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
Cary 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. |