Okay - mg is clearly talking about Lost Jimmy Whalen - the ghost story. The other song, which Edith Fowke's notes quoted in the previous post pertain to, is Jimmy Whalen - the shantyboy vs logjam song. Both songs could be about the same person - interestingly, while at least one version of Lost Jimmy Whalen mentions the Mississippi River, commentators on Jimmy Whalen (the song) say that Jimmy Whalen (the man) died on the Mississippi River (of Ontario), although the name of that river does not seem to have made it into any of the versions of the song (Jimmy Whalen).

Here is the note to Lost Jimmy Whalen, quoted in Joe's third post in this thread:

note: according to Fowkes, this was widely sung in Ontario, and
spread to the Maritimes, Michigan, Maine and Wisconsin. "This
ballad is almost certainly adapted from an older British one: The
Blantyre Explosion in A. L. Lloyd's Come All Ye Bold Miners is a
relative, but the ancestor has not been identified."


Now, a question for Jim Carroll: which song is it that Tom Munnelly recorded in Ireland: Lost Jimmy Whalen or Jimmy Whalen?