I recently learned this song, The Gum Tree Canoe (the American, pre-civil war SS Steele 1847 song, sans minstrel dialect, aka "Tombigbee River") from Tom, Brad & Alice's album, "Been There Still", and enjoyed singing it despite a nagging curiosity about the last verse, which seems to leave the characters in mid-adventure with their fate unresolved:

       One day the old river took us so far away
            That we couldn't get back, so we just thought we'd stay.
            Then we spied a tall ship with a flag of true blue,
            And she took us in tow in the gumtree canoe.

[Entire lyrics can be found in previous postings on this thread.]

I think it's safe to assume that the characters in the song are slaves. I wondered about that blue flag, and what became of the two lovers who were taken in tow. Where did they end up? It seemed to cry out for at least one more verse to wrap up the story.

In the course of researching the Tombigbee River I found a note on Joel Bresler's website, www.followthedrinkinggourd.org, which points out that not all escaping slaves headed north to the "underground railroad". Some tried to blend in with the free slave populations of the large cities, or headed to the Caribbean. In any event, the Tombigbee River flows south to the Alabama River, forming the Mobile River, which flows into the Gulf at Mobile. I posed my question to Mr. Bresler about the characters of this song being taken in tow by a tall ship with a blue flag. He helpfully forwarded my question to some of his academic contacts, one of whom suggested that this last verse may describe an attempted escape that ended in recapture, since the ship's flag could have been the "Bonnie Blue Flag" of the short-lived (1810) Republic of West Florida. If so, this otherwise sweet and carefree old minstrel song ends on a cruel note.

This possibility has dulled my enjoyment of the song, but I cling to the hope of an alternative explanation. Perhaps the "flag of true blue" was the jack of a U.S. ship, although the jack was flown at the bow while anchored or docked. Perhaps .......? More relevant is the question of how this song would have been presented by the blackface minstrels, and how minstrel show audiences understood it, with its abrupt and puzzling ending.

Any ideas or leads would be appreciated.