"Casey Jones": At the Crossroads of Two Ballad Traditions
by Norm Cohen
Western Folklore, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Apr., 1973), pp. 77-103
'Casey Jones": At the Crossroads of Two Ballad Traditions
NORM COHEN
The career of Casey Jones and the details of the accident that took his life are well known and have been publicized at great length. Casey has been immortalized by a monument, a museum, a movie, a commemorative postage stamp, several books, numerous newspaper and magazine articles, and a curious body of songlore. The focus of this paper is on the songlore, for although the circumstances of Jones' death are well established, the same cannot be said of the evolution of the folksongs about him. I wish to reexamine the latter question, giving only enough historical background as is necessary; several sources can be consulted for further factual details. [1] I shall, however, touch in passing on some of the early opinions of the identity of Casey Jones in so far as they relate to the question of the origins of the songs.
John Luther Jones was born 14 March 1863, and reared in the town of Cayce, Kentucky. When still in his teens he began to work for the railroads, and in 1888, two years after his marriage, he entered the employ of the Illinois Central Railroad. In January 1900 he took over the run of the I.C.'s Cannonball, the fast passenger express from Chicago to New Orleans. On Sunday evening, 29 April 1900, Jones and his fireman Sim Webb took charge of the Cannonball in Memphis, leaving the station about ninety-five minutes late with orders to make up the lost time en route. Jones was not considered a reckless engineer, but he was occasionally negligent, and was often daring in his efforts to keep on schedule. Consequently, although the night was dark and cloudy and the season had been rainy, midnight found his engine highballing southward in a race to recover lost time. He was nearly back on schedule when his train approached Vaughan, 175 miles south of Memphis. Here, because of an unusual combination of circumstances, the caboose of a southbound freight extended past the switch to a siding and was on the mainline in Jones' way. Jones was going too fast to stop, although he hit the airbrakes as soon as he realized something was wrong. His last words were to tell his fireman to jump to safety, which Webb did, sustaining but slight injuries. Jones died as his engine struck the other train, but none of his passengers was seriously injured.
Nine years after John Luther "Casey" Jones died on the Cannonball, a song about him had become a national rage. Everyone was singing it; one man was declared insane because he
. .. persisted in singing "Casey Jones" at all times of the day and night . . . [he] started singing as soon as he entered the courtroom and was still singing when taken out in custody of the sheriff.[2]
This pop song, "Casey Jones," had been written by two vaudevillians, T. Lawrence Seibert and Edward Newton. It has generally been accepted that Seibert and Newton based their composition on a song that they (or some other stage performers) heard some blacks in New Orleans singing. It is further accepted that this folksong about Casey Jones was written by one Wallace Sa(u)nders, a black engine-wiper in Canton, Mississippi, who knew Casey well and admired him greatly. Saunders presumably drew upon older blues ballads and songs to compose a new ballad heavily dependent on black tradition.
Of the numerous questions that want answering, only four are considered here. In chronological order they are: (1) what were the sources upon which Saunders drew in putting together his ballad, (2) what was his original ballad like, (3) how did Newton and Seibert hear about Casey Jones, and (4) what was the relationship between their vaudeville song and the song sung by Saunders? The first question can be dealt with separately from the others, and will be discussed last. The answer to the fourth question depends on the answer to the second; and in the course of the discussion I hope to demonstrate that there must have been also an Anglo-American vulgar ballad tradition appropriate to trainwrecks and engineers; that some folk poet, doubtless a railroader himself, drew upon this tradition to compose a ballad about Casey Jones; and that regardless of what Saunders wrote about Casey, Newton and Seibert were as much indebted to this Irish-American tradition as to the blues ballad tradition that is generally acknowledged.
Although everything significant about "Casey Jones" had already been published by 1912, it seems that all recent accounts, whether in railroad, folksong, or pop song literature, have been based on four influential expositions that were published in widely read books between 1931 and 1945. Therefore it is appropriate to examine those four views before turning to the older material.
The first of these accounts was by James J. Geller, an historian of popular songs, who wrote,
"Casey Jones" was sung by southerners and was still alien to the rest of America until two vaudevillians, T. Lawrence Seibert and Edward Newton passing through New Orleans, heard the tune hummed by some Negro boys . . . it occurred to Seibert that this song could be easily re-vamped into a comedy number .... They had occasion to introduce it at the Ship Cafe in Venice, California. . . .
That the song registered with the diners was signalized by the old custom of showering the singers with coins at each rendition. These receptions convinced Seibert and Newton that there might possibly be a market for the song and they forwarded the manuscript to the New York music publishers who promptly rejected it. In the interim, the Three Leightons, a familiar "brother" act in vaudeville heard "Casey Jones" while on a visit to the Ship Cafe and carried a duplicate copy away with them for inclusion in their stage specialty. In 1909 the Three Leightons launched the Seibert-Newton version of "Casey Jones" at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles where it drew waves of applause. .. [3]
While Geller was primarily interested in the pop song and its rise to fame, John A. and Alan Lomax delved for the folk roots of the ballad. In 1910 John Lomax had received a letter from the Mayor of Canton that Saunders was the author of "Casey Jones" and was still living in that town. Not until 1933 did John and Alan Lomax reach Canton in search of Saunders, at which time they found he had long since died. However, they did meet and interview seventy-year-old Cornelius Steen, who had worked in the Canton roundhouse at the turn of the century and had been a friend of Saunders.[4] Steen told them that, years before the accident, he had been visiting Kansas City and had heard a song "Jimmie Jones," which he brought back to Canton with him. Saunders liked the song and added verses describing a wreck in which the imaginary Jimmie Jones was killed.[5] After Casey Jones died, Saunders changed the words to fit the circumstances of the 29 April 1900 wreck. The rest of the Lomaxes' account was concerned with early fragments of "Jimmie Jones" and related songs, to which I shall return later. In their later book (1947) they elaborated on their findings and discussed Seibert and Newton as well, their information on the latter team apparently coming from pop song publisher and historian, Elliot Shapiro.[6]
"CASEY JONES"
On a Sunday mornin' it begin to rain,
Around the curve he spied a passenger train;
On the pilot lay poor Jimmie Jones,
He's a good old porter, but he's dead and gone.
Dead and gone, oh he's dead and gone;
He's a good old porter but he's dead and gone.[7]
He could recall three stanzas that Saunders sang:
On a Sunday mornin' it begin to rain,
Around the curve he spied a passenger train;
Under the cab lay po' Casey Jones,
He's a good engineer but he's dead and gone. Cho.
Casey being a good engineer,
Told his fireman not to have no fear;
All I wan's a little water and coal,
I'll peep out the cab and see the drivers roll. Cho.
On a Sunday mornin' it begin to rain,
Around the curve he spied a passenger train;
Told his fireman he'd better jump,
Cause there's two locomotives that are bound to bump. Cho.[8]
The Lomaxes collected several other related fragments in the 1930s or earlier: "Charley Snyder," a ballad reportedly sung by negroes along the Ohio river; "Ol' John Brown"; "The Wreck of the Six-Wheel Driver," obtained from a man "who learned it in 1906 from a negro working in the cotton field"; and "Nachul-Born Easman," obtained from Henry Trevelyan, who claimed it was the original "Casey Jones" ballad.[9] "The Wreck of the Six-Wheel Driver" did not mention Casey Jones at all, but was about an engineer named Joseph Mickel [sic]. It had the refrain, "Been on the Cholly so long." "Charley Snyder" mentioned an engineer by that name and also Jay Gould's daughter; it seems to have been a composite of at least two separate fragments (see below). Based on their various findings, the Lomaxes (1947) put together an archetypical composite text which they subtitled "Been on the Cholly So Long," implying that this was an approximation of the song Saunders had put together, in similar fashion, from older Negro lyric fragments. It took two stanzas each from Steen's recollection of Saunders' ballad, from "Charley Snyder," and from "Wreck of the Six-Wheel Driver," and one from Trevelyan's "Nachul-Born Easman." What relation this hypothetical text may have to Saunders' song will be clearer after we examine the early published literature on the ballad and discuss other early collected texts.[10]
Fred Lee in 1939 wrote a somewhat fictionalized biography of John Luther Jones, in the appendix of which he discussed the genesis of the ballad. His focus was on the period between those discussed by Geller and by the Lomaxes. After noting that Saunders put together the ballad, Lee asserted:
"There was an engineer on the Illinois Central in the year 1900 and for several years thereafter whose two brothers constituted a team of vaudeville performers, constantly alert to pick up new songs, new jokes, new gags-anything that might make a hit with the public. The engineer's name was William Leighton. The brothers were Bert and Frank Leighton, and their attention was directed to the possibilities contained in Wallace's crude ballad. The Leighton Brothers sang a version of "Casey Jones" in various theatres of the country, adding a chorus. In 1909 a song "Casey Jones" was published by T. Lawrence Seibert and Eddie Newton.... The lyric wandered far afield, but the melody corresponded to the one sung by the Leighton Brothers and was a close approximation of the original melody. Some time after Casey's death . .. several of Casey's friends began to urge Wallace to give them the words to the ballad as he sang them so that they could be permanently transcribed. Wallace, mysterious and reticent, steadfastly refused until Engineer John R. Gaffney coaxed him with a bottle of gin. The words of the original ballad by Wallace Saunders follow. . . ."[11]
While at first glance it might seem at this point that the quest for Saunders' original text has been successfully concluded, further examination reveals this not to be the case.
In 1945 Hubbard published his fascinating and important collection of railroad stories and legends, Railroad Avenute. His account was the basis for several later retellings.[12] According to Hubbard, Casey's death was mourned by many of his friends, including,
... a simple-minded Negro named Wallace Saunders, who worked in the Canton roundhouse. Wallace had a gift for improvising ballads as he labored at wiping engines or shoveling coal. He would sing in rhythm with his muscular activity; and one of his creations, as innumerable witnesses agreed, was the original version of "Casey Jones." ... There is some doubt as to the exact process by which this folklore was transmuted into a national song hit. We do know that there were several adaptations of the original lament. One was sung on the vaudeville stage by Bert and Frank Leighton, brothers of an Illinois Central engineer named Bill Leighton. In 1902 it was finally published, and in 1903 it was listed among the ten best sellers in sheet music. In that year, three years after the Vaughan collision, the Southern Music Company of Los Angeles put out a song sheet entitled "Casey Jones, the Brave Engineer." In one corner was reproducedin miniature the cover of an earlier issue of the same ballad, and in another a hogger waving from an engine numbered 5, with the information: ". . . Popular edition published in connection with the photoplay release 'Casey Jones, or The Western Mail,' a Rayart Picture."[13]
The text that Hubbard then quoted was essentially the same ballad given by Lee, but a dozen or so minor textual differences suggest that he had another, independent source. There are several serious inaccuracies in both Lee's and Hubbard's accounts, in spite of the careful chronology of the latter. At issue are (1) the supposed existence of a 1902 published version of the ballad and (2) the supposed role of the Leighton Brothers in either bringing the ballad to the attention of Seibert and Newton or at least in popularizing it. The oft-mentioned 1902 version, first referenced by Hubbard in the above quotation, does not exist: there was no copyrighted version of "Casey Jones" prior to 1909. However, Hubbard does not state that the 1902 version was copyrighted, but merely published. It is, on the face of it, difficult to imagine that two experienced entertainers would publish sheet music, watch it ascend to the ranks of the top ten sellers, and yet refrain from copyrighting it. Fuld concurs that the 1909 sheet music was the earliest published.[14] Other chronological errors in Hubbard's description weaken the argument for a 1902 sheet music. For example, the Rayart movie that he mentions as having appeared in conjunction with the 1903 sheet music actually was not released until 1928. Furthermore, sheet music of "Casey Jones" fitting Hubbard's description exactly is dated 1927.[15]
Regarding the role of the Leightons in popularizing the ballad, there is no evidence I have seen to refute Geller's statement that they were instumental in initiating the popularity of the song on stage. However, the stronger contention that their brother, engineer Bill Leighton first heard the song and brought it to them (and that by implication the Seibert-Newton version was based on theirs) must be abandoned. For although in the first edition of Read 'Em and Weep (1926) Spaeth wrote, in a footnote to "Casey Jones," "The Leightons... are sometimes credited with the authorship of the railroad classic . . . and Joe Cook believes they evolved it from an authentic folk-song,"[16] in the later edition (1945) the corresponding footnote read, "The Leightons . . . are sometimes credited with the authorship of the railroad classic . . . but Bert Leighton, surviving member of the team, disclaims the honor and states he got it from Newton and Seibert."[17] The older theory was an attractive one, for it made it possible to attribute the version quoted by Lee, Hubbard, and others, to the Leightons (one of whom was a railroadman), but it must be discarded.
If so many problems can arise in the history of the pop song, "Casey Jones," it is not surprising that the story of the older folk versions is beset with even more difficulties. The first published reference, to my knowledge, to a song about Casey Jones appeared in the March 1908 issue of Railroad Man's Magazine in the form of a request:
An engineer friend asks us to tell him the words of a song written in memory of Casey Jones, an engineer on the Southern, near Memphis, Tenn. .. .18
Two months later, a text was published, with the note that
Jones was an engineer on the I.C., between Memphis and Canton,Mississippi, and was killed in a wreck several years ago. The song is supposed to have been sung by his negro fireman.[19] This text, hereafter referred to as the 1908 version, is the earliest published of the ballad; with very minor changes it is the same text as given by both Lee and Hubbard.
Come all you rounders, for I want you to hear
The story told of an engineer.
Casey Jones was the rounder's name,
A heavy right-wheeler of a mighty fame.
Caller called Jones about half past four;
He kissed his wife at the station door,
Climbed into the cab with his orders in his hand,
Says, "This is my trip to the holy land."
Through South Memphis yards, on the fly,
He heard the fire-boy say, "You've got a white eye."
All the switchmen knew, by the engine moan,
That the man at the throttle was Casey Jones.
It had been raining some five or six weeks,
The railroad track was like the bed of a creek;
They rated him down to a thirty-mile gait,
Threw the south-bound mail about eight hours late.
Fireman says, "Casey, you're running too fast,
You run the block-board the last station you passed."
Jones says, "Yes, I believe we'll make it through,
For she steams better than I ever knew."
Jones says, "Fireman, don't you fret;
Keep knocking at the fire-door, don't give up yet.
I'm going to run her till she leaves the rail,
Or make it in on time with the Southern mail."
Around the curve and down the dump
Two locomotives were bound to bump.
Fireman hollered, "Jones, it's just ahead;
We might jump and make it, but we'll all be dead."
'Twas around this curve he spied a passenger-train.
Reversing his engine, he caused the bell to ring.
Fireman jumped off, but Jones stayed on-
He's a good engineer, but he's dead and gone.
Poor Casey Jones was all right,
For he stuck to his duty both day and night.
They loved to hear his whistle and ring of number three,
As he came into Memphis on the old I. C.
Headaches and heartaches, and all kinds of pain,
Are not apart from a railroad train.
Tales that are in earnest, noble and grand,
Belond to the life of a railroad man.
On 7 April 1909 a ballad, "Casey Jones (The Brave Engineer)," was copyrighted (E202519) by the authors, T. Lawrence Seibert (words) and Eddie Newton (music). The sheet music was published by Southern California Music Company of Los Angeles, a firm that had been primarily engaged in selling pianos.
That same year, E. C. Perrow collected several fragmentary ballads in Mississippi which he published four years later.[20] He noted that during the winter of 1908-1909, Mississippi was full of songs about Casey Jones. All of the verses that Steen sang could be found among these fragments. Of particular interest was a three-couplet song obtained in 1905 in Tennessee and localized to Corbin (Kentucky); this is the earliest reference to a "Casey Jones"-like song (it does not actually mention anyone named Jones). Between 1907 and 1909 Perrow also collected three short fragments that he grouped under the heading "Jay Gould." In 1911 Howard W. Odum published "Casey Jones," "Eastman," "Joseph Mica," and "Ja-Gooze," all collected in Mississippi a year or so earlier and closely related to the pieces recovered by Perrow and Lomax.[21] These early reports of "Casey Jones" fragments in the Journal of American Folklore stimulated later workers to search further. However, nothing was said of the historicity of the event or the origin of the ballad, save for Phillips Barry's remark that it was "ascribed to the agile fireman.' [22]
However, in other fields of popular literature a lively controversy had been raging for several years over the ballad's origin and the event it purported to describe. The furor doubtless arose because of the widespread popularity of the vaudeville song in 1910- 1911.
In a letter to the editor of Railroad Man's Magazine in November 1910, George L. Garnett of Birmingham recounted with reasonable accuracy the essential biographical details concerning John Luther Jones-except that the date of his death was given as 18 March 1900. (This erroneous date was quoted elsewhere.[23]) Garnett also stated that
The song bearing his name was written and sung by an old roundhouse darky by the name of Wallace Sanders ... [24]
Garnett may also have written a letter, signed "Railroader," to the Kansas City Star that was published on 1 August 1911. That newspaper had printed articles about Casey Jones and had received several letters from readers. "Railroader" supplied factual details similar to those of Garnett's 1910 letter. Along with his comments were three letters from other railroaders; each one claimed a different person, killed in a different accident, was the inspiration for the ballad, and each quoted a different fragment of a ballad to prove it.
One writer signing himself "A. Rounder" attributed the source to an accident near Mammoth Springs, Arkansas, in about 1902, in which engineer Peter Martin Jones, known as K. C. Jones, was killed on the old Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis Railroad. He claimed that the ballad, which he first heard sung in the roundhouse at Thayer, Missouri, began
Come all you rounders if you want to hear,
The story of a brave engineer;
K. C. Jones was the hero's name,
He lived without fear and he died without blame.
Another writer claimed Casey Jones was in reality Harrison Stacey Jones, killed in an accident on the Northern Pacific Railroad near Billings, Montana, 19 July 1899. "One verse of the song," he wrote, "as originally sung, fixes beyond all doubt the place of the accident."
Through Billings yards he let her rock,
Fireman yelled, "You've passed the block."
Stacey said as he threw her wide,
"In another minute we're goin' to glide."
Still another correspondent asserted that Casey Jones was killed on the B. & 0. near Cumberland, Maryland, on 18 December 1895. His real name was Cassidy Jones, and his run was from Washington Junction to Connellsville. "There isn't a 'rounder' east of Pittsburgh who doesn't know the lines:
Cassidy, 'twas known all through the gap
Opened the throttle when he took a nap,
And every town knew by the engine's blow
When Cassidy went through on the B. & O."
In the 21 August issue a Star reader who lived in Troy, Kansas, wrote that a man living there claimed to be Casey Jones; he railroaded on the Rock Island line from 1897 to 1907 and was slightly lame-from the famous wreck, the pretender claimed. One of the persons who saw the letters of 1 August was an itinerant hobo who went by the name of Kelley the Rake. The following day he wrote a fascinating letter to the Star, which was published on 5 August. The essential part is as follows:
In the beginning I would say that after a sudden and unsought for exit from college when I was 16, and the ensuing wrath of my paternal ancestor, I took to the road and since have sought adventure in the realms of the unemployed. In this connection I am enabled to give authoritative and authentic information about this mythical Casey Jones, inasmuch as I was one of the progenitors of the original song.
Jay Gould, for reasons of economy, removed the platforms from the Missouri Pacific mail and baggage cars, thus eliminating a safe and comfortable means of transportation for "bos." A pal of mine, one Herkimer Hank, and myself were incited to some wrath by this action which resulted in the following effusion:
Old Jay Gould said, before he died:
I'll fix the blind so the 'bos can't ride.
If they ride, they will ride a rod,
And place their life in the hands of God.
This verse called for more so we added the following:
Old Jay Gould said, as he was about to die,
There's two more railroads I'd like to buy.
We were wondering what they could be.
He said, the New York Central and the Santa Fe.
These verses were afterward added one by one. My repertoire holds about fifty verses about old Jay Gould.
And now for the Casey Jones part. Some years ago on the Rock Island between Herington and Kansas City was a freight engineer who was always good for a ride if we would heave coal. He said his name was James A. Michaels, and he was so known. He was a reckless runner, and verses began to be made to the tune of old Jay Gould. Here are six of them:
Songs are sung about the heroes of old,
I'll tell you of one that skins them cold.
James A. Michaels was the eagle eye's name,
And when he died he died dead game.
James A. Michaels was a brave engineer;
He told the tallow pot not to fear.
Says he, all you got to do is to keep her hot,
And we'll make it in about four o'clock.
Just grab the shovel and heave the coal;
Put your head out the window and watch the drivers roll.
Then he looked at his watch and mumbled and said,
We may make it, but we'll all be dead.
They pulled out of --- about forty minutes late,
Dragging behind thirty-six cars of freight.
The conductor didn't keep any tab,
'Cause James A. Michaels was in the cab.
But when they got to the whistling post,
James turned as pale as any old ghost.
He had the tallow pot out on top,
Helping the brakies to make the stop.
The Cannon Ball come splitting the air
He threw her over and unloaded right there.
He yelled to the fireman, You'd better jump,
'Cause two locomotives is about to bump.
On railroads an engineer is an eagle eye, a fireman a tallow pot. These are verses chosen at random from among probably three hundred verses that I know. I believe the way the Casey Jones song was started was thus: A small coterie of us were flopped under a bean tree in Arizona some time ago, singing this song. A guy asks if we would write some of it out. We did, and he said he was going to publish it. I think this is the real origin of the song.
Yours respectfully,
[signed, Kelley The Flake]
In Camp, Near Porum, Ok., Aug. 2, 1911
In December 1911 Peter Mulligan wrote a long article about Casey Jones in Railroad Man's Magazine. He discussed the various letters that the Kansas City Star had published, along with several other theories about the real Casey Jones, concluding with the story of John Luther Jones printed in a letter in the Nashville Tennessean (which contained the erroneous date of the accident). Mulligan also contacted Seibert and Newton regarding their song, and they informed him that they wrote it
... from an old negro song.... Nobody knows how many verses it had, and as near as we can trace it back it started about an old engineer named John Luther Jones .... We have searched back, and so far as we can learn, an old darkey by the name of Wallace Saunders, working in a roundhouse, started the first of the Casey Jones song ... 25
The rest of the details quoted by Seibert and Newton (including the incorrect date of death) were as Garnett had given them in his letter. Readers of the magazine were evidently still not satisfied, for in April 1912 Mulligan published a follow-up article with another handful of theories and purported original ballads. An Ohio reader believed the real Casey Jones to have been Casey Shannon, an engineer who died on a switch engine from Marshfield to Myrtle Point, Oregon. He submitted a five-stanza ballad, the first and last of which were:
Come all you dagos if you want to hear
A story of a real good engineer;
Casey Shannon was the hero's name,
In a dinky line, boys, he won his fame.
* * *
Casey said before he died,
There were two more engines that he'd like to ride.
Miller asked, "Which may they be?"
"The nine-ninety-seven and the six-thirty-three.' [26]
Another railroader claimed the hero of the wreck was really David Casey Jones, killed near Mammouth Springs, Tennessee, and insisted that he was the last person to talk to Jones before the bump. Yet another correspondent said Jones was an imaginary engineer, the subject of a song written in 1898 by a Minnesota baggageman. One "Red Mc.," a reader in Memphis, identified the correct accident but reported that the song was composed by a Negro named George Crockett, who was employed about the shop and roundhouse at Water Valley, Mississippi. Mulligan also printed a letter from a gentleman in Washington who identified John Luther Jones and the Vaughan accident as the source of the ballad, and submitted a text, which he claimed he had been singing since 1902. His version was nearly identical with those of Lee and Hubbard and the 1908 version.[27]
Interest in Casey Jones did not abate after 1912, but neither was it sustained at such a high level. The next big flurry of investigation came via Adventure Magazine starting in 1923. In the 10 May issue of his column, "Old Songs That Men Have Sung," Robert Frothingham published a text of "Casey Jones" that someone had sent him in response to an earlier request.[28] The version was that of Newton and Seibert, but authorship was not attributed. In the 20 August issue, Robert W. Gordon, who had by that time taken over the column, mentioned "Casey Jones," noting that before the Newton-Seibert version was published "there were various songs and scattered verses dealing with 'Charlie Snyder,' 'Hobo John,' and 'Jay Gould's Daughter,'" and requested readers to send in more material on Casey Jones.[29]
Two years later, Gordon devoted almost a full column to "Casey Jones," discussing the vaudeville version, and printing three texts, two of which had appeared in Mulligan's April 1912 article and a third which he had received from a correspondent.[30] In the 10 November column he reported that he had received several accounts of the origin of the ballad, and published what he felt was the best-a letter from Mr. Edward O'Malley, who had been a personal friend of Jones.[31] This did not deter Gordon's readers from continuing to supply him with new versions, and altogether between 1923 and 1930 he obtained some sixty texts, fragments, and comments. Many of his correspondents sent the Newton-Seibert text, or one sufficiently close to it to be accounted for by only the sheet music and imperfect memory. One reader agreed that the 1908 version was the one he first heard in 1900, except that he had two additional verses.[32] Another reader sent in what he recalled from the laborers in the shops and yard of the Mobile 8c Ohio Railroad at Mobile, Alabama. Several verses were from the 1908 version but others were unique, although stylistically they fitted well with it. For example:
Oh, the super said to Casey, "run as fast as you can,
Show the rest of these hoggers you're a railroad man."
Casey said, "I'll run her to the Pearly gates,
'Cause I'm pulling the Southern mail, ten hours late."
and
Casey got a high-sign as he pulled into town,
He glanced at the semaphore; the arm was down;
He reached for the whistle cord, and two short blasts
Echoes round the station just as Casey rolled past.[33]
Others of Gordon's correspondents sent in texts that were unlike the 1908 or the Newton-Seibert texts but resembled more closely the fragments Lomax, Perrow, and Odum had reported. Of early reported texts or versions purportedly learned from Saunders one more item should be mentioned. In 1951 Sam Eskin recorded a version from Harry ("Haywire Mac") McClintock in California. Mac had had a long and varied career that included experience as a railroader and later as a hillbilly musician. Of the "Casey Jones" ballad, Mac told Eskin,
Well, I learned the song in 1909 when I was switching box cars in Memphis for the I. C. Railroad. And I heard Wallace Saunders sing the song myself.... All the Negro railroad men knew the song. A lot of 'em sang it and here is the original of "Casey Jones."[34] Mac's text follows:
Casey Jones was an engineer,
Told his fireman to have no fear;
"All I want is water and coal,
And my head out the window when the drivers roll."
When the drivers roll (bis)
And my head out the window when the drivers roll.
Through south Memphis yard on the fly,
Fireman hollered, "ya got a white eye";
Switchman knew by the engine's moan
That the man at the throttle was Casey Jones. Cho.
Well, the engine rocked and the drivers rolled,
Fireman hollered, "Lordy save our soul!"
Casey said, "I'll roll her till she leaves the rails
Cause I'm way behind time with the Southern mail." Cho.
Got within about a mile of the place,
A big old headlight stared him right in the face;
He told his fireman, "Boy, you better jump,
'Cause there's two locomotives that's goin' to bump." Cho.
Well, you ought to been there for to see that sight,
The women stood cryin', both colored and white;
I was there for to tell the fact,
Lawd, they flagged him down but he never looked back. Cho.
Oh, Casey said just before he died,
"There's lots more railroads that I'd like to ride";
But the good Lord whispered, "It is not to be,"
And he died at the throttle on the I and C. Cho.[35]
When the entire body of "Casey Jones" balladry is considered, Mac's version is not exceptional, but it is quite different from any of the texts discussed thus far and deserves comment. The opening couplet, rhyming engineer/fear rather than hear/engineer, is an important hallmark that seems to separate the blues ballad tradition from the Irish-American come-all-ye's. The second stanza is from the 1908 version. (It is worth noting that white used to be the color of an "all clear" signal, but between 1898 and 1910 was replaced gradually by green.[36]) The third and final stanzas are unique modifications of the more usual lines. However, Mac was a very creative artist, and it is possible that he would have changed the ballad if he had received it in a condition he regarded imperfect or unsatisfactory. The fourth stanza is found in the Newton-Seibert version, but also in several texts that clearly are not derived from the vaudeville form.[37] The fifth quatrain appears in several other texts that seem to belong to the blues ballad tradition.[38] All in all, Mac's six-stanza song is too well constructed, too sequentially correct, to fit the description we have of Saunders' song as being an endless collection of verses about Casey Jones and his wreck.
The quest for Saunders' original text should not be ended without mentioning one other version, if only for the satisfaction of being able to discard it with confidence. Overall, in his brochure published by the Casey Jones Museum, reported an interview with Jones' widow (who, incidentally, spent years publicly disclaiming the suggestions of infidelity in the final stanza of the vaudeville text). "She told this writer that the following is perhaps the most nearly correct version of the song originally intoned by Wallace Saunders. ..." Possibly Mrs. Jones did not mean to imply that the version was an accurate rendition of what Saunders sang, but only that it was an historically correct recomposition of what he sang. (It is factually correct.) In any case, Mrs. Jones' version has stanzas unlike any reported elsewhere at any time. For example:
If I can have Sim Webb, my fireman, my engine 382,
Although I'm tired and weary, I'll take her through.
Put on my whistle that came in today,
Cause I mean to keep her wailing as we ride and pray.
Casey's body lies buried in Jackson, Tennessee,
Close beside the tracks of the old I. C.
May his spirit live forever throughout the land
As the greatest of all heroes of a railroad man.[39]
The problem facing us, then, is that there are two different types of ballads that have been attributed to Saunders. On the one hand we have the 1908 version and its relatives. From its opening "Come all you rounders" to the moralizing lines of the final verse, it is unmistakably in the Anglo-American vulgar ballad tradition, and furthermore one written by and for railroad men, as evidenced by the consistent use of railroad lingo. This ballad is related to numerous other ballads about railroad wrecks, but whether they preceded or followed the 1900 I. C. disaster is uncertain. If we can believe any of the accounts given by readers of the Kansas City newspapers or Railroad Man's Magazine, or by Gordon's informants, there must have been one or more similar ballads circulating before 1900.
The songs of the other group, many of which are fragmentary, are more what one would expect from the (primarily but not exclusively Negro) blues ballad tradition.[40] This group includes Steen's verses, the fragments reported by the Lomaxes, Perrow, and Odum, and McClintock's song. Again, the fragments are clearly related to other songs (probably pre-1900) that had nothing to do with Casey Jones-and some that doubtless had nothing to do with any accident; these are discussed below. If it were simply a matter of different versions of the same general style of ballad being attributed to Saunders, we could overlook textual variations as later developments, but the attribution of two completely different styles of song is vexing.
What are we to conclude about Saunders' original composition? First, it should be stressed that we have no reliable firsthand evidence of what Saunders did sing. All the imputations that ascribe to him some form of the 1908 text are further removed than secondhand. There are two purported firsthand accounts in favor of the second group of texts-Steen's and McClintock's-and both are suspect. The cause for suspicion in the case of Steen's rendition is the unlikely chain of events that led to its recovery. The Lomaxes, twenty-three years after learning of Saunders' existence in Canton, went there to interview him. Saunders, as well as their correspondent, the Mayor of Canton, had died. The Mayor's daughter took them to see a friend of Saunders-Cornelius Steen. Steen told the Lomaxes that he taught Saunders the progenitor of the Casey Jones ballad. Lady Fortune is seldom so munificent to folklorists. Steen's story need not be summarily rejected, but it should be borne in mind that something is wanting in the evidence.
We conclude our search for Saunders' original composition without having gained our goal. No ballad claiming that role has impressive credentials. We are left with only our general experience in the nature of American folksong to suggest at least a partial answer, and that is that if Wash Saunders was the uneducated black engine-wiper all accounts would have us believe he was,41 then the lament he put together after Jones' death was nothing like the 1908 version, but was rather in the spirit of "Joseph Michael," "Wreck of the Six-Wheeler," "Hobo John," and the other Afro-American fragments that were in oral circulation before the turn of the century.
The 1908 ballad must have been a completely independent composition, probably by some other railroader along the route of the I. C. And even that song, judging by the facts mentioned that do not jibe with the 1900 accident, and by the other reported independent ballads, must have been based on older material.
What can be said, now, about "Jay Gould's Daughter" (identified as dI in G. Malcolm Laws' syllabus, Native American Balladry [Philadelphia, 1964]), "Joseph Mica" (Laws I 16), and other early pieces, and their relation to each other and to the Casey Jones ballads? It has been suggested that dl 26 should be considered a form of I 16.[42] While these two song groups have verses in common, there has not been a single published or recorded text of one song containing both personal names. Is this simply a case parallel to the complex of murdered girl ballads that includes "The Jealous Lover" (Laws Fl A), "Pearl Bryan II" (Laws Fl B), and "Nell Cropsey" (Fl C)? Clearly these three ballads are the same but for the substitution of the names of the principals involved. I prefer another solution to the problem of relating dl 26 and I 16: I argue that "Jay Gould's Daughter" is not a ballad, but only an endless collection of loosely narrative stanzas that do not, and never did, tell or comment upon a single event. Why, then, should occasional verses mentioning Jay Gould or his offspring appear in songs about railroad wrecks or hobos? A reasonable explanation is the one advanced in 1911 by "Kelley the Rake." "Jay Gould" was an older song, the tune of which was borrowed for later railroad songs, including "Casey Jones." If we are to believe Kelley in attributing the song to events that took place while Gould owned the Missouri Pacific Railroad, then the song would have originated some time between 1879 and 1892. Of course, "Jay Gould" could similarly have borrowed an older tune. One is reminded of the sequence of ballads to the tune of "That Ship That Never Returned," including "Parted Lovers" and "Wreck of the Old 97." In "97" occurs a moralizing stanza that makes sense only when one realizes that the song was a recomposition based on "Parted Lovers." In the same way, when the tune of "Jay Gould" was borrowed for later railroad songs, it was inevitable that a verse or two mentioning the rascally robber baron would also turn up in them. The fact that only one text of "Casey Jones" mentions Gould supports the theory that Gould was only an accidental intruder in the Casey Jones ballads. The two persistent Jay Gould verses are the ones given by Kelley the Rake in his letter. That Joseph Mica was the James A. Michaels of his account cannot be proved, but his explanation does fit many of the facts. It is tempting to speculate to what extent, if any, "Kelley the Rake" influenced Lomax's conclusions regarding "Casey Jones."
It seems, therefore, that in back of the Casey Jones blues ballads were at least four themes, which probably at one time were distinct but by 1900 had already become commingled. One was the collection of verses about Jay Gould; the second was a family of songs about hobos and ramblers;[43] a third was a family of songs about trainwrecks; [44] and the fourth, not discussed here, focused on rounders and men of loose morals.[45] From the second group came the Jimmie Jones fragment that Steen recalled, analogs of which appear in over twenty texts, only five of which mention Casey Jones. This fragment formed the opening stanza of the Lomax hypothetical text.
While Jay Gould is mentioned in only two Casey Jones texts, we can probably attribute to the Gould songs the derivative verses, widely found in Casey Jones ballads, beginning "Casey said before he died, there's two more roads he'd like to ride . . ." and ". . . Fix the rods so the bums can't ride."
The latter hardly sounds like a verse that would have been composed in honor of an untarnished folk hero, such as Jones was. The Gould songs, then, contribute the sixth stanza to the Lomaxes' archetypical text. The second, third, fourth, and fifth stanzas of the Lomaxes' reconstruction all belong to the train wreck song family; probably all predate the John Luther Jones accident, as they all occur in non-Casey Jones texts. The last stanza of the Lomaxes' text occurs in only one collected version and cannot be identified clearly with any of the above groups of songs. Thus, the Lomaxes' archetypical text, while it does represent various pre-Casey Jones songs and ballads, probably should not be titled "Casey Jones," and should not be considered appropriate to the Jones accident or even to the Jones ballad tradition.
To pursue any further the search for Saunders' original ballad is a hopeless task, not so much because of the lack of documented evidence from the early years after the wreck, but more because of the highly fluid nature of blues ballads. Saunders may never have sung the same text about Jones twice; to quest for the ballad is to carry Platonism into most inhospitable domains.
The Lomaxes' hypothetical ballad is set to a tune that deserves further comment. It is a member of a family of structurally related melodies that are found with several early Casey Jones ballads and related songs.[46] All of these songs consist of a stanza of eight measures followed by a refrain of four measures (which, when sung and played, is often protracted to six measures by holding two words, e.g., "Dead and gone, dead and gone, He's a good old hobo, but he's dead and gone"). The refrain is constructed from repetitions of the fourth line of the stanza immediately preceding it. The melody is hexatonic, lacking the fourth degree of the scale (except in the case of the Lomax melody). If the eight measures of the stanzaic melody are divided according to the four lines of the stanza, the first line generally ends on the octave; the second line, on the dominant; the third line (which essentially repeats the melody of the first line), on the octave; and the fourth line, on the tonic. (In contrast, the chorus of the vaudeville song is the same metrical length as the stanzas, and the terminal notes of the stanzaic lines are dominant, subtonic, dominant, and tonic, respectively. The third line repeats the first, and the second line almost does so.) If there was a melody of "Jay Gould" that was borrowed for "Casey Jones" and other hobo and trainwreck ballads, then it is reasonable that it too was a member of this tune family. This is perhaps as near as we will get to knowing what Wallace Saunders' tune originally was like; it is not very close, but it is probably closer than we will ever get to his text.
This brief study will surely not be the last word in Casey Jones ballad scholarship. Many intriguing questions have been completely avoided. There are several stanzas that are not part of the usual forms that nevertheless occur with sufficient frequency to prompt an inquiry into their origins. There is the matter of the several texts that use the phrase, "Southern Casey Jones," which suggests to me not a geographic adjective, but a reference to the Southern Railroad Company. There is the problem of the relationship of the elements discussed in this paper to the blues ballad theme of the ramblin' man, or "easeman." This latter problem, as well as all others that deal with the pre-Casey Jones tradition, is complicated by the lack of any texts that can be dated with certainty to before 1905. What does seem clear, however, is that by the time Newton and
Seibert were inspired to write their vaudeville hit, there were two independent thriving traditions about Casey Jones; their song shows signs of having borrowed from both of them. Their first two quatrains, as well as couplets from the third and the fifth stanzas, are taken directly from the 1908 version (or something very similar to it). Stanzas three, four, and six are taken mainly from the blues ballad tradition. Note that in the central portion of the ballad (stanzas three through five) there is no chronologically correct sequence of verses. The seventh stanza is the Jay Gould borrowing. The final stanza, "... you got another papa on the Salt Lake Line," is probably Newton and Seibert's own brilliant rewrite of the blues ballad verse, ". . . you'll draw a pension at your daddy's death." The other original contributions that the two vaudevillians probably made were the alterations that gave the ballad a western setting: "southern mail" becomes "western mail"; western localizations, "Frisco" and "Reno hill" are inserted; and all the railroad lines that are mentioned-Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, and Salt Lake Line-are western lines.
Finally, nothing has been said about the effect of the vaudeville song on oral tradition. It may have borrowed from the older traditions, but in turn it influenced both black and white folksong. "Purists" may see this as a folk musicological analogy of Gresham's law, but the impact cannot be gainsaid. Furthermore, the vaudeville tune provided the vehicle for a host of parodies and songs, from Joe Hill's railroad strike song[47] through a miner's version,[48] an Air Force parody,[49] a soldiers' song,[50] numerous bawdy offshoots, [51] a political satire about F.D.R.,52 "Sidney Allen" (Laws E5), a KKK song,[53] and "Hellbound Train," to a recent Free Speech Movement song.[54] Thus we have come full circle: fragments of folksongs provide the basis for a pop song, which itself then enters oral tradition and paves the way for other folksongs. Few American ballads offer such striking confirmation of the interaction of folk and pop traditions as does "Casey Jones."[55]
John Edwards Memorial Foundation
University of California, Los Angeles
FOOTNOTES:
1. See, for example, Freeman H. Hubbard, Railroad Avenue (New York, 1945), ch. 2; Carlton J. Corliss, Main Line of Mid-America (New York, 1950), 301-311 (reprinted in Benjamin A. Botkin and Alvin F. Harlow, A Treasury of Railroad Folklore (New
York, 1953), 40-48); B. W. Overall, The Story of Casey Jones, The Brave Engineer (Jackson, Tenn., 1956).
2. Kansas City Star, 20 September 1911.
3. James J. Geller, Famous Songs and Their Stories (New York, 1931), 231. The Lomaxes' informant, Cornelius Steen, said he could recall but one stanza of the song he brought from Kansas City:
4. John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax, American Ballads and Folk Songs (New York, 1934), 37.
5. That "Casey Jones" began as a ballad about an imaginary wreck is also the thesis of an article, "'Casey Jones? I Knew Him'," that appeared in the Kansas City Times, 24 February 1911, p. 5A. The interviewee, a black engine-wiper for the Cotton Belt line, claimed that "Ol' Jiminy," a wiper on the Santa Fe in California, made up the song about an engineer pal of his. "Every night, when Casey'd come in from his run, Jiminy'd have some new verse fixed up for him, something like this:
They took po' Casey to de cemeteree,
All in a wood kimona jus' 'bout six foot, three;
They laid him down in de col', col' groun',
An' th' weepin' family members stahted back to town.
Casey Jones didn't mind it. Course, it all started in a joke, and gradually him and Jiminy began fixing up verses and verses. They started Casey Jones out on the road and they got him in wrecks and they took him to the undertakers and they had his wife see him there .... And all the time, th' other fellows in the roundhouse were getting onto the thing and they liked the tune and they began singing it and fixing up verses to it, and then it began to get out of the roundhouse and into the city ...."
6. Folk Song: U. S. A. (New York, 1947), 248-250.
7. This text, which does not agree with the one given in n. 4, is taken from the Library of Congress Archive of Folk Song (AFS), Record no. 1866A, "Casey Jones," singer unidentified. In the jacket to the record were some notes by Lomax to this effect: "Canton, Mississippi, August 1933. 'Original' version of 'Casey Jones,' sung by a friend of Wash Sanders, Negro, said to have composed the ballad." I assume the singer to have been Steen, although the discrepancy between the recorded and published texts remains unexplained.
8. Text from AFS 1866A. Casey Jones was not the only engineer to tell his fireman to jump before an imminent wreck. "Billy Clark," a poem by S. W. Gillilan published in Locomotive Engineers' Monthly Journal, September 1902, 580, has the line, "He'd holler to his fireman, 'Jump'." Clark dies in the ensuing wreck.
9. The texts to these four ballads are in Lomax and Lomax (1934), 34-42.
10. I use the term "collected texts" to include commercial hillbilly and race recordings, popular publications, and newspapers, as well as the standard folksong collections and archives. This study is based on slightly over 100 (non-Newton & Seibert) "Casey Jones" and related texts.
11. Fred J. Lee, Casey Jones: Epic of the American Railroad (Kingsport, Tennessee, 1939), 285.
12. Compare, for example, Freeman H. Hubbard, "The Real Casey Jones," in American Mercitry 70 (June 1950): 709; Overall, The Story of Casey Jones; Robert Y. Drake, Jr., "Casey Jones: The Man and the Song," Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin 19
(1953): 95.
13. Hubbard, Railroad Avenue, ch. 2.
14. See, for example, Freeman H. Hubbard, Railroad Avenue (New York, 1945), ch. 2; Carlton J. Corliss, Main Line of Mid-America (New York, 1950), 301-311 (reprinted in Benjamin A. Botkin and Alvin F. Harlow, A Treasury of Railroad Folklore (New
York, 1953), 40-48); B. W. Overall, The Story of Casey Jones, The Brave Engineer (Jackson, Tenn., 1956).
15. The existence of 1903 sheet music is asserted by others, including Hubbard, Overall, and Drake. See also Stewart H. Holbrook, The Story of American Railroads (New York, 1947), 429, where 1902 sheet music is mentioned. Frank P. Morse, Cavalcade of the Rails (New York, 1940), 308, states that Newton and Seibert overheard Saunders singing about Casey at Jackson in 1902.
16. Sigmund Spaeth, Read 'Em and Weep (New York, 1926), 119.
17. Sigmund Spaeth, Read 'Em and Weep (New York, 1945), 106. The same disclaimer by the Leighton Brothers is noted in Spaeth, A History of Popular Music (New York, 1948), 367.
18. Railroad Man's Magazine 5 (1908): 384.
19. Ibid.: 764.
20. E. C. Perrow, "Songs and Rhymes from the South," Journal of American Folklore [JAF] 26 (1913): 165-67. Two of these pieces are reprinted by Albert B. Friedman in The Viking Book of Folk Ballads of the English-Speaking World (New York, 1956), 313-14.
21. Howard W. Odum, "Folk-Song and Folk-Poetry as Found in the Secular Songs of the Southern Negroes," JAF 24 (1911): 352, 354, 384. These have been reprinted in Friedman, The Viking Book of Folk Ballads, 313-14; in Howard W. Odum and Guy
B. Johnson, The Negro and His Songs (Cambridge, Mass., 1925), 208; in Odum and Johnson, Negro Workaday Songs (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1926), 126; and in Dorothy Scarborough, On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs (Cambridge, Mass., 1925), 250.
22. "American Ballads," JAF 25 (1912): 188.
23. See, for example, The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, vol. 2, ed. Henry M. Belden and Arthur Palmer Hudson (Durham, 1952), 510; also Louise Pound, American Ballads and Songs (New York, 1922), 250.
24. The role of black engine-wipers in American folklore as song writers needs to be further explored. Harry Bolser, in "Switchmen Knew By the Engine's Moans That at the Throttle was Casey Jones," Louisville Courier-Journal, 27 April 1950, writes that "Charley Antwerp, a Negro engine wiper at Canton, is believed to have written the original Casey Jones poem . . . (he) was the first person ever heard humming the tune." Two informants told John Harrington Cox that a Negro (engine-wiper in one report) who worked in the Hinton roundhouse wrote the ballad, "The Wreck on the C. & O."; see Cox, Folk-Songs of the South (Cambridge, Mass., 1925), 221. Furthermore, Saunders has been credited in print with composing another song about Casey Jones, this one over ten years prior to the fatal wreck.
25. "Casey Jones," Railroad Man's Magazine 16:397-402.
26. Railroad Man's Magazine 17:494-97.
27. This text was reprinted by Robert W. Gordon in "Old Songs That Men Have Sung," Adventure Magazine, 20 June 1925, 191.
28. Adventure Magazine, 10 May 1923, 191.
29. Adventure Magazine, 20 August 1923, 192.
30. Adventure Magazine, 20 June 1925. 191-92.
31. Adventure Magazine, 10 November 1925, 191.
32. Robert W. Gordon MS Number 3612, Library of Congress, Archive of Folksong; from J. C. McDaniel of Honduras, 2 May 1929.
33. Gordon MS 1504, from Hugh Manning.
34. Letter from Sam Eskin, 13 February 1965.
35. AFS recording 10506-A2, February 1951.
36. Barbara Kreimer, "Information Booth," Railroad Magazine, April 1966, 36.
37. Cf. "On the Charlie So Long," Carl Sandburg, The American Songbag (New York, 1927), 365; Gordon MSS 47, 217, 407; Newton Gaines, "Wreck of the Six-Wheeler," 78rpm record Timely Tunes C-1564 (reissued on RCA LPV 548, Native American
Ballads); "The Wreck of the Six-Wheel Driver," Lomax and Lomax (1934), 39; "Cause He's Been On the Charlie So Long," Sterling Sherwin and Harry K. McClintock, Railroad Songs of Yesterday (New York, 1943), 14; Furry Lewis, "Kassie Jones," Victor 21664 (reissued on Folkways FA 2951; transcribed in Friedman, 315). It seems reasonable that this stanza preceded the Vaughan wreck, as John Luther Jones was confronted by a caboose, not engine, when he collided.
38. Cf. Newton Gaines; Sherwin and McClintock; Lomax and Lomax (1934); Fiddlin' John Carson, "Casey Jones," OKeh 40038; Riley Puckett, "Casey Jones," Columbia 113-D; Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers, "Casey Jones," Columbia 15237-D; Sandburg; Ed Cobb, "Casey Jones," AFS 1330 BL; Charles E. Roe, Gordon MS 3779. This stanza does not at all describe the events of John Luther Jones' wreck.
39. Overall, 67, 69.
40. Contemporary scholarship of native American balladry recognizes two distinct narrative styles. The vulgar ballad, generally associated with songs disseminated on broadsides and other cheap printed media in Great Britain and the United States through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is characterized by its journalistic, chronologically correct exposition of the events recounted. It generally begins with a formulaic opening called an incipit and concludes with a moralizing or sentimental
commentary (sometimes termed an explicit). Unlike the vulgar ballad, which is primarily an Anglo-American phenomenon, the blues ballad is familiar in both Angloand Afro-American traditions. In the blues ballad, although there is a definite underlying
narrative, the emphasis is on editorial comment rather than reportage. Thus, the sequence of verscs in a blues ballad is generally immaterial; in sharp contrast, if verses of a vulgar ballad were interchanged, the result often would be nonsense. It
is tempting to speculate that the blues ballad represents a merger of the journalistic style of the vulgar ballad with the lyrical approach of the Anglo-American banjo songs or of the Afro-American blues songs, but its origins are presently unclear. The
two terms "blues ballad" and "vulgar ballad" are easily applied to specimen texts of the American folksong corpus. In this paper it may appear that I have carried the notions a step further in suggesting that individual stanzas can be identified as belonging
to one ballad type or the other. I am not prepared to claim that any stanza, taken out of context, can be placed in one category or the other. What I do assert is that stanzas and verses can be classified on the basis of other ballads in which they
occur. For further discussion see D. K. Wilgus, "A Type Index of Anglo-American Traditional Narrative Songs," Journal of the Folklore Institute 7 (1970): 161-176. In particular, see the key references cited in footnote 4.
41. Whether there is any truth to this picture cannot be said, but it has been widely perpetuated, often with embarrassing elaborations. For example, Lee, p. 284, writes, "Wallace Saunders was just such a Negro as the text portrays: ignorant, unlettered, extremely simple-minded, a typical representative of the class of darkies legion in the Black Bottom country of Mississippi."
42. D. K. Wilgus, in Appendix to Folk-Songs of the Southern United States by J. H. Combs (Austin & London, 1967), 212.
43. In this family are Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, "Milwaukee Blues," Columbia 15688-D (reissued on County 516); John Martin (Roy Harvey pseud.), "Milwaukee Blues," Superior 2626; Four Pickled Peppers, "Ramblin' John,"
Bluebird B-8543; "Hobo John," George Milburn, The Hobo's Hornbook (New York, 1930), 250; "Can't Be Your Turtle Any Mo,'" Odum (1911): 279; (untitled-"Hobo John"?), Newman Ivey White, American Negro Folk Songs (Cambridge, Mass., 1928),
374.
44. In addition to songs mentioned in the text of this paper, this family includes "Mike O'Dinner Was a Good Engineer," Railroad Man's Magazine (1909): 380; "Mack McDonald," Cox, 231; "Santa Fe Wreck," Robert W. Gordon collection, Odum-Arthur MS 62; "Engineer Rigg," White, 220; (untitled-"Big Joe Carmichael"?) John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax, Our Singing Country (New York, 1941), 254; and "Ben Dewberry's Final Run." This last piece was written and composed by blind evangelist/singer Andrew Jenkins of Atlanta in 1927 and recorded that year by Jimmie Rodgers, Victor 21245, Bluebird B-5482 (reissued on RCA Victor LPM 1640). It appears in none of the standard regional folksong collections but has been collected in the field (see, for example, Western Kentucky Folklore Archive at UCLA). The obvious conclusion, after examining the words, would be that Jenkins has recomposed the Casey Jones story. However, I believe that Jenkins' ballad actually belongs to the older pre-Casey Jones family, as suggested by its tune, verse structure, and lyrics. Jenkins had a remarkable ability to fashion songs and ballads in the folk idiom; but in at least one other case-"Dream of the Miner's Child"-a Jenkins song has been traced to older sources (see Archie Green, Only a Miner [Urbana, Ill., 1972], 111 ff.). I would not be surprised to learn that there had been a Ben Dewberry, but I would expect him to have been killed early in the century, if not late in the 1800s, rather than around 1927 when the song was "written." Irene Spain Futrelle, Jenkins' daughter and former collaborator, recalls helping in the composition of the song, "but where he got the theme, I am unable to say. He could of known of such a man, as I am sure he did . . . but it could have been like 'Casey Jones'" (letter to Archie Green, 29 November 1957). She later stated that she believed Ben Dewberry "was a real man" and that "I made the music and he [Jenkins] made the song" (interview with
Archie Green, Ed Kahn, D. K. Wilgus, 8 August 1971).
45. In this family, besides songs mentioned in the text of this paper, are Bessie Smith, "J. C. Holmes Blues," Columbia 14095-D (reissued on Columbia CL 855); Sloppy Henry, "Hobo Blues," OKeh 8683; and Peg Leg Howell, "Papa Stobb Blues,"
Columbia 14238-D.
46. In this family are "Milwaukee Blues"; "Hobo John," Milburn, The Hobo's Hornbook, 250; Four Pickled Peppers, "Ramblin' John"; Newton Gaines, "Wreck of the Six-Wheeler"; and McClintock's and Steen's renditions of "Casey Jones." Similar but
more distantly related are "Ben Dewberry's Final Run" and Furry Lewis's guitar accompaniment to his "Kassie Jones," which is melodically very close to the preceding.
47. William Alderson, Western Folklore [WF] 1 (1942): 373; Duncan Emrich, WF 1:292.
48. Emrich, Southern Folklore Quarterly 6 (1942): 104; Wayland D. Hand et al., WF 9 (1950): 33.
49. William Wallrich, Air Force Airs (New York, 1957), 31.
50. John Brophy and Eric Partridge, The Long Trail (New York, 1965), 65.
51. Ed Cray, The Erotic Muse (New York, 1969), 50.
52. James H. Forbes, The Railway Conductor, 52:7 (July 1935), 213.
53. "Casey Jones," singer unidentified, on 78rpm Special K-I (ca. 1924), produced by Rodehauer Recording Laboratories, Chicago.
54. "Free Speech Songbook: Songs Of, By, and For the F.S.M.," mimeographed (Berkeley, 1964), n.p.
55. A preliminary draft of portions of this paper was read at the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the California Folklore Society at California State College at Fullerton, April 1971. I am grateful to Joseph C. Hickerson, Alan Jabbour, and D. K. Wilgus for
calling certain items to my attention.