, I chose a version of a melody used for several Ontario camp songs documented by Fowke.

The boss Johnny O’Brien mentioned in the song was most likely the father of Irish-American lumber baron William O’Brien. An 1896 obituary in The Hinckley Enterprise says “John O’Brien, an old time logger, and resident of Taylors Falls, and father of Wm. And Jos. O’Brien, loggers . . . has been a prominent logger on the St. Croix for the past 40 years, the major portion of the time being in Pine County.” Like many other early loggers in this area, John was born to Irish parents in Canada and came to Minnesota following logging jobs. His son William made his first million in Pine County, lived in a mansion next door to the governor’s mansion her in St. Paul and is the man for whom William O’Brien State Park is named. I also found evidence that William was a fishing buddy of Pine County resident and singer Mike Dean who turns up frequently in this column.

I recorded this song with guitar accompaniment on my album Minnesota Lumberjack Songs.