I transcribed this from "Steamboat Captain" on You Tube. John has Old Time Riverman and Gentle On My Mind on this video as well.
Miss Ferris, I need to listen some more, but I think the key is E, or maybe F.

Miss Ferris
John Hartford
Heading Down Into Mystery Train
Banjo tuned E, Capo 3, Key of:
Transcribed by: Verne Garrison
February 22, 2010 from You Tube, Steamboat Captain


Now I had a teacher when I went to school
She loved the river, and she taught about too
I was a pretty good boy, but she called my bluff
With her great big collection of steamboat stuff
Oh yeah

She had log books and bells and things like that
And she knew the old captains, and where they were at
She rode the Alabama and the Gordon C. Greene
And at Cape Girardeau, she was later renamed
Uh Huh

But her very favorite, as you all know
The Golden Eagle, Captain Buck's old boat
The old stern wheeler that sank and went to heaven
When I was in the fourth grade, in 1947
Uh Huh

I used to work real hard to get my school work done
But you couldn't fool Miss Ferris none
And if I went to sleep, or wasn't supposed to talk
She was a dead shot, with a little piece of chalk
Uh Huh

Oh me, Oh my, how the time does fly
Time seems to keep on rolling on by
Now I am not a student, and she is not a teacher
But we both still love the Mississippi River
Oh yeah


Verne