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This thread is intended to serve as a forum for corrections and annotations for the Digital Tradition song named in the title of this thread.Search for other DTStudy threads
I started this DTStudy thread mostly because I'm not happy with the MIDI the Digital Tradition has for this song, but also because I came across a number of versions that we should compare with the DT version. The end of the DT MIDI has maybe 32 bars of rests, and then a couple of extraneous notes - otherwise, it's correct.
Some sources refer to this song as "The Bigler's Cruise," which seems to make more sense. Since this song is from my home state of Wisconsin, I am quite sure that the original title of the song doesn't have to make sense. My guess is that "Bigler's Cruise" is an incorrect correction.
The DT version is from Folk Songs Out of Wisconsin. It's a good transcription, with just a few typographical errors. Here's the DT version, with my corrections:
THE BIGLER'S CREW
Come all my boys and listen, a song I'll sing to you,
It's all about the Bigler and of her jolly crew.
In Milwaukee last October I chanced to get a sight (site?)
In the schooner called the Bigler belonging to Detroit.
chorus:
Watch her, catch her, jump up on her juber ju,
Give her the sheet and let her slide,
The boys will push her through;
You ought to seen us howling,
The winds were blowing free,
On our passage down to Buffalo
From Milwaukee.
It was on a Sunday morning about the hour of ten,
The Robert Emmet towed us out into Lake Michigan;
We set sail where she left us in the middle of the fleet,
And the wind being from the southard, oh, we had to give her sheet.
Then the wind chopped round to the sou-sou'west and blew both fresh and strong,
But softly through Lake Michigan the Bigler she rolled on,
And far beyond her foaming bow the dashing waves did fling,
With every inch of canvas set, her course was wing and wing.
But the wind it came ahead before we reached the Manitous.
Three dollars and a half a day just suited the Bigler's crew.
From there unto the Beavers we steered her full and by,
And we kept her to the wind, my boys, as close as she could lie.
Through Skillagalee and Wabble Shanks, the entrance to the Straits
We might have passed the big fleet there if they'd hove to and wait;
But we drove them on before us, the nicest you ever saw,
Out into Lake Huron from the Straits of Mackinaw.
We made Presque Isle Light, and then we boomed away,
The wind it being fair, for the Isle of Thunder Bay.
But when the wind it shifted, we hauled her on her starboard tack
With a good lookout ahead for the light of the Point Au Barques.
We made the light and kept in sight of Michigan North Shore
A-booming for the river as we'd oftimes done before;
When right abreast Port Huron Light our small anchor we let go
And the Sweepstakes came alongside and took the Bigler in tow.
The Sweepstakes took eight in tow and all of us fore and aft,
She towed us down to Lake St. Clare (sic) and stuck us on the flats.
She parted the Hunter's tow-line in trying to give relief
And stem and stern went the Bigler into the boat called Maple Leaf.
The Sweepstakes then she towed us outside the River Light,
Lake Erie for to roam and the blustering winds to fight.
The wind being from the southard we paddled our own canoe,
With her nose pointed for the Dummy she's hell-bent for Buttalo.
We made the Oh and passed Long Point, the wind was blowing free.
We howled along the Canada shore, Port Colborne on our lee
What is it that looms up ahead, so well known as we draw near?
For like a blazing star shone the light on Buffalo Pier.
And now we are safely landed in Buffalo Creek at last,
And under Riggs' elevator the Bigler she's made fast.
And in some lager beer saloon we'll let the bottle pass,
For we are jolly shipmates and we'll drink a social glass.
from Folk Songs Out of Wisconsin, Peters
DT #611
Laws D8
@sailor @lake @midwest
filename[ BIGLRCRW
TUNE FILE: BIGLRCRW
CLICK TO PLAY
RG
The version above was sung by M.c. Dean, Virginia, Minnesota, for Franz Rickaby.
This version also appears in Rickaby's Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy (1926)Click to play Rickaby MIDI
Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry on this song:Bigler's Crew, The [Laws D8]
DESCRIPTION: The Bigler sets out for Buffalo from Milwaukee. A number of minor incidents are described, and the Bigler's lack of speed sarcastically remarked upon: "[We] MIGHT have passed the whole fleet there -- IF they'd hove to and wait"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1922 (Dean-FlyingCloud)
KEYWORDS: ship travel humorous
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,NE) Canada(Mar,Ont)
REFERENCES (19 citations):
Laws D8, "The Bigler's Crew"
Rickaby-BalladsAndSongsOfTheShantyBoy 47, "The Bigler's Crew" (1 text, 1 tune)
Rickaby/Dykstra/Leary-PineryBoys-SongsSongcatchingInLumberjackEra 47, "The Bigler's Crew" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dean-FlyingCloud, pp. 19-20, "The Bigler's Crew" (1 text)
Peters-FolkSongsOutOfWisconsin, pp. 101-103, "The Bigler's Crew" (1 text, 1 tune)
Walton/Grimm-Windjammers-SongsOfTheGreatLakesSailors, pp. 129-135, "The Timber Drogher Bigler" (1 text plus excerpts from several other versions, 1 tune); p. 135, "The Stone Scow" (1 text, which Walton considered a separate adaption of this song but which has the same chorus and is exactly the same sort of plot as "The Bigler," so there seems litle reason to split them)
Lewis-FavoriteMichiganFolkSongs, pp. 25-29, "The Schooner Bigler" (1 text, 1 tune, arranged as a choral piece)
Eckstorm/Smyth-MinstrelsyOfMaine, p. 243, "Buffalo" (1 fragment)
Warner-TraditionalAmericanFolkSongsFromAnneAndFrankWarnerColl 19, "Jump Her, Juberju" (this version rather heavily folk processed); 20, "The Bigler" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Creighton-MaritimeFolkSongs, p. 141, "The Cruise of the Bigler" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke-TraditionalSingersAndSongsFromOntario 56, "The Cruise of the Bigler" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax/Lomax-FolkSongUSA 46, "The Bigler" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax/Lomax-OurSingingCountry, pp. 220-222, "The Bigler" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag, pp. 174-175, "Bigerlow" (1 short text, 1 tune)
Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen, pp. 200-202, "The Cruise of the Bigler" (1 text, 1 tune)
Shay-AmericanSeaSongsAndChanteys, pp. 105-108, "The Bigler" (1 text, 1 tune)
Botkin-TreasuryOfAmericanFolklore, pp. 843-845, "The Bigler's Crew" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 611, BIGLRCRW*
ADDITIONAL: David C. Peterson, "Wisconsin Folksongs," chapter in _Badger History: Wisconsin Folklore_, State Historical Society of Wisconsin (Volume XXV, Number 2, November 1973), pp. 61-62, "The Bigler" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #645
RECORDINGS:
Stanley Baby, "The Trip of the 'Bigler'" (on GreatLakes1)
Harry Barney, "The Timber Drogher Bigler" (1938; on WaltonSailors)
Asa M. Trueblood, "The TImber Drogher Bigler" (1938; on WaltonSailors)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Crummy Cow" (tune)
cf. "The Dogger Bank" (tune, chorus, meter)
cf. "The Great Northern Line" (tune, chorus, meter)
cf. "The Knickerbocker Line" (tune & meter)
cf. "The Light on Cape May" (tune, chorus, meter)
cf. "The Tramway Line" (tune, chorus, meter)
cf. "Ten Thousand Miles From Home" [Lomax AFSB A, pp. 28-29] (chorus & meter)
cf. "The Second Front Song" (tune, one chorus phrase & meter (see Notes))
cf. ("The Erie is raging and the gin is getting low") [Lomax AFSB pp. 461-462] (chorus)
SAME TUNE:
The Crummy Cow (File: HHH501)
The Light on Cape May (File: Doe130)
NOTES [524 words]: According to Julius F. Wolff, Jr., Lake Superior Shipwrecks, Lake Superior Port Cities Inc., Duluth, 1990, p. 42, a ship named J. Bigler was lost near Marquette, Michigan in 1884, but he was unable to find many other details. Walton said that the John Bigler was built in Detroit in 1866 and was wrecked in 1884, confirming Wolff's account. I know of no proof that this was "the" Bigler, but it seems likely. - RBW
Fowke-TraditionalSingersAndSongsFromOntario: "Aemilius Jarvis, from whom Mr. Snider learned this song, had heard it when sailing on the Lakes in 1875, and believed it dated from about 1871." - BS
According to one of Walton's informants, the song's description of the Bigler's sailing qualities is fairly accurate. The ship was built to carry waneys (partly cut logs), and like most such ships (known as timber droghers), she was narrow, with high sides, to fit through the Welland Canal between Lakes Erie and Ontario. Most such ships were rather slow. The Bigler carried more sail than most, but also had an extremely square bow, making her hard to steer and meaning that the extra sail did little to improve her speed.
Walton considers this the most popular of all the Great Lakes songs, and prints "The Stone Scow" as a parody on this basic pattern. Looking at the versions, I suspect this has in fact happened many times -- sailors would take "The Bigler" and supply details of their own voyages. I am not aware of any of these variants which have "taken off," and for the moment am classifying "The Stone Scow" and other similar variants here. - RBW
Solomon Foster has found links with information about several of these ships (slightly edited):
The Bigler: http://greatlakeships.org/2902970/data?n=1
Robert Emmett: http://greatlakeships.org/2900231/data?n=1
The Bigler was built in 1866, while the Emmett was renamed Colonel Graham in 1869, so that suggests the events of the song occurred between those years.
There were two tugs Sweepstakes in that time period, both living near Lake St Clair, so I don't see any obvious way to conclude which one it was:
http://greatlakeships.org/2895959/data?n=2
http://greatlakeships.org/2895880/data?n=4
Though only the second is explicitly listed as a St. Clair River tug.
There are three possibilities for the Maple Leaf and loads of them for the "Hunter".
One possibly interesting point: given that "The Stone Scow" (at least [Walton's version]) doesn't mention any ship names at all, it's conceivable it was actually still about the Bigler! According to greatlakesships.org, the Bigler's last cargo was stone. - (RBW, quoting Solomon Foster)
"The Second Front Song" is another parody, dating from World War II. It was recorded by Ewan MacColl on "British Army Songs," Washington Records WLP 711 LP (1965). The chorus keeps enough of the "Bigler's Crew" chorus to show the parody's source: "It's hitch 'em. It's hitch 'em. / It's the second front for you. / In spite of our old Atlantic war we're the boys to see it through. / It won't take long to finish it / When we have got their range / And then we can all go home and live like humans for a change." - BS
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