LUMBERJACKS, LOGGERS, SHANTY-BOYS
HARMONIZATION BY PAGE
JAMES WHALAND Alfred G. Wathall .... 389
THE SHANTY-MAN'S LIFE Charles Fancell Edson , . . 890
FLAT RIVER GIRL 3/anon Lychenheim . . . 39$
THE JAM ON GERRY'S ROCK 394
DRIVING SAW-LOGS ON THE PLOVER Cliarhs Farwcll Ed son . . . 396
MOHRISSEY AND THE RUSSIAN SAILOR 398
MULE SKINNER'S SONG Henry Fruncis Parks . . . 400
887
Science, invention, new machinery, the I. W. W., the Y. M. C. A., phonograph, radio, movies,
and welfare organizations, have changed logging camp conditions, so that singing and singers are
not what they used to be. The old-time shanty boy in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, is gone.
Franz Rickaby walked across the old lumber region from Charlevoix, Michigan, to Grand Forks,
North Dakota, one summer, carrying a violin and a packsack, stopping where night found him,
playing his violin and asking people, "What are the old songs you sing here?" And the ballads he
picked up were all from old men. The pioneer lumberjacks^cut the trees that made the frame
houses of pioneer prairie farmers. Rickaby met W. N. Allen of Wausau, Wisconsin, who sang of
the cut-down pine tree made into sawlogs, sent on a river to a mill, and of how
"Then they'll sell you to some farmer
To keep his wife and children warmer.
With his team he'll haul you home
To the prairie drear and lone.
Into a prairie houre he'll make you,
Where the prairie winds will shake you.
There'll be little rest for thee,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.
The prairie winds will sing around you.
The hail and sleet and snow will pound you,
Arid shake and wear and bleach your bones,
On the prairie drear and lone."
Still other conditions have changed. In Stewart Edward White's "The Blazed Trail" an old
timer says, "The towns of Bay City and Saginaw alone in 1878 supported over fourteen hundred
tough characters. Block after block was devoted entirely to saloons. In a radius of three hundred
feet from the famous old Catacombs could be numbered forty saloons where drinks were sold by
from three to ten * pretty waiter girls.' When the boys struck town, the proprietors and waitresses
stood in their doorways to welcome them. ... If Jack resisted temptation and walked reso-
lutely on, one of the girls would remark audibly to another, 'He ain't no lumberjack! You can
see that easy 'miff. He's just off the hay trail'. Ten to one that brought him."
Rickaby 's "Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy" has in it the big woods silence, the spray of
white water, the roar of log jams, besides many things brawny, reeking and raucous out of the bunk-
house. He understood rough men, their rough work, words, weather. He was the first to put the
singing lumberjack into an adequate document and book. Of the logging camp fiddler it was
remarked, "He gets the swing of the tune and then plays it to suit himself." and to this Rickaby adds:
"Getting the swing of the melody of a song, and then bending both melody and words into satis-
factory union, is fundamental in folk-song. The singing of a ballad is a free and unconfined process.
The story is the clear unmortgaged possession of the personality whose lips happen to be forming
it at the time; word and note must serve, but they must not get in the way. Thus it is that a
singer, in three successive renditions of the same line, may sing it no twice alike. Not only may the
melody vary slightly, but 'they* may become 'we,' 'though* may become 'although,' 'Willie* may
become 'William,' or even another person entirely. 'Oh* may be omitted, or supplied; or 'it's*
or 'then* or 'now'; and so on through a hundred similar or greater possibilities. This may all
sound slovenly and unkempt to the conscious artist; but in the realm of popular balladry, until
one does it, the ballad is not truly his."
388
JAMES WHALAND
Slow, ponderous, inevitable, this proceeds like a witness whose testimony is unshakable. He
saw what he tells, knows how it happened, and is sure it is the truth. . . . Edwin Ford Piper of
the University of Iowa, heard this in the 1890's from farmhands who had been up in a Minnesota
logging camp.
Arr. A. G. W.
Modernto con tnoto. Lugubre
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Come all you brave young shan - ty - boys, I pray you all draw near,
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of a fright - fill ac - ci - dent, That I would have you
hear.
1 Come all you brave young shanty-boys,
I pray you all draw near,
Tis of a frightful accident
That I would have you hear.
2 Tis of a young and comely youth,
James Wtialand he was called,
Got drownded from Le Claron's raft,
All on the upper falls.
8 The water being in its raging course,
The river rolling high,
When the foreman to young Whaland said,
"The jam you'll have to try."
4 As they were rolling off the logs,
Young Whaland made a shout:
44 To shore, to shore, mv shanty -boys,
The jam is going out!
5 Those mighty logs went end on end,
With fearful crashing sound,
And when the shanty -boys looked back,
Young Whaland had gone down.
6 The foaming waters tore and tossed
The logs from shore to shore,
And here and there his body lies,
A-tumbling o'er and o'er.
589
THE SHANTY-MAN'S LIFE
Franz Rickaby heard from an old shanty-boy, A. C. Hannah at Bimidji, Minnesota, the same
tune that John Lomax met in Texas. The cowpuncher of the southwestern plains and the lumber-
jack of the north woods strung on the same old Irish melody verses telling of similar troubles and
like gaiety. Though they have "a wearisome life" it is "void of all slavish fear/'
Arr. C.F.E.
Oh, a shanty-man's life is a wearisome life, although some think it
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390
THE SHANTY -MAN'S LIFE
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1 Oh, a shanty-man's life is a wearisome life, although some think it void of care,
Swinging an ax from morning till night in the midst of the forests so drear.
Lying in the shanty bleak and cold while the cold stormy wintry winds blow,
And as soon as the daylight doth appear, to the wild woods we must go.
2 Oh, the cook rises up in the middle of the night saying, "Hurrah, brave boys, it's day."
Broken slumbers ofttimes are passed as the cold winter night whiles away.
Had we rum, wine or beer our spirits for to cheer as the days so lonely do dwine,
Or a glass of arty shone while in the woods alone for to cheer up our troubled minds.
3 But when spring it docs set in, double hardships then begin, when the waters are piercing cold,
Arid our clothes are dripping wet and fingers benumbed, and our pike-poles we scarcely ran hold.
Betwixt rocks, shoals and sands give employment to all hands our well-banded raft for to steer,
And the rapids that we run, oh, they seem to us but fun, for we're void of all slavish feur.
4 Oh, a shanty lad is the only lad I love, and I never will deny the same.
My heart doth scorn these conceited farmer boys who think it a disgraceful name.
They may boast about their farms, but my shanty -boy has charms so far, far surpassing them all,
Until death it doth us part he shall enjoy my heart, let his riches be great or small.
891
FLAT RIVER GIRL
A member of the Great Lakes Seamen's Union sang this for me at the Union headquarters in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when I was marine editor of a newspaper. Later I found the same tune
going to a prison song, Cousin Nellie, and to part of the cowboy song, When The Work's All Done
This Fall. . . . Rickaby gives four texts and tunes to this piece, one old timer saying the Flat
River flows through Greenville, Michigan, and "Jack Haggerty was a lumberjack and from a man
who used to run a livery stable and rent him horses I learned that he was not quite so rough as most
of those birds, and was a little more dressy."
Air. M. L.
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392
FLAT RIVER GIRL
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1 Come all you fine young fellow with hearts so warm and true,
Never believe in a woman; you're lost if you do.
But if you ever see one with long brown chestnut curls,
Just think of Jack Haggerty and his Flat River girl.
2 Her form was like the dove, so slender and so neat,
Her long brown chestnut curls hung to her tiny feet,
Her voice it was like music or murmurs of the breeze
As she whispered that she loved me as we strolled among the trees.
3 She was a blacksmith's daughter from the Flat River side,
And I always had intended for to make her my bride;
But one day on the river a letter I received :
She said that from her promise herself she had relieved.
4 To her mother, Jane Tucker, I lay all the blame.
She caused her to leave me and to blacken my name.
I counted her my darling, what a lady for a wife!
When I think of her treachery it nearly takes my life.
5 Come all you fine young fellows with hearts so warm and true.
Never believe in a woman; you're lost if you do.
But if you ever see one with long brown chestnut curls,
Just think of Jack Haggerty and his Flat River girl.
893
THE JAM ON GERRY'S ROCK
On a melodious winter evening in Salem, Oregon, Charles Olaf Olsen, logger and poet, was
nsked to tell a lie that had few words and much imagination. He said, "Once there was a logger
who had a trunk." . . . Then James Stevens, logger and author, sang "The Jam on Gerry's
Rook," sonorously, rockingly, beating time with a sure, unfailing foot that slammed the floor with
accurate measures. ... It is a heavy, brooding ballad, portentous as a log boom on an ice
locked river. . , . Rickaby, in an extended note, says it was born in Canada or Michigan, with
the odds of witnesses in favor of Michigan. He observes, "Old fellows told me anyone starting
(Jerry's Rock in the shanties was summarily shut off because the song was sung to death; others
vow that of all songs it was ever and always the most welcome." . . . "Deacon seat" was
si unity lingo for a seat, or board, extending from the lower tier of bunks and running square or
oblong around the biinkhouse; it wufl where they sat between suppertirne and bedtime and smoked,
talked, sang, and told Paul Bunyari stories.
Come all ye true-born shan-ty-boys, wher - ev - er you may be, Come sit ye on the
dea-con seat and lis - ten mi - to me. I'll sing the jam on Ger-ry's Rock and a
he - ro you should know, The bravest of all shan-ty-boys, the foreman. Young Mun-ro.
1 Come all ye true-born shanty-boys, wherever you may be,
Come sit ye on the deacon seat and listen unto me.
Fll sing the jam on Gerry's Rock and a hero you should know,
The bravest of all shanty -boys, the foreman, Young Munro.
2 'Twas on a Sunday morning, ere daylight did appear.
The logs were piling mountain-high: we could riot keep them clear.
"Cheer up! Cheer up, my rivermen, relieve your hearts of woe!
We'll break the jam on Gerry's Rock!" cried our foreman, Young Munro.
3 Now some of them were willing, while others hid from sight.
To break a jam on Sunday they did not think it right.
Till six of our brave shanty-boys did volunteer to go
And break the jam on Gerryla Rock with our foreman, Young Munro.
394
THE JAM ON GERRY'S ROCK
4 They had not picked off many logs till Munro to them did say,
"I must send you back up the drive, my boys, for the jam will soon give way!''
Alone he freed the key-log then, and when the jam did go
It carried away on the boiling-flood our foreman, Young Munro.
5 Now when the boys up at the camp the news they came to hear,
In search of his dead body down the river they did steer;
And there they found to their surprise, their sorrow, grief and woe,
All bruised and mangled on the beach, lay the corpse of Young Munro.
6 They picked him up most tenderly, smoothed clown his raven hair.
There was one among the watchers whose cries did rend the air.
The fairest lass of Saginaw let tears of anguish flow;
But her moans and cries could not awake her true love, Young Munro.
7 The Missus Clark, a widow, lived by the riverside;
This was her only daughter, Munro's intended bride.
So the wages of her perished love the boss to her did pay
And a gift of gold was sent to her by the shanty-boys next day.
8 When she received the money she thanked them tearfully,
But it was not her portion long on the earth to be;
For it was just six weeks or so when she was called to go
And the shanty-boys laid her at rest by the side of Young Munro.
9 They decked the graves most decently 'twas on the fourth of May
Come all ye true-born shanty -boys and for a comrade pray!
Engraven on a hemlock tree which by the beach did grow,
Are the name and date of the mournful fate of the foreman, Young Munro.
395
DRIVING SAW-LOGS ON THE PLOVER
Winter was the big time for work in the logging camps. The logs cut during winter were floated
to the saw mills as the frozen rivers loosened up for the "drive" in the spring. Boys needed on the
farms in summer and fall took a turn at logging in the winter. So there was plenty of argument
on whether a farm hand or a shanty -boy had the better of it, in pay and cash or in favor with the
girls. . . . In M. C. Dean's collection The Flying Cloud is an old song I Love My Sailor Boy,
with a mother's advice and a daughter's scorn in two verses:
"Then wed a steady farmer's son that whistles at the plow,
And then you will have time enough to tend both sheep and cows.
But your sailor he'll carouse and drink whenever he comes on shore,
And when his money is spent and gone, he'll sail the seas for more."
"A fig for all your farmer's sons! Such lovers I disdain.
There is not one among them dare face the raging main.
And when the winds are howling and the billows are white as snow,
I'll venture rny life with the lad that dare go where stormy winds do blow."
The text and tune here were notated by Franz Rickaby from W. N. Allen of Wausau, Wisconsin.
Allen composed the verses in 1873, using the tune of an old song about a mother's words to her son
as he went away to the Crimean War.
Arr. C. F. E.
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There walked on Plover's shad-y banks One eve-ning last Ju - ly, A
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DRIVING SAW-LOGS ON THE PLOVER
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1 There walked on Plover's shady banks
One evening last July,
A mother of a shanty-boy,
And doleful was her cry,
Saying, "God be with you, Johnnie,
Although you're far away
Driving saw-logs on the Plover,
And you'll never get your pay.
2 "O Johnnie, I gave you schooling,
I gave you a trade likewise;
You need not been a shanty-boy
Had you taken my advice.
You need not gone from your dear home
To the forest far away,
Diving saw-logs on the Plover?
" And you'll never get your pay.
3 "O Johnnie, you were your father's hope,
Your mother's only joy.
Why is it that you ramble so,
My own, my darling boy?
What could induce you, Johnnie,
From your own dear home to stray,
Driving saw-logs on the Plover?
And you'll never get your pay.
4 "Why didn't you stay upon the farm,
And feed the ducks and hens,
And drive the pigs and sheep each night
And put them in their jyens?
Far better for you to help your dad
To cut his corn and hny
Than to drive saw-logs on the Plover,
And you'll never get your pay."
5 A log canoe came floating
Adown the quiet stream.
As j>eacefully it glided
As sonic young lover's dream.
A youth crept out upon the bank
And thus to her did say,
"Dear mother, I have jumped the game,
And I haven't got my pay.
6 "The boys called me a sucker
And a son-of--gun to boot.
I said to myself, *() Johnnie,
It is time for you to scoot.'
I stole a canoe and started
Upon my weary way,
And now I have got home again,
But nary a cent of pay.
7 "Now all young men take this advice:
If e'er you wish to roam,
Be sure and kiss your mothers
Before you leave your home.
You had better work upon a farm
For half a dollar a day
Than to drive saw-logs on the Plover,
And you'll never get your pay/'
397
MORRISSEY AND THE RUSSIAN SAILOR
A biography titled " Life of John Morrissey, the Irish Boy Who Fought His Way to Fame and
Fortune'* tells about a prize fighter, gambler, i>olitician who became state senator and Member
of Congress. His big fights were in the 1850's and he defeated Thompson, the Yankee Clipper, the
Benieia boy, in the squared circle, as related in this song. He was a " Paddy " and a ring hero, too,
OS related. But sporting authorities consulted on the point fail to find that he ever planted his
knuckles in a Russian sailor Vi face nor fought any such thirty -eight-round contest as here described.
Yet the song delivers the atmosphere of the old-time bare-fisted ring fight. ... It is presented
here as sung by M. C. Dean, of Virginia, Minnesota, author of "The Flying Cloud," a collection of
lumberjack and Great Lakes songs and American ballads. On the currency of this and similar
balkds Franz Rickaby wrote this eloquent and informative note: "In the logging camp the hegem-
ony in song belonged to the Irish. Although the Scotch and French-Canadian occur occasionally,
the Irish were dominant, and the Irish street-song was the pattern upon which a liberal portion of
the shanty-songs were made. Irishmen sailed the seas of the world. In the armies of England
they fought against Russia and died on the fields of Indian insurrection. In Canada and the
United States, whither they migrated in hordes, they fought wherever there was fighting. And in
this New World those of them who were thrifty and provident laid foundations of homes; and those
who were not, didn't. But whatever they did, they made and sang songs; and wherever they went
roving, they took them along. Thus it was that the shanties rang with songs of ships and piracy,
of American battle charges, and of prize-fights in far-lying ports of the world; of charging the heights
of Alma, of dying in India for Britannia and Britannia's Queen, and of sailing the lakes with red
iron ore of all these, as well as of harvesting the mighty pine."
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Come all you sons of E - rin, at - ten - tion now I crave, \Vhile I re - late the
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prais - es of an I - rish he - ro brave, Con-cern - ing a great fight, me boys, all
on the oth - er day, Be-tween a Rus-sian sail - or and bold Jack Mor-ris-sey.
1 Come all you sons of Erin, attention now I crave,
While I relate the praises of an Irish hero brave,
Concerning a great fight, me boys, all on the other day,
Between a Russian sailor and bold Jack Morrissey.
2 It was in Terra del Fuego, in South America,
The Russian challenged Morrissey and unto him did say
"I hear you are a fighting man, and wear a belt I see.
\Vhat do you say, will you consent to have a round with me?"
398
MORRISSEY AND THE RUSSIAN SAILOR
3 Then up spoke bold Jack Morrissey, with a heart so stout and true,
Saying, "I am a gallant Irishman that never was subdued.
Oh, I can whale a Yankee, a Saxon bull or bear,
And in honor of old Paddy's land I'll still those laurels wear.
4 These words enraged the Russian upon that foreign land,
To think that he would be put down by any Irishman.
He says, "You are too light for me. On that make no mistake,
I would have you to resign the belt, or else your life I'll take."
5 To fight upon the tenth of June these heroes did agree,
And thousands came from every part the battle for to see.
The English and the Russians, their hearts were filled with glee;
They swore the Russian sailor boy would kill bold Morrisscy.
6 They both stripped off, stepped in the ring, most glorious to be seen,
And Morrisscy put on the belt bound round with shamrocks green.
Full twenty thousand dollars, as you may plainly see,
That was to be the champion's prize that gained the victory.
7 They both shook hands, walked round the ring, commencing then to fight.
It filled each Irish heart with joy for to behold the sight.
The Russian he floored Morrisscy up to the eleventh round,
With English, Russian, and Saxon cheers the valley did resound.
8 A minute and a half our hero lay before ho could rise.
The word went all around the field: "He's dead," were all their cries.
But Morrissey raised manfully, and raising from the ground,
From that until the twentieth the Russian he put down.
9 Up to the thirty -seventh round 'twas fall and fall about,
Which made the burly sailor to keep a sharp lookout.
The Russian called his second and asked for a glass of wine.
Our Irish hero smiled and said, "The battle will be mine."
10 The thirty-eighth decided all. The Russian felt the smart
When Morrissey, with a fearful blow, he struck him o'er the heart.
A doctor he was called on to open up a vein.
He said it was quite useless, he would never fight again.
11 Our hero conquered Thompson, the Yankee Clipper too;
The Benicia boy and Shepherd he nobly did subdue.
So let us fill a flowing bowl and drink a health galore
To brave Jack Morrissey and Paddies evermore.
309
MULE SKINNER'S SONG
"When the rosy fingers of dawn came stealing on soft feet along the eastern horizon, and it
was time to get up and go to work, we sometimes heard a negro mule skinner singing of himself,
of George Me Vane, and of three mules, two with names and one anonymous." Thus James Stevens,
author of "Brawnyman" and other books, tells how in a Puget Sound logging camp he heard the
musical fragment given here. . . . Stevens tells how he often met Mr. Puget, the contractor who
hired Paul Bunyan to bring Babe the Blue Ox and dig out Puget Sound. Mr. Puget told Stevens
how rain was interfering with Paul and Babe on the excavating work, and one day when a water-
spout came traveling up as far as the Sound had been dug then, Paul dived deep, swum till he was
under the waterspout, and then climbed with powerful overhand strokes till he reached the top.
When Paul came down the waterspout was gone. "What did you do?" asked Mr. Puget, Paul
answering, "I turned it off." . . . Though there are many stories there seem to be no songs of or
by Paul Bunyan. . . . There is, however, one of and by a black mule skinner.
Arr. H. F. P.
O ah drove three mules foh Gawge Me- Vane, An* ah drove them three mules on a chain.
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ah drove three mules foh Gawge Me Vane,
An' ah drove them three mules on a chain.
Nigh one Jude, an' de middle one Jane,
An* de one on de stick she didn't have no name.
400