below I've listed some relevant resources.
All the Folkways recordings are available as CD-r, or download.

Best wishes, Thomas.

O.J. (Oliver John) Abbott
b. Enfield, England, 1872, d. Hull, Quebec, 3 Mar 1962.


Between 1957 and his death he recorded some 120 songs for Edith Fowke, most of them learned in the 1880s and 1890s from the Irish farm families and shantyboys.


D.K. Wilgus: "Abbott is a great singer, in quantity and quality. He sings in a beautiful old Irish style, often with declamando endings" (Journal of American Folklore 1962).


FOLKWAYS FM 4005 Folk Songs of Ontario   1958 LP
A2 The Banks of the Don 1:33


FOLKWAYS FM 4051 Irish and British Songs from the Ottawa Valley 1961 LP
A01 The Dog and the Gun - The Golden Glove 3:14
A02 The Gypsy Daisy 2:15
A03 The Barley Grain for Me 2:53
A04 To Be a Farmer's Boy - The Farmer's Boy 1:54
A05 The Silver Herrings 1:49
A06 The Lass of Glenshee 2:25
A07 The Colleen Bawn - Limerick is Beautiful 1:45
A08 The Bunch of Water Cresses 3:18
A09 The Bonny Irish Boy 1:23
A10 Daniel O'Connell 3:02
A11 The Mountain Dew 0:49
A12 The Cruiskeen Lawn 2:25
B01 A Young Man Lived in Belfast Town 1:51
B02 The Plains of Waterloo 4:14
B03 The Green Linnet 2:44
B04 Kelly the Pirate 2:42
B05 Captain Coldstein 3:14
B06 Nellie Coming Home from the Wake 1:39
B07 The Banks of Newfoundland 3:10
B08 Skibbereen - A Ballad of the Famine 3:23
B09 The Heights of Alma 1:50
B10 The Bold and Undaunted Youth - The Rambling Boy 2:15
B11 By the Hush, Me Boys 2:49


FOLKWAYS FM 4062 Lumbering Songs from the Ontario Shanties 1961 LP
A03 How We Got Back to the Woods Last Year 1:43
A07 Hogan's Lake 2:06
B03 The Basketong 2:09
B08 The Chapeau Boys 3:02


FOLKWAYS FE 4018 Songs of the Great Lakes   1964
A04 James Bird 3:55


FOLKWAYS FA 2531 The Folk Music of the Newport Folk Festival, Vol. 1 1959-1960   1961 LP
A01 On the Banks of the Don 2:01
A02 Barley Grain   O. J. Abbott and Pete Seeger 3:03


PRESTIGE INTERNATIONAL 25014   ONTARIO BALLADS & FOLKSONGS                  196x LP
A2 An old man he courted me
A7 The weaver
B1 The jolly shanty boy   


SMITHSONIAN-FOLKWAYS SFW 40539 Classic Canadian Songs                      2006 CD
26 Hogan's Lake 2:02





1958 National Museum of Man,
1959 with Pete Seeger in Ottawa
1960 CBC
    Newport Folk Festival (with Pete Seeger)
1961 Mariposa Folk Festival
    IFMC in Quebec City



Fowke, Edith. "The passing of a great traditional singer," Sing Out!, vol 12, 1962


Fowke, Edith: Traditional Singers and Songs from Ontario
Folklore Associates, Hatboro, Pa 1965. 210pp.
Don Mills, Ontario: Burns & MacEachern Limited, 1965.



Fowke, Edith: Lumbering Sonfs from the Northern Woods
American Folklore Society, Memoir series No.55
University of Texas Press, 1970
NC Press, Toronto, 1985 200pp



Vikar, Laszlo/Panagapka, Jeanette:
Songs of the North Woods: As Sung by O.J. Abbott and Collected by Edith Fowke
University of Calgary Press, Dec 15, 2004 - 126 pages
includes a detailed musical analysis that outlines the meter, scale, and range of each song,
an index that indicates where each song can be found on the original source tapes, and extensive field notes, interviews, and recording details.