Eloise Hubbard Linscott published her book 'Folk Songs of Old New England' in 1939. She also prepared a second manuscript, 'Songs and Tunes from a Yankee Peddler's Pack', which was never published. Her manuscript is in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. I was doing some research on Linscott, and found a version of 'The Backwoodsman' from Nathan French. (When I get back to her manuscript, I will track down where he was from – presumably in New England.) Instead of hauling wood, lumber, logs, cordwood, coal, etc, this version is unique (among the versions I have seen) in that the singer was hauling bark. Harvesting and shipping bark was a major industry in Pennsylvania (to supply the leather tanning industry) and was apparently also a trade in New England. Linscott's version from Nathanial French (from her typescript) is as follows. She also transcribed the tune. This version is unusual in that it doesn't assume that it's the women who gossip and spread stories!

Hauling Bark

I waked up one morning
The year of '65.
I thought myself lucky
To find myself alive
So I harnessed my hosses
My labor to pursue
And I went to hauling bark
As my daddy used to do.

And when I got to Milford
The liquor flowing free
When one glass was emptied
Another filled for me
Instead of hauling eight loads
I didn't haul but four
I got so drunk at John Jack's
I couldn't haul no more

I'll tell you all about it
And how the row commenced
Oh four of us stout fellows
Went on the floor to dance.
The fiddler being willing,
His arms being strong,
He played the rounds of Ireland
Oh full four hours long.

My daddy rode after
He rode both night and day
Without a fine helper [ penciled: '(pilot?)' ]
He must have lost his way;
He came to ever window
He'd look then for a light
He found me in my bed
And the clock said twelve that night.

Come now all ye fellows
Who peddle news about
Don't tell all my secret
And carry it about;
Oh pray don't tell of that evening
T will just make a great fuss
Perhaps you do the same
Very likely a great deal wuss!

--Stevebury

PS-- Cross-reference: There's also a version of the 'Green Mountain Boys' strain of the 'The Backwoodsman' (from J. S. Kennison in Vermont) posted on Mudcat thread http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=22174&messages=22