Joe, it was indeed me - a victim of the Cookie Monster. Just sent you a midi.

My album notes say I adapted my tune from the second tune given for "Job" in the Oxford Book of Carols. As good a guess as any. I changed the meter and a fair bunch of notes. "Creative forgetting," I calls it.

There's a bit of local lore that has the hapless Schenectadians not only leaving open the Stockade gate, but setting two snowmen up as guards as well. It is in at least one childrens' book...maybe a local effort to match Parson Weems, George Washington and the paternal cherry tree.

Q, great link ! About some aspects of local history, the folks at the Historical Society are really, really good. Note the archaic spellings in that text of the ballad. There's got to be at least a direct copy from the original somewhere. Maybe I can find some time to snoop in the archives.

I doubt that A B Street's poem is the same. His style is much more literary and 19th century. Check out the links on that site to a couple of his poems.

Jeri, of course there are no eels left. The Canadians ate 'em all !
'S why we have a border up there ;-)

- G