There is one more verse that fits in as #4 ahead of the "last verse & chorus" cited above.

My canoe is under water and my banjo is unstrung,

I'm tired of living any more,

My eyes shall look downward and my songs shall be unsung

While I stay on the old Kentucky shore.

Chorus

Benjamin Russel Hanby (1833-1867) was a teacher/minister/ songwriter from Ohio. He wrote about 80 songs, but only 4 were ever very popular. "Darling Nelly Gray" was his biggest success, but most of us are probably familiar with "Santa Claus" or "Up On The Housetop" as well. The bucolic beginning of the song turns ominous in the middle. Hanby wrote it as a propaganda piece for the abolitionist cause. In its day it was known as "the Uncle Tom's Cabin of Songs". Just like the novel the hero and heroine can only find peace in death. Stephen Foster probably picked up a line from the last chorus and used it in "Old Black Joe" four years later: "I'm coming, I'm coming...I hear the angel voices calling..." The song has a real-life background. A runaway slave named Joseph Selby died at Hanby's father's house as he was on his way to Canada to earn money to buy the freedom of his lover, Nelly Gray.

rich r