shipwreck - 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.

02 Oct

When the Manistee Went Down

Farewell, old boat, and precious freight,
McKay and his staunch, strong crew,
No more at home shall the cargo wait,
For loved ones to come with you.
The work she did no other would do,
Success would the effort crown,
But oh! the anguish of waiting hearts,
When the Manistee went down.

CHORUS:
Oh! God, it must have been dreadful,
To freeze and then to drown,
In a storm on Lake Superior,
When the Manistee went down.

Fond memory oft will picture here still,
Her cabins and decks grow dear,
In a storm that made every fiber thrill,
McKay spoke words of cheer.
Farewell, old boat, and gallant crew,
Love will your memories crown,
Bot, oh! the darkness, pain and grief,
When the Manistee went down.

Another scene of horror,
Came when this deep, cold lake,
The schooner M. A. Hulbert, with,
Twenty brave, strong men, did take.
It was next they should lie beneath the wave,
When her ballast above were o’er,
But we long the helpless ones to save,
Whose voices we hear no more.

We have another song this month from the pen of James J. Somers who came to Duluth at age 17 from the Georgian Bay region of Ontario. He was in Duluth in November 1883 when the packet steamer Manistee left Duluth harbor for Ontonagon, Michigan never to return. Tragedy struck again that December when the schooner Mary Ann Hulbert, also out of Duluth, sank near St. Ignace Island at the northern end of Lake Superior.

As with most other songs in Somers’ book, he left us no melody for this one. Andy Irvine’s version of Pat Reilly came into my head when I was looking at Somers’ text so I have tried to adapt it to that melody here. I made a few edits to Somers’ words. The original, along with the rest of his book “Jim’s Western Gems” is available in digital form via archive.org.

06 Sep

Never Go Back on the Poor

In this world of sorrow, of toil and regret, there are scenes I would gladly pass o’er,
But stern duty compels that each fact must be told, so through life we may check them the more;
Is it right that a man who has well earned his pay, on the pipes by the sweat of his brow,
Should wait like a beggar on green day by day, or else home in hunger to go?
Don’t show any favor to friend or to foe, the beggar or prince at your door;
If you always do right you will get your reward, but never go back on the poor.

From the wild waste of waters there came a death cry, as dashed on an iron bound shore,
A noble ship struck in the darkness of night, and sank midst the tempest’s loud roar;
The captain asleep and the men of their post, with the coal and provision run short,
While the doomed ones they hoped for that bright Western land, which in sweet joyous dreams they had sought.
Can it be such neglect shall by us be forgot, or that money will triumph once more?
A good, willing hand, a stout branch and a rope, for those who go back on the poor!

When the divers went down ’neath the wreck for to search, for the bodies that lay far below,
“It’s nothing but a steerage,” was oft the remark, as a ghastly corpse came up to view;
As if only a steerage could shut out a soul, because poverty claimed him her own,
As if dollars and dimes was the source of all worth, and the road to all good that is known.
But the white star must change her color aloft, to blood red afloat and ashore,
Till the steamer Atlantic is forgotten by time, with her cargo of unburied poor.

This month we have another song from the repertoire of Irish-Minnesotan Michael Dean. The song itself is fairly obscure but its moral is one found with some frequency in Dean’s Flying Cloud songster. The 1922 book contains several songs encouraging sympathy for the plight of the poor, wayward and elderly. These include expressions of working class grief like “The Tramp’s Lament” and “The Long Shoreman’s Strike” and the tear jerking “She May Have Seen Better Days” about a girl huddled on the street in a big city who “was once someone’s joy, cast aside like a toy.” Dean also sang three songs specifically about elderly people cast out by their families to live out their days in the county almshouse: “Just Tell Them That You Saw Me,” “I Told Them That I Saw You” (a response to the former) and “Over the Hills to the Poor House.” Another song, “Jim Fisk,” includes the same repeating admonition to “never go back on the poor” that appears in this month’s song. Of all these, “Jim Fisk” seems to have been the most popular across the north woods. (The song is fascinating for its use of Fisk, a famous robber baron of the era, as an exemplar of ethical behavior—seemingly because he provided aid after the Great Chicago Fire and “did all his deeds, both the good and the bad, in the broad, open light of the day!”)

Sentimental songs advocating charity and mercy for the poor were common and popular on late 19^th century music hall stages and in oral tradition. They may have had a special resonance for Dean who no doubt met many the wayward son as a saloonkeeper in logging era Minnesota. Dean also owned a farm east of Hinckley that he sold to Pine County in 1905 to establish the county’s first poor farm. Dean stayed on as the institution’s manager for two years where he, again, would have met characters reminiscent of these songs.

The text of “Never Go Back on the Poor” appears in Wehman’s song collection No. 11 published in 1886 with the note that it’s tune is that of “Don’t Put Your Foot on a Man When He’s Down.” I found sheet music for “Don’t Put Your Foot…” in the Lester Levy Sheet Music Collection online and adapted it to Dean’s words above. The central story to this song, again used to evoke charity, is the 1873 wreck of the White Star Line passenger steam ship Atlantic. The Atlantic sunk off the coast of Nova Scotia and inspired other songs as well.