BISHOP ZAK, THE MORMON ENGINEER

Zack Black came to Utah back in eighty-three,
A right good Mormon and a Bishop, too, was he,
He ran a locomotive on the D. ’n’ R. G.,
And Zack was awful popular as you will see.

Hear him whistle!
He ran a locomotive on the D. ’n’ R. G.

Zack he had a wife in ev’ry railroad town,
He numbered from twelve ’way down to number two,
Oh, in his locomotive he’ll go steaming ’round,
And when he’d pass each wifie’s home his whistle blew.

Zack he always said he loved ’em all the same,
But wifie number twelve he loved her mighty well,
He had her picture mounted in his engine cab
And when he passed her home he’d always ring the bell.

Listen, ev’rybody, ’cause this story’s true,
Zack had a wife in ev’ry town his train passed through;
They tried to shift Zack over to the old U. P.,
But Zack demurred, ’cause he preferred the D. ’n’ R. G.78

NOTES:
The “D. ’n’ R. G.” was the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, incorporated in 1870, by which time the UP was already well established. Since Zack supposedly came to Utah in 1883, the song was probably composed in the 1880s or later. An ill-behaved rhyming scheme suggests a song with several contributing authors. The song was probably written by gentiles (the Mormons’ term for non-Mormons) since Mormons would not likely have made a fuss over Zack’s polygyny.


Source: American Folk Songs: A Regional Encyclopedia, by Norm Cohen. (2008, Greenwood Press, Westport Connecticut), page 604.

Identical version in Songs of the American West, by Lingenfelter & Dwyer (1968, University of California Press), pages 76-77 - text and music from Briegel, 44 Old Time Mormon and Far West Songs (1933), pp 38-39

from Joe: one of many songs dealing with Mormon polygamy.