‡‡‡‡‡‡how the cotton wool ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡crash ‡‡‡‡‡‡pulled her from ‡‡‡‡‡‡starched sheets to the ‡‡‡‡‡‡lung-stopping chill ‡‡‡‡‡‡of the january night
‡‡‡‡‡‡how her shoes squeaked ‡‡‡‡‡‡in the snow
and looking at the
suspension bridge ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡lying
broken-backed against the ice
like an injured dragon ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡grandmother
must have wondered at
each of her magic crossings
but writes here ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡only the suspension bridge ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡fell down
Decew Falls by Miller’s Photographic Saloon – Possibly Chauncey C Miller, active in St. Catharines c. 1865-1868
Glen Albert ! How lovely thy beautiful scene —
As lovely to me as a nymph of sixteen,
All blushing with health and unconscious of guile,
‘Tis a foretaste of Eden to bask in thy smile ;
To list in suspense to the sound of thy falls —
Hearing nature’s sweet music in nature’s own halls,
While the hue-changing leaves by the zephyr caressed,
Murmur softly and sweetly a sigh of love bless’d.
Though the sun’s glowing rays gild the woods on thy heights,
In thy depths far below there’s a gloom that delights,
Where the wandering traveller, wearied with care,
Can pause in thy Glen and find solitude there —
There alone in thy bosom, from tumult apart,
He can have a fit place to commune with his heart.
Clipping from The Nephalist on the back of the above picture. Click to enlarge
Proud Niagara calls him with voice loud and bold,
And lures to her falls, as the siren of old.
But thy sparkling cascades, gushing smiles mixed with tears,
Cause so modern Ulysses to stop up his ears.
Here retired from the haunts of fashion and crime,
Thou art seen in thy loveliness, truly sublime;
E’en in history’s page thou did’st shine long ago
When our heroes stood by thee to ward off their foe,
And a ‘Merritt’ held post after Beaver Dam fight,
Thou did’st bravely assist with a Spartan girl’s might
Let the foreigner share in Niagara’s roar,
That with menacing fury growls “Dieu et mon Droit,”
Yet Glen Albert ! the bird that loves its own nest
For a love — all its own — sure will love thee the best.
Source: Courtesy Dennis Gannon.
Poem clipped from the newspaper The Nephalist, October 6, 1866, pasted to the back of the photograph above. The Nephalist was a weekly temperance newspaper published in St. Catharines between May and December, 1866.
The precise location of Glen Albert is unknown.
A note undrneath the poem reads: The author of the above lines has, we think, given a suitable name to a sweet spot, inferior to very few of the Glens in Scotland and elsewhere, so celebrated by poets, painters, and historians. As it is so near the camp, quite a number of visitors daily visit the place, and no doubt wonder that it is not more frequented by the lovers of the picturesque at St. Catharines and by excursions from other… the clipping ends here]
Heading Northward, heading Northward ‡‡‡‡‡‡To the cooler Canadian clime,
Is the rear-guard of the Legion, ‡‡‡‡‡‡The Men who’ve Forgotten Time.
Never hurrying, never falt’ring, ‡‡‡‡‡‡But steadily on the go,
Following in the wake of summer ‡‡‡‡‡‡From the torrid strands below.
Highways beckon, lure them onward; They must answer to the Call,
And midway in their pilgrimage is the Welland Ship Canal.
Was watching Jimmy Slattery work ‡‡‡‡‡‡In a “gym” in Buffalo,
When I met Miama Murphy ‡‡‡‡‡‡Moving through to Toronto.
“Say, Kid,” he asks. “how’re things up North? ‡‡‡‡‡‡How is work along the Ditch?
I figure sluggin’ for a spell, ‡‡‡‡‡‡For I’ll need a stake to switch.”
Peach trees blooming; work a plenty; Irish Jimmy, Joe and All
Are back again along the banks of the Welland Ship Canal.
“Crude Oil” Mickey Gannon hails me ‡‡‡‡‡‡On the street in Ol-e-an
“Just come up from Oklahoma, ‡‡‡‡‡‡Me and Kansas Kid McCann;
Across the line at Bridgeburg, ‡‡‡‡‡‡Then the lights of old St. Kitts,
A stretch of work in the Welland camps, ‡‡‡‡‡‡And money to play the Ritz.”
He moves along with a cheery grin, and a “See you in the Fall.”
And hops a freight in the “Pen” yards for the Welland Ship Canal.
Comes booming up from Mexico, ‡‡‡‡‡‡On a tanker to Baltimore,
Louie the Scar of Tenth Street fame, ‡‡‡‡‡‡The savant of hobo lore.
“The Canal? Why, Yes. You c’n bet ‡‡‡‡‡‡Before a week I’ll be there.
Tampico sure is dead in June, ‡‡‡‡‡‡Even lurid Union Square.”
Between the Great Lakes and the Gulf, there is one sure Port of Call
Louie the Scar will never miss―That’s the Welland Ship Canal.
In a sleepy, backwoods village ‡‡‡‡‡‡Near the Virginia coast,
I greets the veteran, Pegleg Ike, ‡‡‡‡‡‡Stayed along to hear him boast:
“Married a widow here last fall, ‡‡‡‡‡‡She got right smart property;
Lots to eat and nawthin’ to do. ‡‡‡‡‡‡Some soft for a guy like me.”
But wistful eye and restless Mien tells the story all too well,
I’m thinking he’ll be with you yet on the Welland Ship Canal.
Gee, I wish I was heading north― ‡‡‡‡‡‡Then again I’m not so sure;
For my Open Road this summer ‡‡‡‡‡‡Lies over the Great Azure.
My Port of Call may be Hong Kong, ‡‡‡‡‡‡Or it may be Tripoli,
Or maybe Capetown, Sydney, Rio, ‡‡‡‡‡‡Liverpool or Waikiki.
Still, I’d like to spend an evening with Jimmie and Joe and All,
A visit’n’ on the ragged banks of the Welland Ship Canal.
Off the Virginia Coast, 1925.
Source: Courtesy Dennis Gannon.
Originally published in The St. Catharines Standard, Tuesday July 21, 1925 p7
Digging of the 4th Welland Ship Canal on the Left & 3rd Welland Canal on the Right, 1925. Photo Courtesy Niagara Falls Public Library
When winter slacks its icy grip, back to the canal they roam
From all corners of the earth, come the Men Without a Home.
Race nor creed, nor age debars you, nor it isn’t what you know,
Only join the Drifting Legion, who never arrive―just go
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Oh, here’s to the job we take, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Though it isn’t much we’ll make ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡We’ll get a travelling stake ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡On the Welland Ship Canal.
From somewhere down near old Mobile comes Alabama Moe,
To tinkle through the summer nights on his battered old banjo.
His wistful, crooning melodies of the Southland far away,
Lures many a steady rustie lad to drift on the broad highway.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Oh, on dese piles o’ gumbo ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Ah’s laborin’ fo’ mah dough; ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Come Fall Ah will se no mo’ ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Of the Welland Ship Canal.
“Yukon Bill” O’Brien drifts in from north o’ Kamakalute.
Broke, shaggy, and togged in “a boxin’ glove and rubber boot.”
Flush with health and dollar bills from a big season at the traps,
He hit the town to teach the boys that science known as “craps.”
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Now he’s sluggin’ in the Ditch; ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Though he’ll never become rich; ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡He will get enough to switch ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡North o’ the Welland Canal.
A knight of the road, Seattle Slim, drops down from his side door coach.
Promotes, him a job washin’ dishes from “Navy Bean” Johnny Roach.
Just a “pay” for eating money, then he’s long gone on his way,
Roaming across the continent, to pretty San Pedro Bay.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡And so he washes cup and plate, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Dreams of Frisco’s golden gate, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Sure there’s not long now to wait, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Till s’long Welland Ship Canal.
Dour Duncan’s here from Breton’s Cape, Quebec sends Louie Courteau,
Auburn Petie, the Ghetto gun, the “spick” from Vista Porto;
And five score more with wondrous tales―things they saw and heard and did.
They sing their songs and so it’s set in rhyme by “The Writin’ Kid.”
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Oh, they’re here for but a day, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡On the sticky gumbo clay; ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Then drifting, drifting away ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡From the Welland Ship Canal.
When you’ve come to view the Big Scar, and the Gargantuan concrete
That rears its mighty palisades from ditch bottom to your feet,
You’ve seen little till you’ve looked into the hearts o’ the men below,
The men of the Drifting Legion, who never arrive―just go.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Oh here’s to the job we take, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Though it isn’t much we’ll make ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡―We’ll get a travelling stake ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡On the Welland Ship Canal.
