This text is from "Lumbering Songs from the Northern Woods" by Edith Fowke (1970). Fowke said she collected a number of fairly similr versions around Ontario. One of the Ontario versions by John Leahy can be found on the Folkways recording FM4052. Leahy has the young lady's name as Lucy who was a lockmaster's daughter and had "dark auburn curls". Another Ontario version relocated the song's setting to Gravenhurst, a town in Ontario. Fowke also adds that the song was known in Maine at least by 1890. Verse 3 in the text below has all the earmarks of someone who has forgotten part of the lyric and repeats some lines to fill the the space while trying to think of the next verse. Anybody who has ever sung has probably found themselves in that predicament at least once. "vows" replaces "riggings" as the item that God what have tied.

JACK HAGGERTY (Edith Fowke, sung by Tom Brandon, Peterborough, Ontario)

1. My name is Jack Haggerty, from Glensville, I came.
There's no one to control me so there's no one to blame.
I'll tell you a story without no delay
Of a pretty fair maiden who stole my heart away.

2. My name is Jack Haggerty, I'm a raftsman by trade.
My name is engraved on the rocks and sandbars.
I'm the boy who stands high where the white water foams,
But the thoughts of dear Anna keeps crossing my mind.

3. She is won, and I took her from the Flat River side.
I truly intended to make her my bride.
She's the blacksmith's daughter from the Flat River side.
And I truly intended to make her my bride.

4. I gave her fine silks and the nicest of lace,
The costliest of muslin herself to embrace.
I gave her my wages herself for to keep;
I deprived her of nothing I had on this earth.

5. One day on Flat River a note I received
Saying dear Anna she had me deceived.
She had married another who had long been delayed,
And the next time I met her she'd ne'er be a maid.

6. Now it's on her old mother I place all the blame.
She always intended to blacken my name.
She'd have soon broke the vows that God would have tied,
Causing me for to wander till the day that I died.

7. So adieu to Flat River - for me there's no rest.
I'll shoulder my peavey and go to the west.
I'll go to Muskegon some comfort to find,
Leaving Flat River and dear Anna behind.

8. So come all you young raftsmen with hearts kind and true,
Don't trust any woman - you're beat if you do,
And if you find one with those dark chestnut curls,
Just think of Jack Haggerty and his Flat River girl.

rich r