Dictated by John S. Parsons 15th August 1933; sung ca. 1860s-1870s
Click here to hear The Golden Eagle String Band perform The George C. Finney (words differ from Parson’s version)
Come all you bold sailors who follow the Lakes,
And in a canaller your living do make.
I’ll sing you a song of the winds and the seas,
Of a trip up the Lakes, and I hope it will please.
Oh, the Finney is lying now at the salt dock,
And the boys and girls on the deck they do flock.
They give us a cheer when away we must go—
Bound away to Chicago the Finney must go.
We arrive at Dalhousie, and our work is begun,
We heave up our jibboom and our anchors take in;
We unship our catheads [winches], our bowsprit also,
We’ve boarded our boat, through the ditch we must tow.
We towed all that night, and all the next day,
Until we reached Allenburg[i] where a tug there did lay.
The tug Minnie Battle, she took us in tow,
And out in Lake Erie she then let us go.
Now the Finney is booming up the Lake Huron shore,
We shaped her a course as we’d oft done before;
Through Saginaw Bay with a fair wind we sailed,
Past Thunder Bay Island and the False Presque Isle.
Now the Finney’s in Chicago, made fast stem and stern,
We’ll go to Pete Kemmer’s and spin a long yarn.
Here’s a health to Jack Preston, who gave us a treat,
For arriving in Chicago ahead of the fleet.
[i] Allenburg: sic – Allanburg
Published in Spirit of the Big Ditch: The Story of the Welland Canals in Pictures, Poems and Songs. Compiled, edited and annotated by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor. St. Catharines: The Historical Society of St. Catharines, 2024
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