Schooner Thomas Hume, The

DESCRIPTION: "The schooner Hume is staunch and strong, She's weathered many a blow... She's bound for Buffalo." She sails on dangerous Lake Michigan. The captain takes her out on the lake. A great storm arises. Ship and crew are lost without trace
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1933 (Collected from William Nicolas by Walton)
KEYWORDS: ship wreck death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
May 22, 1891 - Foundering of the _Thomas Hume_ off Holland, Michigan (Source: Bruce D. Berman, _Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks_, Mariner's Press, 1972, p. 245)
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Walton/Grimm-Windjammers-SongsOfTheGreatLakesSailors, pp. 196-197, "The Schooner Thomas Hume" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #19885
RECORDINGS:
Ed Vandenberg, "The Schooner Thomas Hume" (1955; on WaltonSailors; this version, with guitar accompaniment, seems to be sung by a revival singer, not an original informant)
NOTES [97 words]: Walton/Grimm-Windjammers-SongsOfTheGreatLakesSailors note several contradictions between the song and the actual fate of the Thomas Hume -- notably that the boat was not full of wheat (it was in fact almost empty) and it was lost in May, not at the end of the shipping season.
I observe in addition that the name "Hume" is mentioned only twice in Walton's text, and never the "Thomas Hume." I rather suspect this was originally about some other boat, with the name of the Thomas Hume zipped in without the song being fully adapted to the actual circumstances of the sinking. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: WGM196

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