Here is a completely different song, "Jimmy Whelan," which I'm posting for comparison. If we'd like to explore different versions of "Jimmy Whelan," let's do it in another thread and restrict this thread to "Lost Jimmy Whelan." The Digital Tradition notes say there is "No apparent connection to Lost Jimmy Whelan," but the notes in Fowke make me think "Jimmy Whelan" refers to the same person. Maybe Fowke is wrong to imply that. The DT lyrics come from Fowke, but do not include Fowke's notes. I didn't find any mistakes in the DT lyrics - they appear to be an exact transcription from Fowke, with the possible (correct) replacement of a comma by a period.

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JIMMY WHELAN

Come all you ladies and gentlemen,
I pray you lend an ear;
'Tis of a terrible accident
You are about to hear.

'Tis of a young and active youth,
Jimmy Whelan he was called;
He was drownded on McClellan's drive
All on the Upper Falls.

The fierce and the raging main,
The waters they ran high,
And the foreman said to Whelan:
"This jam you will have to try."

"You've always been an active youth
While danger's lurking near,
So you are the man I want to help
To keep these waters clear."

Whelan he made answer
Unto his comrades bold:
"Supposing if there's danger
We will do as we are told."

"We'll obey our foreman's orders
As noble men should do."
Just as he spoke the jam it broke
And let poor Whelan through.

The raging main it tossed and tore
Those logs from shore to shore.
And here and there his body went,
A-tumbling o'er and o'er.

No earthly man could ever live
In such a raging main.
Poor Whelan struggled hard for life
But he struggled all in vain.

There were three of them in danger,
But two of them were saved.
It was noble-hearted Whelan
That met with a watery grave.

So come all you young and active youths,
A warning from me take,
And try and shun all danger
Before it gets too late.

For death is drawing nearer
And trying to destroy
The pride of some poor mother's heart,
And his father's only joy.

From Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Songs, Fowke
Note: No apparent connection to Lost Jimmy Whelan
DT #601
Laws C7
@work @logger @death @Canada

filename[ JMMYWHEL
TUNE FILE: JMMYWHEL
CLICK TO PLAY
RG

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Fowke's notes:

Accidents in which shantyboys were drowned on river drives were all too common: one informant said there were twenty-seven crosses beside one rapid near Pembroke. Such tragedies inspired a number of ballads, of which "The Jam on Gerry's Rocks" is the best known. The facts behind it are elusive, but Jimmy Whelan - actually James Phalen - was killed on Ontario's Mississippi River, a tributary of the Ottawa. Rickaby gives 1878 as the date; James Phalen's grandniece, Mary C. Phelan of Ottawa, thinks it was 1876, and she names Timothy Doyle as the ballad's composer. Laws lists versions from Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maine, and New Brunswick. Shoemaker found it in Pennsylvania, and vincent gives a west coast version.

So, is it the same Jimmy Whelan as the lost one?
-Joe-

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Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry:

James Whalen [Laws C7]

DESCRIPTION: Jim Whalen is told by his foreman to help clear a logjam. When the jam breaks, he is thrown into the rapids and drowned.
AUTHOR: John Smith (?)
EARLIEST DATE: 1926 (Rickaby)
KEYWORDS: logger death drowning lumbering
FOUND IN: US(MW,NE) Canada(Mar,Ont)
REFERENCES (16 citations):
Laws C7, "James Whalen"
Doerflinger, pp. 243-244, "Whalen's Fate (George Whalen)"
Rickaby 3, "Jim Whalen" (2 texts, 1 tune)
RickabyDykstraLeary 3, "Jim Whalen" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Gardner/Chickering 110, "James Wayland" (1 text)
Fowke/Johnston, pp. 82-83, "Jim Whalen" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke-Lumbering #31, "Jimmy Whelan" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke/MacMillan 25, "Jimmy Whelan" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ives-NewBrunswick, pp. 39-41, "James Whalen" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke-Ontario 49, "Jimmy Whelan" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sandburg, p. 389, "James Whaland" (1 text, 1 tune)
Beck 53, "James Whalen" (1 text)
Beck-Bunyan, pp. 138-139, "Jimmie Whalen" (1 text)
Beck-Lore 78, "Jimmie Whalen" (1 text)
DT 601, JMMYWHEL*
ADDITIONAL: Walter Havinghurst, _Upper Mississippi: A Wilderness Saga_, Farrar & Rinehart, 1937, 1944, p. 228, "(Swan Swanson)" (1 fragment, clearly this, with the source unidentified but with a character name seemingly not found elsewhere)
Roud #638
RECORDINGS:
Emerson Woodcock, "Jimmie Whelan" (on Lumber01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Lost Jimmie Whalen" [Laws C8] (subject)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
James Phalen
NOTES [181 words]: Rickaby reports this to be based on an actual incident, in which James Phalen (so spelled; pronounced Whalen) died at "King's Chute" on the Mississippi River. (That's the Canadian Mississippi, a tributary of the Ottawa). Rickaby's informant, Cristopher Forbes, is the source of the claim that John Smith of Lanark wrote the song.
The date of the event is uncertain; Rickaby states it was in 1878, but Fowke quotes Phalen's grand-niece to the effect that the date was 1876. One of Beck's informants agreed that it was on the Matawaski (the Canadian Mississippi), but thought the date was around 1882.
There is one other sidelight to this, the significance of which I do not know. The song "Mickey Free," about logging in northwestern Wisconsin, claims that the singer "held me own with Whalen." This song is believed to have been written 1878. Is it the same Whalen? There were, of course, loggers from Canada in the Wisconsin woods in that period, and "James Whalen" eventually was known in the area, but would they have been treating such a recent event as legendary? I don't know. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.2
File: LC07

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