286
The Florence C. McGee
Contributed by the Reverend L. D. Hayman, Durham, June 13, IQ'Q.
with music and the following history :
The Florence C. McGee was a four-mast fore-and-aft-rigged schooner
of about five hundred tons burden. She was owned by a northern con-
cern and was employed in coastwise trade principally, although the ship
was a sea-worthy deep-water craft. In 1894 she was loaded in Tampa
Bay with marble rock, and in January cleared the port on her return
voyage home. A great storm arose after she was well on her voyage,
overtaking her some hundreds of miles northeast of Cape Henry, Vir-
ginia. It was seen by her gallant captain that the McGee would not
be able to weather the storm ; so he wore ship and ran before the gale
in the hope of making Cape Henry and finding a safe harbor in the hook
of Chesapeake Bay just inside the cape. In trying to accomplish this
feat, the captain mistook Bodie Island Light House on the North
Carolina coast for the Cape Charles Light Ship (see stanzas 5 and 6),
thus grounding his craft on the outer bar, and she was a total wreck
in less than five hours after she struck the reef.
There was living at that time on Roanoke Island a young man, the
son of a sea captain named Spencer Murphey. This young man's name
was Llewelyn Murphey. He could not read or write, having no educa-
tion at all ; but he had a wonderful ability for composing songs on
current events and happenings within the field of his knowledge. He
could compose a song in a very few minutes and sing it to the delight
of his comrades. Shortly after the wreck of the McGee, which occurred
opposite his home just across the sound from the ocean, he composed in
his mind more than a dozen four-line stanzas in ballad measure on this
wreck ; he also sung this song for his friends in their homes and in
gatherings of young men on the road corners.
Some years after composing this song and others of like nature, he
was drowned in the Atlantic Ocean with his father. [Here follow de-
tails of the drowning, which are omitted.]
I have tried to collect this entire song, but so far I have not been
able to do so. So far as I know, there is nothing left to perpetuate
the memory of this unusual youth, and I think it worth while to place
these few lines along with the collection of ballads which have their
origin in North Carolina. As far as I have been able to do so, I have
collected the following stanzas of the McGee as Murphey composed
them. Although composed in ballad style and sung for a long time in
my own community where they were composed, doubtless some of the
particular words have been substituted by others, as they were never in
print and just lingered in the minds of those who cared to preserve
them. Before I left my home, I seldom heard the song sung, for since
it has been more than twenty years since the composer was drowned,
the ballad has seen its day and was gone from the memory of nearly
everyone. Mr. Frank Daniels, a half-brother of Murphey, still lives at
HATTERAS WRECK
NORTH CAROLINA BALLADS 66l
Wanchese, N. C. I have heard him sing the song. In trying to collect
the song, I got in touch with him, but it was lost to his memory ;
however, I have collected enough of it to show the genius of the com-
poser and to preserve it as an original ballad of the Old North State.
I now proceed to give some stanzas of the ballad as I recall them.
Wherever a word occurs in parentheses it indicates some doubt as to its
originality.
1 Come all ye (friends) and sailors too
And listen unto me,
While I relate the sad, sad fate
Of the Florence C. McGee.
2 In eighteen hundred and ninety-four,
Quite early in the year,
And her broad hatches all were barred ;
Then homeward she did steer.
3 She cleared the port at Hillsboro Dock
Far (up) in Tampa Bay,
With (some) four hundred tons of rock
Stored safely down below.
4 Her sails were set on this sad day
As she rode on her way,
And many an eye looked on her form
While she moved down the bay.
('Here follow several stanzas describing the approach of the storm,
the gale, and the anxiety of the sailors as they stood at their
posts of duty for several days; I cannot recall them.')
5 At ten p. m. the lead was thrown.
All on that dreary night ;
And she was heading sou'-sou'-west
To make the Cape Charles Light.
6 She did not make the Cape Charles Light
Nor (find a harbor sure) ;
But leaped along in wild career
For North Carolina shores.
7 When she was in twenty feet,
They felt her strike the ground ;
And (now) before another beat
The noble ship went down.
8 The owners got the news
And came to look their last ;
But all remained for them to view
W'ere four substantial masts.
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286
The Florence C. McGee
'The Florence C. McGee.' Sung by Mrs. L. D. Hayman. Recorded as MS score
at Durham in 1919. According to the melodic structure, two of the stanzas as
printed in II 661 are needed for one stanza of the tune.
Scale: Heptachordal, plagal. Tonal Center: c. Structure: abba (4,4,4,4).