When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–
1882) was growing up in Portland, Maine, there
existed a lively tradition of broadside balladry
and folk poetry that could not fail to meet his
eye and strike his ear. In very real ways this
poetry—itself of a very low sort indeed—contrib-
uted to the themes, metrics, and tone of the poet’s
later work. A search for this fugitive verse, there-
fore, has import on a reading of Longfellow.
In the days of sailing vessels, Portland was
one of the important ports of America; for
behind it stood the magnificent mast pines,
famous since colonial days; and before it was
the shortest sea route to Europe. Furthermore,
the road through Crawford Notch in the White
Mountains emptied the produce of New Hamp-
shire and Vermont into the town. The road after
1830 was supplemented by the Oxford Canal, an
inland waterway from Portland nearly to the
New Hampshire border. The town bustled
with trade, making Longfellow’s ‘‘sailors with
bearded lips’’ everyday sights. Inevitably ballads
and songs were a part of Portland life, and local
ballads, picked up by the sailors on shore, were
carried around the world. Richard H. Dana, Jr.,
on his famous voyage before the mast (1834–
1836), for example, heard the popular Portland
ditty about salt beef:
Old horse! old horse! what brought you here?
‘‘From Sacarap [Westbrook] to Portland
Pier
I’ve carted stone this many year;
Till, killed by blows and sore abuse,
They salted me down for sailors’ use.
The sailors they do me despise:
They turn me over and damn my eyes:
Cut off my meat, and scrape my bones,
And pitch me over to Davy Jones.’’Dana’s ditty was anonymous, but many of
the Portland ballads can be traced to Thomas
Shaw, farmer-miller of Standish, Maine. Shaw
(1753–1838) came of a seafaring family of Exeter,
New Hampshire, and retained a lively interest in
the sea terrors that had determined his father to
move inland and take up farming. Young Tho-
mas grew up on the frontier where no schooling
was available, yet somehow he learned to read
and write. When the Revolutionary War com-
menced, he joined Washington’s army in Cam-
bridge and served through the campaigns of
Boston, Fort Ticonderoga, and Fort George
before his enlistment ran out in 1777. His first
‘‘poetic’’ attempt had been made when he was
convalescing on an army cot from a bout with
smallpox, and was a dreary account of his trip to
Cambridge in 1775. Back in Standish for the
rest of his life, Shaw wrote enough hymns and
ballads to fill a small trunk (now owned by the
Maine Historical Society). A number of these
were printed, often in Portland, and were hawked
about Maine as far inland as Augusta. Apparently
the first to be printed was an account of the fall
and death of Dr. Nathaniel Bowman from the
roof of the Gorham church in June, 1797. No
copy of this ambiguously titled broadside (‘‘On
the Fall of the Gorham Meetinghouse... ’’) has
been located.
Rhymes came easily to Shaw throughout his
life; he was, in fact, given to impromptu speeches
in verse on public occasions at church or town
hall. When during the depression of 1787 he had
to refuse his friends free grain from his mill, his
announcement was couched in verse; and when
he objected violently to the proposed introduc-
tion of instrumental music into the town church
he walked out of the meeting to stamp home and
compose a ballad against the using for sacred
service what the devil had invented.
None of these early verses of Shaw traveled
far from Standish until his lugubrious pen pro-
duced ‘‘A Mournful Song on the death of the
Wife and Child of Mr. Nathaniel Knights [sic]...
Feb. 22, 1807.’’ Recounting the tragedy of a dou-
ble drowning beneath the ice of the Presumpscot
river, this ballad found wide popularity. Shaw
first read the ballad in church meeting at Port-
land, and when copies were requested, saw his
opportunity. Printed as a folio with black borders
and two coffins, one large and one small, at the
head, the broadside pointed the moral necessity
of being ever prepared to meet one’s maker. TheSINCE THE BOYHOOD READING OF ANYMAN IS APT TO REMAIN WITH HIM LONGER AND
DEEPER THAN ANY SUBSEQUENT READING, WE CAN
EXPECT THE IMAGES AND IDEAS AN AUTHOR MET
IN YOUTH TO REAPPEAR, OFTEN METAMORPHOSED,
IN LATER YEARS.’’
TheWreckoftheHesperus