Way Down on the Old Peedee

DESCRIPTION: "Away down south, on the old Peedee, Away down in the cotton and the corn, There lived old Joe, and he lived so long That nobody knows when he was born." The song describes how the old, old slave was buried
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1850 (Bremer)
KEYWORDS: slave death burial age playparty
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 421, "Way Down on the Old Peedee" (1 text plus a possibly-related fragment)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 421, "Way Down on the Old Pedee" (sic.) (1 tune plus a text excerpt)
Parrish-SlaveSongsOfTheGeorgiaSeaIslands 22, pp. 122-123, "Way Down In the Ole Peedee" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Frederika Bremer, Mary Howitt translator, _The Homes of the New World_ Vol. 1 (London: Arthur Hall, Virtue, & Co., 1853 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")), "(I'm going to the old Pee Dee)", p. 380 (1 fragment)
Roud #11770
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Uncle Ned" (plot)
NOTES [232 words]: Brown's "B" text, which is the basis for the description, is so like "Uncle Ned" in its ideas, and even its style, that I can't help but think it designed to take advantage of that early Foster work. But I haven't located a source.
Ben Schwartz suggests that the two Brown texts should be separated, into "Old Darkey Joe" and "Way Down on the Old Peedee," with Brown 421B being the former and Brown 421A and Parrish-SlaveSongsOfTheGeorgiaSeaIslands being the latter. He points out that:
Parrish is similar to the Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 fragment 421A.
It's playparty with no plot.
The chorus is "Way down in the Ole Peedee (x2) Summer night the moon shine bright, Sally you can see"; Parrish's verses are "I wish that gal was mine (x2), Summer night the moon shine bright Sally you can see" and "Good-bye my honey I'm gone (x2), If you call me honey spen' my money Good-bye my honey I'm gone."
I suspect Ben is right. But we're still stuck with only one copy of "Old Darkey Joe." So I'm waiting for the moment. - RBW
The Bremer text -- from South Carolina -- is a complete first verse, which is very close to Parrish: "... On a summer's night ... My Sally I shall see." Bremer describes the rest of the song: "The little romance describes how the lover and Sally will be married and settle themselves down, and live happily all on the banks of the old Pee Dee." - BS
Last updated in version 6.7
File: Br3421

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