2l6
Casey Jones
This is probably the best known and most widely sung of all the
songs dealing with the life of men that work for the railroad.
Spaeth, Read 'Em and Weep 119-22, says it is the work of "two
actual railroad men, T. Lawrence Seibert and Eddie Newton," but
assigns no date; Sandburg (ASb 366) notes its wide currency but
is not specific as to its origin; Miss Pound (ABS 250) calls the
Seibert and Newton form of it (which was published in 1909) the
"vaudeville version," and says, on the authority of Barry, that the
hero of the story was really John Luther Jones, engineer of the
Chicago and New Orleans Limited, who was killed in a wreck
March 18, 1900, and that the song was composed by Wallace
Saunders, a Negro. It is so generally known and sung that no
attempt is made here to trace it geographically. An Associated
Press dispatch from Jackson, Tenn., stated that on August 7, 1947,
a monument to Casey Jones was unveiled at that place. In 1950
the fiftieth anniversary of the wreck was commemorated by a special
United States three-cent postage stamp picturing Casey Jones and
his locomotive, and by a celebration at Jackson, Tennessee.
A
'Casey Jones.' From the manuscripts of G. S. Robinson of Asheville.
copied out August 4, 1939. Evidently the vaudeville version.
I Come all you rounders if you want to hear
The story about a brave engineer.
Casey Jones was the rounder's name ;
On a six-eight wheeler, boys, he won his fame.
NATIVE AMERICAN BALLADS 511
The caller called Casey at half past four.
He kissed his wife at the station door,
He mounted to the cab with his orders in his hand,
And he took a farewell trip to the Promised Land.
Casey Jones mounted to his cabin,
Casey Jones with his orders in his hand ;
Casey Jones mounted to his cabin,
He took a farewell trip to the Promised Land.^
'Turn on your water, shovel in your coal.
Put your head out the window, watch your drivers roll ;
I'll run her till she leaves the rail,
For I'm eight hours late with the western mail.'
He looked at his watch and his watch was slow,
He looked at his water and his water was low.
He turned to his fireman and he said,
'We're going to reach Frisco but we'll all be dead.'
Casey Jones, we're going to reach Frisco,
Casey Jones, but we'll all be dead.
Casey Jones, we're going to reach Frisco,
We're going to reach Frisco but we'll all be dead.^
Casey pulled up that Reno hill.
Tooted for the crossing with an awful thrill ;
The switchman knew by the engine's moan
That the man at the throttle was Casey Jones.
And when they got in about two miles of the place
The coal sparks fired him right in the face.
He turned to his fireman and he said,
'We're going to reach Frisco, but we'll all be dead.'
Casey said just before he died
There was two more roads that he wanted to ride.
Everybody wondered what roads that could be :
Across Colorado and the Santa Fe.
Mrs. Jones sat on her bed a-sighing.
Just received a message that Casey was dying.
She said, 'Go to bed, children, and hush your crying,
You've got another papa on the Salt Lake line.'
There is in the Collection another text without contributor's name.
It does not differ materially from Robinson's, but upon it Dr. Brown
has written an interesting note : "Author died at "j-j, in August, 1940.
' Although not so marked in the manuscript, this stanza is the chorus.
* This again is a chorus stanza.
512 NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE
Written in 1888. The original of this song is still living (1940) at
Silver Spring, Maryland." One would like to know just where Dr.
Brown found this information.