A Note on "Springfield Mountain."
by Grace P. Smith
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 49, No. 193 (Jul. - Sep., 1936), pp. 263-265
A NOTE ON "SPRINGFIELD MOUNTAIN." - "Springfield Mountain,[1] considered by authorities as one of the best of the early American ballads, needs no introduction to those interested in this type of native lore. Examples of the variations it has undergone in its travels from Vermont and elsewhere in New England to Missouri, Texas, and beyond may be found in ballad
collections and in articles on regional folk poetry.
The original of the numerous variants of this ballad is not universally agreed upon, being referred to several sources. Holland reproduces a version in his history of western Massachusetts.' These verses commemorate the death of one Timothy Merrick from the bite of a rattlesnake. According to Holland, the stanzas were composed by the young man's sweetheart on the
incident which is stated as having occurred in 1761.[2] Holland's version follows:
On Springfield mountains there did dwell
A likely youth was known full well
Lieutenant Merrick onley son
A likely youth near twenty-one
One friday morning he did go
in to the meadow and did mow
A round or two then he did feal
A pisen serpent at his heal.
When he received his deadly wound
He dropt his sythe a pon the ground
And strate for home wase his intent
Calling aloude still as he went
tho all around his voys wase hered
but none of his friends to him apeire
they thot it wase some workmen called
and there poor Timothy alone must fall
So soon his Carfull father went
to seak his son with discontent
and ther hes fond onley son he found
ded as a stone a pon the ground.
And there he lay down sopose to rest
withe both his hands Acrost his brest
his mouth and eyes Closed fast
and there poor man he slept his last.
His father vieude his track with greate concern
Where he had run across the corn
unevin tracks where he did go
did appear to stagger two and frow.
The seventh of August sixty one
this fatull axadint was done
Let this a warning be to all
to be prepared when god does call.
Following Dr. Stebbins' version, Hale gives 1773 as the date when the tragic event took place.[3] However, with the exception of the spelling, there is little difference between the version given by Holland and the one given by Dr. Stebbins, the orator at the Wilbraham centennial celebration, who presented at that time a text which he considered an exact copy of the ballad.[4] In general, although the variants so far examined differ more or less in minor detail, their major incidents are similar, if not identical: A lad goes out to mow; a serpent bites his heel; the wound is mortal and he is gathered to Abraham's bosom. To this elegiac narrative a moral is usually appended - Beware of the deadly poison of a serpent's bite! - or the warning - Be prepared!
In view of the unmistakable graveyard tendency in the extant variants of this ballad examined, I should like to record a version with a "happy" ending, as follows:
On Springfield Mountain there did dwell
A likely lad who was known full well
He was the major's only son
His age was nearly twenty-one.
One Friday morning he did go
Down to the meadow for to mow
He mowed around till he did feel
A poisonous serpent at his heel
He dropped his scythe and looked around
No trace of the serpent could be found
Then to go home was his intent
Calling aloud as long he went.
He reached his home - dropped to the ground
Called to his friends to come around
For he was sure that he would die
And he wished to bid them all good-bye.
The doctor came and probed the wound
No trace of poison could be found
At length they cried with much delight,
"Tis nothing but an adder's bite!"
Then knelt his friends upon the ground
And thanked the Lord he was safe and sound
That he was safe from a death so sure
(As) for a rattler's bite they knew no cure.
This version - until now, to my knowledge, unrecorded - has a fairly ancient record and a source that must have been geographically fairly near the so-called "original." The ballad as reproduced has frequently been repeat ed to me in the past few years by my mother, now over 98 years of age.[5] She heard it when she was six years old from her stepmother who came to Vermont from Connecticut at about thirty years of age. The age of the variant in question then must be somewhere about 136 years, dating back to i8oo or before. One glance at the daguerreotype of this stern half-Narragansett
New England stepmother is enough to preclude any suspicion of attempts on her part at a romantic transformation of a standard ditty or of extemporizing on its theme. Her version reflects impulses of the Romantic movement then stirring in America, and presents an interesting contrast to the standard versions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF VARIANTS EXAMINED
Barry, Phillips. "Native Balladry in America." JAFL XXII, 365. "Traditional Ballads in New England." JAFL XVIII, 295-302.
Cox, John Harrington. Folk Songs of the South. Harvard Univ. Press, 1925 (No. 81).
Forget-Me-Not Songster. Boston, 1840, 81-85 (contains a couplet, one line of which reads: "He was the Major's only son").
Hale, E. E. New England History in Ballads. Boston, 1903, 86-88.
Lomax, John A., and Lomax, Alan. A merican Ballads and Songs. New York, 1934, 356-357 ("Rattlesnake").
Newell, William Wells. "Early American Ballads, I," JAFL XII, 242; II, JAFL XIII, 107.
Perrow, E. C. "Songs and Rhymes from the South." JAFL XXVIII, 169.
Pound, Louise. American Ballads and Songs. New York, 1922, 97-100.
Shoemaker, Henry W. Mountain Minstrelsy of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, 1931, 147-148.
Springfield Republican, Oct. 4, 1908.
Tolman, Albert H. "Some Songs Traditional in the United States." JAFL XXIX, 188-189.
Tolman, Albert H., and Eddy, Mary O. "Traditional Texts and Tunes."
JAFL XXXV, 415-416.
GRACE P. SMITH.
Iowa City, Iowa.
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Footnotes:
1 Josiah Gilbert Holland. The History of Western Massachusetts, Springfield, 1855. Cf. also JAFL XIII, o107-10o8.
2 id. op. cit., 161-162.
3 E. E. Hale. New England History in Ballads, Boston 1903, 86-88.
4. id., ibid.
5. Mrs. Pauline Kimball Partridge, Iowa City, Iowa (native of Moretown, Vermont).