James Whalen [Laws C7]

DESCRIPTION: Jim Whalen is told by his foreman to help clear a logjam. When the jam breaks, he is thrown into the rapids and drowned.
AUTHOR: John Smith (?)
EARLIEST DATE: 1926 (Rickaby-BalladsAndSongsOfTheShantyBoy)
KEYWORDS: logger death drowning lumbering
FOUND IN: US(MW,NE) Canada(Mar,Ont)
REFERENCES (17 citations):
Laws C7, "James Whalen"
Eckstorm/Smyth-MinstrelsyOfMaine, pp. 122-124, "George Whalen" (1 text)
Doerflinger-SongsOfTheSailorAndLumberman, pp. 243-244, "Whalen's Fate (George Whalen)"
Rickaby-BalladsAndSongsOfTheShantyBoy 3, "Jim Whalen" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Rickaby/Dykstra/Leary-PineryBoys-SongsSongcatchingInLumberjackEra 3, "Jim Whalen" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Gardner/Chickering-BalladsAndSongsOfSouthernMichigan 110, "James Wayland" (1 text)
Fowke/Johnston-FolkSongsOfCanada, pp. 82-83, "Jim Whalen" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke-LumberingSongsFromTheNorthernWoods #31, "Jimmy Whelan" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke/MacMillan-PenguinBookOfCanadianFolkSongs 25, "Jimmy Whelan" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ives-FolksongsOfNewBrunswick, pp. 39-41, "James Whalen" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke-TraditionalSingersAndSongsFromOntario 49, "Jimmy Whelan" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag, p. 389, "James Whaland" (1 text, 1 tune)
Beck-SongsOfTheMichiganLumberjacks 53, "James Whalen" (1 text)
Beck-TheyKnewPaulBunyan, pp. 138-139, "Jimmie Whalen" (1 text)
Beck-LoreOfTheLumberCamps 78, "Jimmie Whalen" (1 text)
DT 601, JMMYWHEL*
ADDITIONAL: Walter Havinghurst, _Upper Mississippi: A Wilderness Saga_, Farrar & Rinehart, 1937, 1944, p. 228, "(Swan Swanson)" (1 fragment, clearly this, with the source unidentified but with a character name seemingly not found elsewhere)
Roud #638
RECORDINGS:
Emerson Woodcock, "Jimmie Whelan" (on Lumber01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Lost Jimmie Whalen" [Laws C8] (subject)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
James Phalen
NOTES [186 words]: Rickaby-BalladsAndSongsOfTheShantyBoy reports this to be based on an actual incident, in which James Phalen (so spelled; pronounced Whalen) died at "King's Chute" on the Mississippi River. (That's the Canadian Mississippi, a tributary of the Ottawa). Rickaby's informant, Cristopher Forbes, is the source of the claim that John Smith of Lanark wrote the song.
The date of the event is uncertain; Rickaby states it was in 1878, but Fowke quotes Phalen's grand-niece to the effect that the date was 1876. One of Beck's informants agreed that it was on the Matawaski (the Canadian Mississippi), but thought the date was around 1882.
There is one other sidelight to this, the significance of which I do not know. The song "Mickey Free," about logging in northwestern Wisconsin, claims that the singer "held me own with Whalen." This song is believed to have been written 1878. Is it the same Whalen? There were, of course, loggers from Canada in the Wisconsin woods in that period, and "James Whalen" eventually was known in the area, but would they have been treating such a recent event as legendary? I don't know. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.2
File: LC07

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