New York - evergreentrad

01 Sep

The Bold Privateer

Farewell lovely Ellen, it is now we must part,
Must I leave you behind me, the love of my heart,
I must leave you behind me, and all that I hold dear,
Once more to go a-roving, in the Bold Privateer.

The foe they are treacherous, right very well you know,
Did they not kill their own poor king, not so very long ago,
You had better stay at home, with the girl that loves you dear,
Then to roam the wild ocean, in the Bold Privateer.

Our boat lies on the strand, and our ship lies in the bay,
Farewell my dearest jewel, for I can no longer stay,
Our ship she lies awaiting, so fare you well my dear,
I must now go on board of the Bold Privateer.

There is no one can tell, what hazards you may run,
So many have been slain, since this cruel war’s begun,
You had better not go, and leave your Ellen here,
For I dread to see you leaving, in the Bold Privateer.

Fear naught lovely Ellen, I fain would with thee stay,
But gold I must gather, for our wedding day,
We will soon beat down the pride, of the lofty Mounseer,
And will soon let them know, she’s the Bold Privateer.

Then since you are a-going, Good Luck attend to thee,
May kind Heaven protect you, on land or at sea,
May kind Heaven protect you, wherever you may steer,
And send you safe back, in the Bold Privateer.

Now the prizes we have taken, are from France and from Spain,
And my true love at home, she shall share the gain,
And when the war’s are over, I’ll return unto my dear,
And go no more a-roving, in the Bold Privateer.

_____________

On Februray 20^th, 1927, the New York Times “Queries and Answers” section ran a request from one Joseph F. McGinnis for a full text of the above ballad to which McGinnis knew the melody but only the first two verses. McGinnis (featured in last month’s Northwoods Songs) was born in Kingston, Ontario and learned songs as a sailor on the Great Lakes before settling in New York City. McGinnis’s New York Times request was answered by none other than renowned Derry song collector Sam Henry. Henry supplied McGinnis with the missing verses and went on to correspond with McGinnis over the next few years. Henry even printed two songs contributed by McGinnis (“The Deserter” and “The ‘Crummy’ Cow”) in his “Songs of the People” column that has since been published in book form and is regarded as one of the finest collections of Irish traditional song in the English language.

McGinnis, who traded songs by mail with Minnesota singer Michael Cassius Dean, also sent Henry a copy of Dean’s songster The Flying Cloud. Irish song scholar John Moulden theorizes that Dean’s songster had a significant influence on Henry’s subsequent “Songs of the People” columns! (see this 2007 talk by Moulden)

The above text comes from a typescript prepared by McGinnis for “Songs of the Dogwatch”—his own collection of songs which was never published. The above melody is also based on the transcription that appears in the McGinnis typescript but I have taken liberties with rhythm and key signature to conform the air to what I believe is more probable.

05 Jul

Georgian Bay Ho Ho

Bartender! Fill our glasses up,
There’s time for one round more,
For soon our mudhook we’ll break out,
Off Garden Island shore,
We’ll toss our dunnage right aboard,
And up the Lakes we’ll go,
In an able timber hooker, bound,
For Georgian Bay, Ho! Ho!

Chorus:
For Georgian Bay, Ho! Ho! My boys!
It’s lively we do go!
Bound up again and “flying light,”
For Georgian Bay, Ho! Ho!

The fores’l, main and mizzen’s made,
Gafftops’ls two also,
Our anchor it is now hove short,
It’s time for us to go.
So man your topsail halliards, boys,
Sheet home! And then belay!
Hoist and back! Forestays’l! jibs!
Up anchor! And fill away!

The wind it is dead aft, my boys,
From the Nor’east it does blow,
So give her the squarefores’l,
And raffees two, also.
Wing out fore, main and mizzen booms!
Square yards! Haul taut! Belay!
O! Watch her tearin’ through the foam,
She’s bound for Georgian Bay.

Now we have made Port Dalhousie,
The Canal we have passed through,
Lake Erie and both “Rivers,”
And up Lake Huron, Blue.
We’re anchored in our loading berth,
While small isles ‘round us lay,
And pine timber floats in booms, there,
‘Way up in Georgian Bay.

Now ship your timber davit, boys,
Reeve off the hoisting gear,
Price up the lower stern ports,
See you heaving cable clear,
Horse-boy, ship your capstan bar,
Hitch on the horses, two,
Soon we’ll load square timber in,
On board of the “Buckaroo.”

The stick it being hooked end on,
To the port sill it does move,
The hooks are then clapped on it,
And inboard it is hove.
The mate he breasts it in to place,
With timber dogs, you know,
And is watchful or he’ll lose some toes,
At Georgian Bay, Ho! Ho!

The water now has reached both sills,
Close lower ports! Make fast!
And caulk them up with oakum!
The hold is filled at last.
It’s next the deck ports open,
Then hoist on deck and stow,
‘Till all the deckload is on board,
AT GEORGIAN BAY, HO! HO!.

(RINGTAIL CHORUS)
O, it’s a-rolling, boys, a-rolling,
As homeward bound we go,
All the way down to Garden Isle,
From Georgian Bay, Ho! Ho!

This month’s song comes from an incredible, unpublished manuscript compiled by Joseph F. McGinnis. McGinnis was born in Kingston, Ontario in 1867 and was a sailor on the Great Lakes where singing played a similar role to what it did on seafaring vessels. After contributing Great Lakes songs and sea songs to collector Joanna Colcord in the early 1920s, McGinnis enthusiastically set out to add to his own repertoire/collection with songs gathered from other singers. He collected many songs via mail and even corresponded with Minnesota singer Michael C. Dean who sent him song lyrics and (with the help of a friend) transcriptions of song melodies. Sadly, McGinnis fell ill in the late 1920s and never succeeded in publishing his book.

Another of McGinnis’s correspondents was folk song collector Robert Winslow Gordon. It was Gordon that ended up with McGinnis’s unpublished collection, “Songs of the Dogwatch,” which I accessed via the University of Oregon’s archival collection of Robert Winslow Gordon materials. McGinnis’s transcriptions of song melodies are somewhat erratic so I made some educated guesses in writing out the melody above.

McGinnis wrote songs himself and “Georgian Bay, Ho! Ho!” was most likely one of his own compositions, though it fits well into the traditional style. Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay was a key access point to the vast pine forests of Ontario. The sailors in the song set off from (and return to) Garden Island—just outside McGinnis’s native Kingston. Garden Island was the base of a major shipping and lumber operation for most of the 19th century. Logs were squared off in the woods, loaded on ships in Georgian Bay, shipped to Garden Island, gathered into rafts and floated to Quebec City and, finally, loaded on to ships and shipped to Britain. The same timber ships that took Canadian wood to Liverpool transported Irish immigrants to Canada on the return trip.

25 Feb

Ye Noble Big Pine Tree

‘Twas on a cold and frosty morning
When the sunshine was adorning
The boughs of ev’ry lofty pine,
Making them in radiance shine.

Through the forest lone I wandered
Where a little brook meandered,
Gurgling o’er the rocks below,
Wading deep through ice and snow.

On its banks and right before me
Stood a pine in stately glory.
The forest king he seemed to be.
He was a noble Big Pine Tree.

I gazed upon his form gigantic.
Thoughts ran through my head romantic.
These were my musings as I stood
And viewed that monarch of the wood.

“For ages you have towered proudly.
The birds have praised you long and loudly.
The squirrels have chattered praise to thee,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.

“When the lumberjacks first spy you,
They’ll step up to you and eye you.
With saw and axe they’ll lay you down
On the cold snow-covered ground.

“Your fall will sound like distant thunder,
And fill the birds and squirrels with wonder.
The snow thy winding-sheet will be,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.

“Were you punky, were you hollow,
You had been a lucky fellow;
Then they would have let you be,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.

“But seeing you’re so sound and healthy,
You’ll make some lumberman more wealthy.
There’s scads of wealth concealed in thee,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.

“They will measure, top, and butt you.
Into saw-logs they will cut you.
The woodsman’s chains will fetter thee,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.

“When your branches cease to quiver,
They will haul you to the river,
And down the roll-ways roll you in
Where you’ll have to sink or swim.

“In spring the agile river-driver
Will pick and punch you down the river.
There’ll be little rest for thee,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.

“Up the mill-slide they will draw you.
Into lumber they will saw you.
Then they’ll put you in a pile,
Where they’ll let you rest awhile.

“In spring, when gentle showers are falling,
And the toads and birds are squalling,
They will take and raft you in
Where once more you’ll have to swim.

“Over dams and falls they’ll take you,
Where the rocks will tear and break you,
You’ll reach the Mississippi’s breast
Before they’ll let you have a rest.

“Then they’ll sell you to some farmer
To keep his wife and children warmer.
With his team he’ll haul you home
To the prairie drear and lone.

“Into a prairie house he’ll make you,
Where the prairie winds will shake you.
There’ll be little rest for thee,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.

“The prairie winds will sing around you.
The hail and sleet and snow will pound you,
And shake and wear and bleach your bones
On the prairie drear and lone.

“Then the prairie fires will burn you.
Into ashes they will turn you.
That will be the end of thee,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.”

_______________________

In the early 1920s, the above song text was sent in to collector Franz Rickaby (then English professor at UND in Grand Forks, North Dakota) by the song’s writer, Billy “Shan T. Boy” Allen of Wausau, Wisconsin. Allen, a 2^nd-generation Irish-Canadian from New Brunswick, fed the northwoods song tradition of the Upper Midwest by composing new ballads based on old song types and repurposing old melodies for stories about his work as a lumberman. His song “The Banks of the Little Eau Pleine” became quite popular in the lumbercamps across the northwoods region.

Rickaby was unsure if “Ye Noble Big Pine Tree” entered tradition at all. However, I found a reference to it in an article about life in northern Minnesota logging camps written by J.C. “Buzz” Ryan:

During the winter of 1918-1919 in a camp north of Mizpah, Patty McLaughlin, a witty Irishman from Northome who could play the violin and loved to sing, would go into the bunkhouse on Sundays and some evenings and would play and sing and get the boys singing with him. He knew all the old songs and sang them very well. However it was “The Banks of the Little Eau Plaine,” “Ye Noble Big Pine Tree” and “The Foreman Young Monroe” that the boys liked the best.

I did some census research on Patty McLaughlin and discovered that he, like Allen (and many others), was also a 2^nd-generation Irish-Canadian from New Brunswick who followed lumbering jobs to the St. Croix Valley region. It’s possible that the two men even met eachother and swapped songs in the Wisconsin woods. McLaughlin was a foreman in a camp near Hayward, WI in 1900 (according to the 1900 US Federal Census). Unlike Allen, who stayed in the Wausau area, McLaughlin followed his employment further north to the woods north of my hometown of Bemidji, MN.

Allen sang Rickaby a melody he said came from the song “Will the Weaver.” I heard a recording of Catskills singer Walter Wormuth doing “Bill the Weaver” and preferred it so I took the liberty of swapping it in for my own version above.