Lyr. Add: JAMES PHALEN
Chris M. Forbes, Perth, Ontario

1
Gentlemen and maidens, I pray you to draw near,
An accident most terrible I mean to let you hear,
All of a young and comely youth, James Phelan he was called,
He was drowned off McLaren's raft upon the upper falls.
2
The waters they were raging fierce, the rivers they ran high,
The foreman says to Phelan, "That jam we'll have to try.
You're bold, brave, and active when danger's lurking near,
You are the man to help me now these waters to get clear."

Only the first two verses, since the song is essentially the same as "Jim Whalen."

Phelan was real, he died on a tributary of the Ottawa River c. 1878.
Notes in The Maine Folklife Center article on "Lost Jimmy Whalen suggest that two different songs were mixed together around his name.
Jim Whalen, 3B, pp. 22-23, in Rickaby, 1926 (see 3A, posted above).