immigration - evergreentrad

01 Nov

Nellie Greer

It was in the month of August in eighteen forty-four,
My parents they transported me far from my native shore,
Because I would not break the vow I swore unto my dear-o,
They forced me from the arms of my darling Nellie Greer.

To leave my home and Ireland where my first breath I drew,
They sent me to America my fortune to pursue,
For three weeks on the ocean no danger did I fear-o,
For my heart was with the girl I left, my darling Nellie Greer.

The raging seas rolled mountains high, which tossed us to and fro,
Our ship she struck upon a rock and to pieces she did go,
Of three hundred fifty passengers, but thirteen reached the shore-o,
The others to the bottom went, we never saw them more.

We lay on St. Paul’s Island, for four long days, or five,
Our bed it was the cold, cold ground our covering was the skies,
Our money and our clothing gone from off that doleful wreck-o,
Now weren’t we a dreadful sight when we landed in Quebec?

I’d rather have my Nellie than riches, land or fame,
For riches are so fleeting and fame is but a name,
Though many miles divide us true love can never die-o,
I seem to hear her voice as I hear the night wind sigh.

I chose another song this month that depicts an Ireland to Canada immigration story. Unlike last month’s song, “Carnanbane,” “Nellie Greer” (Roud 4084) appears exclusively in North American collections so it could be that it was composed on this side of the Atlantic.

The destination here is Quebec (presumably Quebec City) which was the other main Canadian port of entry for Irish immigrants along with St. John, New Brunswick. St. Paul Island is a remote and extremely rugged island 15 miles northeast of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Edwin Guillet in The Great Migration wrote that St. Paul Island “has been the site of numerous shipwrecks; many vessels, carried out of their reckoning by the currents, having been dashed against it when concealed by fog, and instantly shattered to atoms. Human bones and other memorials of these disasters are strewed around its base.”

The above text is my own composite drawing on versions from Carrie Grover (Nova Scotia/Maine), Lena Bourne Fish (New York/New Hampshire), Mary Ann Galpin (Newfoundland) and Martin McManus (Ontario). There are other versions collected by Helen Hartness Flanders in New England. Most singers had the woman’s name as “Sally Greer” but Grover sang Nellie. The melody above is a very slightly tweaked take on that used by Carrie Grover and for it I am indebted to the wonderful Carrie Grover Project website created by Julie Mainstone Savas at carriegroverproject.com. You can see Grover’s full version there.

03 Aug

The Lament of the Irish Emigrant

I am sitting on the stile, Mary, where we sat side by side,
On a bright May morning long ago, when first you were my bride;
The corn was springing fresh and green and the lark sang loud on high,
And the red was on your cheeks, Mary, and the love light in your eye.

The place is little changed, Mary, the day is bright as then,
The Lark’s loud song is in my ear and the corn is green again,
But I miss the love glance of your eye, your breath warm on my cheek,
And I still keep listening for the words you never more will speak.

It’s but a step down yonder lane, and the little church stands near,
The church where we were wed, Mary, I see the spire from here;
But the church yard lies between, love, and my feet might break your rest,
For I’ve laid you, darling, down to sleep with your baby on your breast.

I am very lonely now, Mary, for the poor makes no new friends,
But, oh, we love them better far, the few our Father sends;
But you were all I had, Mary, my blessing and my pride,
There is little left to care for now since my poor Mary died.

I am bidding you a long farewell, my Mary, kind and true,
But I’ll not forget you, darling, in the land I am going to;
They say there’s bread and work for all and the sun shines ever there,
But I’ll not forget old Ireland, were it twenty times as fair.

And oft times in those grand old woods I’ll sit and close my eyes,
And my thoughts will travel back again to the grave where Mary lies;
And I’ll think I see the little stile where we sat side by side,
And the springing corn and bright May morn when first you were my bride.

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This heart-wrenching ballad of Irish immigration comes from Minnesotan Michael Dean’s Flying Cloud songster and I have married Dean’s text with the melody sung by John W. Green of Beaver Island, Michigan. You can hear Green’s version online via the Library of Congress. The recording, made in 1938 by Alan Lomax, captures Green’s wonderful ability to vary melody and ornamentation as he sings each verse… a characteristic that is hard to capture in a transcription. I tried to “loosen up” the melody a bit in singing the song myself.

A stile is a structure that allows people, but not animals, to pass over a wall or fence, often via steps or a ladder structure. A common feature in 19th century Irish farm country, one can imagine this as an attractive perch for courting.

The last verse of this song text (which appears in some, but not all, British broadside versions as well) is intriguing in that it describes the emigrant’s destination as among the “grand old woods.” This seems to hint at the immigration pattern I so frequently discuss in this column–Irishmen coming to the north woods of North America and, often, working in the woods as lumbermen. Both singers I sourced this song from were born to Irish immigrant fathers who pursued this type of work and settled in small lumber-based communities in the Great Lakes region.

The original text of this ballad was written by Lady Helena Selina Blackwood Dufferin (nee Sheridan) who was born in Ireland in 1807 and died in England in 1867. It was printed as a broadside frequently on both sides of the Atlantic throughout the mid-late 1800s. It appears in Halliday Sparling’s 1887 book Irish Minstrelsy: A Selection of Irish Songs and Ballads. Though a member of English high society her whole life, Sparling writes that Lady Dufferin’s poems “were the genuine outcome of a deep and understanding love of the people.” This poem was clearly inspired by the Great Famine. Halliday prints two verses not sung by Dean:

Yours was the good, brave heart, Mary, that still kept hopin’ on,
When the trust in God had left my soul, and my arm’s young strength was gone;
There was comfort ever on your lip, and the kind look on your brow—
I bless you, Mary, for that same, though you cannot hear me now.

I thank you for the patient smile when your heart was fit to break,
When the hunger pain was gnawin’ there, and you hid it for my sake;
I bless you for the pleasant word, when your heart was sad and sore—
O! I’m thankful you are gone, Mary, where grief can’t reach you more!

26 Mar

Ned McCabe

I’m a fine old Irish laborer, from Ireland I came,
To try me luck on Columbia’s shore, and Ned McCabe’s my name.
I’ve had me days of sunshine, although I can’t complain,
But those good old days for laborers will never come back again.

Chorus:
’Tis boys, be gay and hearty, and never ye be afraid,
But bear misfortunes with a smile like poor old Ned McCabe

But when I landed in Quebec, I had nary a red at all,
I hired out to a contractor, boys, to work upon a canawl.
I’d eighty cents a day, me boys, and whiskey too had I,
But when I think of those good old days, it almost makes me cry. Chorus

*I’ve cleared the lands in the far-off west, and many a mile I’ve trod,
And many’s the snake, and wild beast, I’ve laid beneath the sod. Chorus

Now the winter time is coming on, and away down south I’ll go,
To secure myself a winter’s job away from frost and snow.
Old Canady being by favorite whenever there I went,
I could drink my twenty jiggers a day and never step off o’ the plank. Chorus

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Folk song collector Franz Rickaby made the above transcription of this very rare song from the singing of George Hankins (1849-1934) of Gordon, Wisconsin in the early 1920s. Earlier in his life, Hankins worked as a lumberjack and railroad man in Minnesota before making his home in Gordon, about 45 miles southeast of Duluth. Hankins told Rickaby that he learned the song when he first came to live in Wisconsin.

The song itself illustrates a familiar storyline for the first Irishmen to come to Minnesota and Wisconsin. It was common for Famine-era immigrants who sailed to Canada to find work as lumberjacks, railroad men, Great Lakes sailors or canal workers. Many of these men and their sons followed those jobs, or sometimes seasonal farm work, over the border into the US. So it was with many of the men who built Stillwater, Minnesota and other St. Croix Valley towns.

*I took some liberty with the words of this verse in what I published in the IMDA newsletter and in what I sing myself. The original as transcribed by Rickaby reads:

I’ve cleared the lands in the far-off west where no white man ever trod,
And many’s the snake, and red man too, I’ve laid beneath the sod.