The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1876-04-20
THE RIVER ROUSTABOUTS.

The Songs OF the Mississippi Steamers md
Levees--A Class of Men whose Old Char
ncteristics arc Decentralization of n
Novel Sort.
Probably less than one-third of the
stevedores and 'longshorenen employed
in our river traffic, says Cincinnati
paper, are white; but the calling now
really belongs by right to the colored
men, who are by far the best rousta-
bouts and are unrivaled as fremen. The
white stevedores are generally tramps,
willing to work only through fear of the
workhouse or, sometimes laborers un-
able to obtain other employment, and
glad to earn money for the time being at
any employment. On board the boats,
he whites and colored men mess separ-
ately and work under different mates,
there being on an average about twenty
five roustabouts to every boat, Cotton
boats running on the lower Mississippi
will often carry sixty or seventy deck
hands, who can earn some seasons from
forty-five dollars to sixty dollars per
month. Roustabout life in the truest
sense is, then, the life of the colored
population of the Rows, and, partly, of
Bucktown-blacks and nulattoes from
all parts of the States, bat chiefly from
Kentucky and eastern Virginia, where
most of them appear to have toiled on
the plantations before freedom and
echoes of the old plantation life still live
in their songs and pastimes. You may
hear old Kentucky slave songs chanted
nightly on the steamboats,. in that wild,
half-melancholy key peculiar to the ma
tural music of the African race; and you
may see the old slave dances nightly
performed to the air of some ancient
Virginia reel in the dance houses of
Sausage Row, or the bathrooms of
Bucktown. There is an intense unique
ness about all this pariah existence; its
boundaries are most definitely fixed its
enjoyments are wholly sensual, and
many of them are marked by peculiari-
ties of q strictly local character. Many
of their songs, which have never ap-
peared in print, treat of levee life in
Cincinnati, of all the popular steamboats,
running on the "Muddy Water" and
of the roustabout haunts on the river
banks in Bucktown. To collect these
curious songs, or even the most popular
of them, would be labor of months,
and even then difficult one, for the
colored roustabouts are in the highest
degree suspicious of man who ap-
proaches them with q note book and
pencil. One of the most popular rousta-
bout songs now sung on the Ohio is the
following. The air is low and melan-
choly, and when sung in unison by the
colored crew of q vessel leaving or ap-
preaching port, has a strange, sad sweet
III, q, ,,1o
The two-fold character of poor Molly, at
once good and bad, is somewhat typical
of the stevedore's sweetheart:
Molly was good gal and bad gal, too,
Oh, Molly row, gal
Molly was good gal and had gal, too,
Oh, Molly, row, gal
I'll row dis boat and I'll row no more,
Row, Molly, row, gal.
l II row dis boat and I'll go on shore,
Row, Molly, row, gal
Captain on the biler deck a-heaving of the lead,
Oh, Molly, row, gal,
Calling to the pilot to give her" Turn ahead
Row, Molly, row, gal.
Here is another, to slow and sweet
air. The chorus, when well sung, is
extremely pretty:
Shawneetown is burnin' down,
Who tole you so?
Shawneetown is burnn' down,
Who tole you so?
Cynthie my darlin' gal,
Who tole you so?
Cynthie, my darlin' gal,
How do you know?
Chorus s-Shawneetown is burnin', etc,
How, my boys, dye 'spect to hold her,
Way down below?
I've got no skin on either shoulder,
Who tole you so?
Chorus us-Shawneetown is burnin, etc.
The next we give is of a lively de
scription:
come down the mountain,
An she come down the lane,
An all that could say to her
Was, Goodbye, Liza Jane"
Chorus Farewell, Liza Jane!
| Farewell, Liza Jane!
Don't throw yourself away, for
| Am coming back again.
got up on housetop,
And give my horn blow;
Thought heerd Miss Dinah say,
'Yonder comes your beau"
| [Chorus.
Eff I'd few more boards,
To build my chimney higher,
I'd keep aroun' the country gals,
Chunkin' up the fire.
[Chorus.l
The following are fragments of rathe
lengthy chants, the words being almos
similar in both, the choruses and air
being very different. The air of the frs
is sonorous and regularly slow, like
sailors chant when heaving anchor
The air of the next is quick and lively
Belle-a-Lee's got no time,
Oh, Belle! oh, Belle!
Robert E. Lees got railroad time,
Oh, Belief oh, Belle !
Wish I was in Mobile bay,
Oh, Belle Oh Belle
Rollin cotton by de day,
Oh, Belle, oh, Belle!
l wish l was in Mobile bay,