The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #92353   Message #1764040
Posted By: HiHo_Silver
19-Jun-06 - 06:02 PM
Thread Name: Canadian disaster songs: research project
Subject: Lyr Add: JAM ON JERRY'S ROCK
Do not know if this is what you are looking for. Here are the lyrics from memory of a song out of the lumber camps on the East Coast.

JAM ON JERRY'S ROCK

Come all you true born shanty boys, and listen while I relate
Concerning a young river man, and his untimely fate;
Concerning a young river man, who manly true and brave,
'Twas on a jam on Jerry's Rock, he met a watery grave.

'Twas on a Sunday morning, in the springtime of the year.
The logs were piled up mountains. we could not get them clear.
The foreman said, "turn out, my boys, with hearts devoid of fear.
We'll break that jam on Jerry's Rock, and for town we'll steer."

Now some of them were willing, while others they were not,
For to work on jams on Sunday, they did not think their plight.
'Twas six of our brave shanty boys did volunteer to go
To break a jam on Jerry's Rock with their foreman Jack Monroe.

They had not rolled off many logs when they heard his clear voice say,
"I'll have you boys be on your guard. this jam will soon give away."
These words were scarcely uttered when the jam did break and go,
And it carried off these six brave boys, with their foreman young Monroe.

When the rest of our brave shanty boys the sad news come to hear,
To search for their brave comrades to the river banks did steer.
In searching for their dead comrades, to their sad grief and woe,
All crushed and bleeding on a rock was that of young Monroe.

They took him from his watery grave, brushed back his raven hair.
There was one fair form among them whose moans did rent the air.
This one fair from among them was a girl from town
Whose moans and cries they pierced the sky, for her true love that was drowned.

Miss Clara was a noble girl, the river man's true friend.
She with her widowed mother dear lived by the river bend;
And the wages of her own true love the boss to her did pay,
And the shanty boys for her made up a generous purse next day.

They buried him with sorrow deep. 'Twas on the first of May.
Come all you true born shanty boys and for your comrades pray.
Engraved upon a hemlock tree, that by the grave did grow,
Was the name and date of the sad fate, of this young man Monroe.

Miss Clara did not long survive to worry and to grief,
For in less than six months afterward, death came to her relief.
And when this time had come to pass and she was call to go,
The last favor she requested was to lay by young Monroe.

Now come all you true born shanty boys, who would like to go and see
These two green mounds by the river side, where stands a hemlock tree.
Neath its branches wavering in the breeze, two lovers there lay low.
They are Miss Clara Dinnis, and her true love Jack Monroe.