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RED IRON ORE Solo: Richard

LYRICS:

Come all ye bold sailors that follow the Lakes
On an iron ore vessel, your living to make
I shipped in Chicago, bid adieu to the shore
Bound away to Escanaba for red iron ore

In the month of September, the seventeenth day
Two dollars and a quarter is all they would pay
And on Monday morning the Bridgeport did take
The E.C. Roberts out in the Lake

The wind from the south'ard sprang up a fresh breeze
And away through Lake Michigan the Roberts did sneeze
And away through Lake Michigan the Roberts did roar
And on Friday morning we passed through death's door

This packet she howled across the mouth of Green Bay
And before her cutwater, there dashed a white spray
We rounded the sandpoint, our anchor let go
We furled in our canvas and the watch went below

Next morning we hove alongside the Exile
And soon was made fast to an iron ore pile
They lowered their chutes and like thunder did roar
They spouted into us that red iron ore

Some sailors took shovels while others got spades
And some took wheelbarrows - each man to his trade
We looked like red devils, our fingers got sore
And we cursed Escanaba and that damned iron ore

The tug Escanaba she towed out the Minch
The Roberts she thought she had left in a pinch
And as she passed by us she bid us goodbye
Saying, "We'll meet you in Cleveland next Fourth of July!"

Through Louse Island it blew a fresh breeze
We passed the Foxes, the Beavers, the Skillagalees
We flew by the Minch for to show her the way
And she ne'er hove in sight till we were off Thunder Bay

Across Saginaw Bay the Roberts did ride
With the deep and dark waters rolling over her side
And now for Port Huron the Roberts must go
Where the tug Kate Williams she took us in tow

We went through North Passage - O Lord, how it blew!
And all round the Dummy a large fleet there came too
The night being dark, Old Nick it would scare
And we hove up next morning and for Cleveland did steer

And now we're in Cleveland, made fast stem and stern
And over the bottle we'll spin a big yarn
But Captain Harvey Shannon, he ought to stand treat
For getting into Cleveland ahead of the fleet

Now my song is ended, I hope you won't scoff
Our dunnage is packed and all hands is paid off
Here's a health to the Roberts, she's staunch, strong and true
Not forgotten the bold boys that comprise her crew
Derry down, down
Down, derry down

NOTES:

This is a sea ballad from the Great Lakes region in America, earliest version seem to appear around 1926. Most versions of this song have "derry down, down, down derry down" at the end of each verse and most versions are sung at a faster tempo (see the Sandburg section below). I decided to sing this with a slower, more ballad-like tempo. There is a version of this song in the Peters book, Folk Songs Out of Wisconsin.

In The Folk Songs of North America, Alan Lomax uses an edited version of the rickaby text, taken from Rickaby's Ballads and Songs of the Shanty Boy. The Lomax book refers to "Old Louise Island," instead of "Louse Island."

Here is what Sandburg says in American Songbag:
Three of the Great Lakes are traversed in this odyssey of red iron ore. It is a log, the diary of a ship and its men on one cruise. The facts are specific. The E. C. Roberts was a boat. So was The Minch. Riding up Lake Michigan, they passed through death's door; the lake storms were ugly. At Escanaba loading red ore, they "looked like red devils." The crew of The Minch thumbed their noses and taunted, "We'll see you in Cleveland next Fourth of July." But the E. C. Roberts got there ahead of the fleet. A crew of "bold boys" they were, even if they say so themselves. The singer is humble, "Now my song is ended, I hope you won't laugh." The tune is old Irish; the repeated line with each verse, "Derry down, down, down derry down," is in old ballads. It is a virile song, a tale of grappling with harsh elements and riding through, a rattling tune and a devil-may-care timebeat. It may, at first, seem just a lilt with a matter-of-fact story. It is more than that; it is a little drama; the singer should know what it is to shovel red iron ore; the singer should know the wide curves of that ship path from Chicago to Cleveland on three Great Lakes.

Canadian singer Jon Bartlett notes that another source is "Songs of the Great Lakes" coll. Edith Fowke, Folkways FM 4018 1964. She has "The E.C. Roberts" as sung by Stanley Bâby of Toronto. His dad had sailed on the Roberts as mate. "Skillagalee" was a folk idiom for "Isle aux Galets." She refers to comparative versions noted in Laws, native American balladry, D 9. There are minor textual differences: the captain's name (v11) is given as "Captain Harve Rummage."

My friend Joe Offer says that this passage song was second only to "The Timber Drogher Bigler" for popularity on boats and in waterfront gathering places. The song tells of the mid-September trip of the schooner E. C. Roberts from Chicago to Escanaba, where it took on a cargo of iron ore, and the race to Cleveland that ensued with a fleet of other ore carriers. The Roberts, 273 gross tons, was built in Cleveland in 1856 for Brown and Reddington of that city for the general carrying trade. It remained on the Lakes for over half a century. F. L. Robertson of St. Clair, Michigan, owned the vessel in its twilight years as a tow barge. Captain T. J. Crockett of Port Huron shipped on the Roberts as the vessel's boy in the mid-1890s when it still carried ore. He said that the Roberts was a "handy" schooner and that the crew sang this song. Harry Anderson of St. Clair, Michigan, who had sailed on the Roberts the previous decade, recalled much of the song and said he had also learned it aboard the vessel. "Death's Door" in the third stanza is the sailors' translation of the French Portes des Mortes passage between Door County Peninsula and Washington Island, the entrance to Green Bay. The French Ile aux Galets, for "island of pebbles," was similarly mangled as "Skillagalee." The Foxes and Beavers are island groups in northern Lake Michigan, and the "dummy" referred to in the third-from-last stanza was a decommissioned light in western Lake Erie. Near the end of the song, the singers might insert the name of the vessel master, whether Captain Rummage or Harvey Shannon or someone else, as a suggestion that the Old Man buy them a drink. The song has not just two names, but two versions. The words and melody vary slightly, and both appear to have evolved from "The Dreadnaught." J. Sylvester Ves Ray of Port Huron sang this in the summer of 1934 on his eighty-fourth birthday. He said he had learned it in the early 1870s "from a shipmate, Billy Clark of Buffalo, who composed it and dozens of others." Beaver Island's John W. Green, who also could sing the song complete, insisted that his sailor uncle, islander Peter O'Donnell, had composed it.

Here are some comments from fellow singers Bev and Jerry Praver:
We were brought up in Cleveland but we got over it. When we were kids, steel making was one of the big industries there. In fact, virtually all of America's steel was made in a relatively small area stretching from Pittsburgh west to Gary, Indiana. The reason is that three ingredients are required to make steel using the Bessemer process: Coke, limestone and iron ore. Coke is made by roasting coal which was brought to Cleveland by rail from southern Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky. Limestone is readily available in the area. Sidewalks were made from slabs of limestone rather than concrete. Iron ore was brought by boat from the Mesabe Range in Minnesota. Now coke and limestone are available twelve months of the year but iron ore isn't. In the winter, the lakes freeze making shipping impossible. So, when the lakes are navigable, more iron ore was shipped to the mills than they could use creating a big surplus of ore. By October/November virtual mountains of ore could be seen near the mills which they would process during the winter. Every spring there would be competition to see which boat would be the first to get through. Likewise, every fall there would be competition to see which boat would be the last to get through. There was always at least one boat which would get frozen in and had to be rescued. When the lakes weren't frozen, no matter when you looked out you could always see several iron ore boats. They were easily recognized because they look a little like oil tankers - flat on top with a structure at both ends.