What is a mountain jack?

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: Amos
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 11:58 AM

OH, Barry, woe betide. Do you recall there is a list of berthing assignments at the check-in desk? If you EVER get to bed during the Getaway you can look forward to a harsh reality check as to whether you would be able to detect my "SOOOOOOO_WEEEEEEE!" call from three feet away. (I'd get closer, but your halitosis...).



A

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: GUEST,Muskwatch
Date: 20 Mar 14 - 02:26 PM

I'm pretty sure that a Mountain Jack is some kind of a mountain goat, perhaps the leader of a herd. I found the term in a dictionary of a native language, and am in the process of figuring out what it means.

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: GUEST,Iain
Date: 21 Mar 14 - 04:54 AM

very vaguely related to this thread. The origin of holler or hullabaloo.
Hulla builin, outcry, noise of hunt
(from west cork history blog-Irish words in use in the thirties)

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Mar 14 - 07:25 AM

Nope. "Holler" = "hollo" which the OED traces back to the 1520s, from a French origin.

"Hullaballoo" maybe (no reason to believe it's related in origin to "holler"), but its earliest sources are from Scotland and Northumberland in the 18th century, and anybody asserting an Irish origin had better show how it might have got there.

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: GUEST,SKIP RIDER
Date: 10 Nov 15 - 12:44 PM

IN WEST VIRGINIA WHERE I COME FROM MOUNTAIN JACK IS A SMALL RED SQUIRREL ALSO CALLED A FAIRYDITTLE.

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: Thompson
Date: 10 Nov 15 - 04:07 PM

A mountain jack is a tool used by lumberjacks to lift mountains out of the way when they need to move the wood.

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Nov 15 - 05:00 PM

Nobody can doubt that a "mountain jack" is a lumberjack's tool used for the purpose indicated.

But beyond that, a "mountain jack" is an old term - still in use evidently - in parts of West Virginia for a fox squirrel and in parts of Pennsylvania for a snowshoe hare.

Since I've never heard a squirrel or a rabbit "holler," I'm inclined to think the MJ in the song is a narrow-gauge locomotive of the kind
sometimes used in Appalachian lumbering operations.

That term has also been around for a long time.

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Nov 15 - 10:14 PM

Come ON you guys. Hollering "like a mountain jack" does NOT apply to squirrels or locomotives. Get real, here!

I miss Barry Finn.

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 15 Jan 17 - 04:05 PM

"A jack" meant a worker. As in "jack-of-all-trades."

"Now there was Billy Anderson,
A jack from Puget Sound,
A fella who could lift a ton
Like some men lift a pound."
-- _Tote-Road And Trail, Ballads of The Lumberjack_, D. Malloch, 1917.

Some workers in the mountains hollered loud, e.g., "Timber."

Sid Harris (1885-1927), a pianist on the T.O.B.A. circuit in Alabama, wrote the song "Mountain Jack Blues," 1926, which was recorded by Ma Rainey, who was well-known and widely copied.

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 17 - 01:07 AM

I think "stallion" nailed.

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: GUEST,Ebor Fiddler
Date: 02 Sep 17 - 02:45 PM

He would!

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: GUEST,Randy
Date: 11 Apr 18 - 05:39 PM

And don't forget it's also used in the classic Elvis song "Trouble" from the movie King Creole.

If you're looking for trouble
You came to the right place
If you're looking for trouble
Just look right in my face
I was born standing up
And talking back
My daddy was a green-eyed mountain jack
Because I'm evil, my middle name is misery
Well I'm evil, so don't you mess around with me

So it's implied here that a Mountain Jack was tough son-of-a-gun.

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 12 Apr 18 - 03:51 AM

“Mountain Jack” is how Harry Belafonte &co. sing it.

Heehaw - The mating call of the American Mammoth Jack is... very loud.

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 13 Apr 18 - 06:30 AM

Side note: Jack of all trades, master of none.

A 'jack' was someone who had completed part (I think two years) of his seven-year apprenticeship, so was semi-skilled. He had not become a 'master' by completing a 'masterpiece' in his final year that would be judged by the other masters of the trade as proving that he was now fully competent in that trade.

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Apr 18 - 03:17 AM

Reading all this I can't get the phallic motif out of the imagery because, quite specifically, of the word "jack".

If it's Blues and looks like innuendo, then it is innuendo. IMNSHO

If there are several meaning to be gleaned and it's a lyric, then those meanings support the wider appeal of the song. And often they are all there because they were put there. But not always, as I found with some of my songs, but mostly.

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: GUEST,muskwatch
Date: 16 Jan 22 - 11:23 AM

The one example of a mountain Jack that I was searching to understand - the reference to one in a dictionary - has been confirmed by tracking down the original author, and in that case it was referring to a bird, the rey jay or whiskyjack

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Jan 22 - 10:03 AM

Lots of YouTube videos about whiskey jacks, which are apparently Canada's national bird, but while mentioning their earsplitting alarm call, they lean on the birds' cuteness and high intelligence.

Subject: RE: What is a mountain jack?
From: GUEST,jamoomoo
Date: 14 Jan 24 - 07:32 AM

I had the same question, but then came to my own conclusion after reading as much as I could from a variety of venues, as well as other people's comments, thoughts, etc. - and a little common sense while taking the old time way of life & other things that existed a century ago (or so), amongst the 'mountain people' of the 'South'.
So my own interpretation boils down to a good ol', hardcore, more or less isolated (almost to the degree of a hermit), totally self-sufficient, super rugged, grizzly wrestling "Mountain Man".

Also way back when, a JACK was typically used as a term referring to a hardy 'manly man' of sorts - just as in the WWII Era, a man in general was referred to as 'Joe'... (Hey Joe, gotta a light?) BUT in the case of 'Jack', we're going back even further to a time when people were pioneers homesteading, trying to cut out a life for themselves, in this case - high up, deep in the mountains (Appalachian/ Smokey/ Blue Ridge/ Rocky/ etc.)