Several weeks ago I found myself on the Jordan River several miles
upstream from where that beautiful remote stream drops suddenly in a
series of magnificent cascades into the Raquette River above Crary Dam
at a place called Tebo Falls.
The falls were named in the memory of Joe Thibault (Tebo) who drowned
there. An old publication by the A. Sherman Lumber Co. of Potsdam (the
Box Mark, March, 1926) tells the story this way: “There was a set of
falls up there on the Jordan River, maybe a half a mile above the Raquette
River, where there was a bridge. They called it a gate dam. They’d flood
it and put the logs in there, and then they’d open the gate and drive
the logs on down through into the Raquette. Well, they was having a two
o’clock lunch when this fella by the name of Joe Thibault jumped up and
clapped his heels together a couple of times. And he said, ‘The water
never ran deep enough in the Jordan to drown a man.’ Two hours later
there was a drowned man who lay on the bank of the river seventy-five
or eighty years ago.”
That event inspired a ballad called Tebo, which was often one of the
folk songs sung in North Country lumber camps and bar rooms. It should
be noted that Tupper Lake bar rooms were favorites among the loggers
who enjoyed these traditional folk songs. Stewart Holbrook, “Yankee Loggers:
A Recollection of Woodsmen Cooks and River Drivers,” (NY International
Paper Co. 1961) notes that, “The American House, the Canadian Hotel (Joe
Gokey’s place), the Iroquois, the Altamont and the Holland House, the
Faust Hotel, and the Grand Union Hotel at the junction presented unlimited
possibilities for entertainment. (It is sobering — no pun intended —
to realize that of Holbrook’s list, only the Grand Union Hotel, a landmark
since 1892, remains today, still going strong under the astute management
of Sally Trudeau.)
One of the most popular folk singers at that time, many readers will
remember, was the legendary Eddie Ashlaw. Eddie and his wife, Hazel,
were among the favorite customers on my beverage sales rounds in the
junction when they owned the Grand Union Hotel. Eddie wore many hats:
innkeeper, lumber jobber, folk singer, raconteur. He was known as an
individual with great generosity who owned considerable real estate and
who had the ability to make a fortune, only to lose it through declining
market prices or a rainy winter (1951), when he couldn’t get his logs
out of the woods, or through ill-advised loans to others less fortunate.
He would make it all back and then lose it again. There a was a saying
in the junction “that fella Ashlaw, take and strip his pockets, bury
him naked in a pile of stones, and he’ll crawl out with a new suit and
pockets full of money.”
The last time I saw Eddie was at the Hamm’s Inn below Sevey’s. He was
feeling mellow and nostalgic and he grinned that unforgettable grin and
said for all to hear: “I’ve had my fling and I flung it. I spent it while
I had it, and I don’t have any regrets.” Eddie only sang when he felt
like it, and no amount of coaxing could get him to sing otherwise, but
this was one of those time and he broke into a song he called “The Roving
Ashlaw Man.” Robert D. Bethke, author of numerous articles on regional
folklore, has recorded the words to that song, which he notes is based
in the “Roving Journeyman” family of songs and may have been derived
from the Canadian loggers’ “Ye Mardens of Ontario.” Eddie’s rendition
is as follows:
The Roving Ashlaw Man
I am that roving Ashlaw man, and
I’ve roamed from town to town,
If liquor don’t give you the answer, boys, come on here, won’t you sit
down?
With tackle on my shoulder and my peavey in my hand,
When I reach St. Regis Falls, I’ll
be a health young Ashlaw man.
Well, when I first came to Tupper
Lake, the girls all jumped with joy,
Said one unto the other, “Here comes that Ashlaw boy!”
One treats me to a bottle, while the other to a dram,
And the toast went round the table,
“Here’s to that healthy Eddie Ashlaw man.”
For I hadn’t been in Tupper Lake
for a day not only three,
When Papin’s lovely daughter, she
fell in love with me.
She said she wanted to marry me,
and takes me by the hand,
And she went home and told her
mother that she loved that Ashlaw man.
In the next Transitions we will continue our account of the Jordan River and the complexity of terms like Park and Preserve, Village and Township.