Bill Hullfish - The Erie Canal Sings

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.com

Copyright 2019 by William Hullfish

All rights reserved

Front cover, top: Mural, The Victorian Village on the Erie Canal, by Brockport artist Helen Smagorinsky.

First published 2019

e-book edition 2019

ISBN 978.1.43966.713.2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019935354

print edition ISBN 978.1.46714.209.0

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

Some years ago, Bill Hullfish published The Canallers Songbook, an accessible, user-friendly collection of canal songs that anyone, a teacher especially, could turn to for any occasion that required a musical take of the Erie Canal. I must have recommended it to teachers dozens of times when I was doing programs on the Erie and Champlain Canals in eastern New York State (as I have for over forty-five years). I always wished, though, for more depth, for a deep inquiry into what the songs could really tell us about the American canal era and those who created it. Its been a quest of my own for ages.

Boy, have I gotten my wish! From a scholar and lifelong canaller who has dug as deeply into canal music history as the old-timers dug canals into the face of America comes The Erie Canal Sings: A Musical History of New Yorks Grand Waterway by Bill Hullfish with Dave Ruch. I believe that it is a book only Bill Hullfish could have written. From his historians grasp of the scope of the canal era, to his painstaking deconstruction of individual songs (Which canal is this song really about? Is that a reference to a real tavern somewhere?), to his love of performing the material and making it live, to his joy in trekking the old canals himself, this is a labor of love and of a lifetime.

For the true canal buff, I think thatno matter how many good canal histories youve read (and there are plenty)you will find a new perspective in these pages. The book is about the songs, yes. But in Hullfishs close readings of the texts, hundreds of details of canal life and work emerge. In giving every detail its due, he gives us far more than the simple meaning of the songs. He gives us, piece by piece, a deep insight into canallers lives and the distinctive subculture created by the nature of their trade. This book is more than a book about canal songs. It is a painstaking, rousing look at a way of life that shapedand was shaped bythe ferment that was life in nineteenth-century America.

George Ward
Rexford, New York

PREFACE

The ballad writers have, again, furnished much valuable material. Their words are but the expression of popular ideas in the reflex of public opinion, clothed in musical form. The old folk songs remain to us now a vast storehouse of historical evidence of manner and customs, of the thoughts and beliefs of bygone times.
Fletcher Bassett, Legends and Superstitions of the Sea and Sailors

The cultural heritage of the canal era is told through the songs. The canal ballads were the words of canallers clothed in musical form. The ballads serve as a vast storehouse of historical evidence of manner and custom, of thoughts and beliefs of the canal erathe heritage. Ballads are storytelling songs that entertain, educate, preserve culture and instill moral values. American screenwriter and journalist Stephen Schiff said that at the heart of good history is good storytelling. Telling stories of the canal era through song involves hearing history from those who lived it. Schiff goes on to say, [A]n historians richest insights generally come when he asks himself what it would have been like to have been there, to have confronted the personalities, conditions and conundrums of which history is made. The songs, or musical diaries, of the canallers permit us to be there and hear the individual voices of the participants in one of the most exciting eras of transportation in American history.

Although songs were sung on all of the canals, the songs of the Erie Canal became the models for many of the songs heard on other canals. The E-ri-e Is A-Risin became The D&H Is A-Risin and The C&O Is A-Risin and on and on. The eventual connection of a vast network of canals led to a sharing of songs, and like the spread of many occupational songs, singers merely changed the names to fit the new location: The songs of the lumberjack changed the location from the Penobscot to the Saranac to the Saginaw. The canallers did the same: A long, long trip on the Erie, boys, were bound for Buffalo became A long, long trip on the Main Line, boys, were bound for the O-hi-o. Generic canal songs (songs that did not mention a particular location), such as A Life on the Raging Canal, made their appearance first on the Erie Canal but soon found their way to other canals, where they fit right in without changing a word. Thus, although the Erie Canal is the main focus of this book, songs from many other canals are used in discussing topics that are common to a wide network of interconnected canals.

In order to make the musical diaries more readable, especially for those who do not read music notation, examples are given using the lyrics of the songs. This is not a songbook, but stories of the canal era told through song. Part I begins with an introduction to work songs and songs about work, the occupational songs sung on the canals, and introduces the historical background to which the songs connect. It includes examples of how canal songs act as personal musical diaries that reveal historical information and descriptions of the canallers lives, including their feelings and pride in their occupation.

Part II is about Americas best-known canal song, Low Bridge, Everybody Down, or Fifteen Years on the Erie Canal. Although this is the most-sung canal song, little is known about the song or its composer, and the information available is rife with mistakes and outright misinformation. This section contains the latest research on the origins of Americas favorite canal song.

Part III addresses the songs composed to celebrate the canal and life on the canal. This section presents everyday life on the canal through the canallers eyes. Subjects include the canallers boats, draft animals, crew members jobs, recreation, the raging canal songs, fears, superstitions and the sources of canal songs in the popular music of the day.

Part IV is about the nostalgia surrounding the demise of the canal era and songs that express the feelings of those reminiscing about the loss of one of the most important eras of transportation in American history. This part examines canal songs on the New York stage, songs from the New York stage adapted to the canal, the evolution of a canal song, the making of a new canal song, the musical diaries of an individual canal captain and the canal songs that continue to be sung after most canals closed.

My connection to canals started long before I began collecting canal songs. I was born just as the last fully functioning towpath canal in North America, the Lehigh Canal, closed. My own interest and curiosity about canals came early in my life. It seems I have always lived along canals. Growing up, in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, the Delaware and Raritan Canal provided fishing, canoeing, hiking and bicycling recreation for much of my childhood. My brother and I had a favorite canoe trip where we entered a stream next to the canal and paddled downstream about five miles until it circled back under the canal. Then we carried the canoe up to the canal and paddled back on the canal to where we originally started.