Transcription
Negro Songs and Ballads
The North Carolina Folklore Society.
Frank C. Brown, Secretary-Treasurer
Durham, North Carolina-
“The Hamlet Wreck”
1
“See the women and children going to the train,
Fare-you-well, my husband, if I never see you again,
The engineer turned his head
When he saw so many were dead,
So many have lost their lives.
Chorus
Isn’t Ains it sad, isn’t ains it sad?
Ex/cur/si/on left Durham, going to Charlotte, North Carolina,
Isn’t it sad, isn’t it said?
So many have lost their lives.
2
Some of us have mothers a standing at the train,
Say Fare-well-well, my daughter, I may never see you again,
And the train began to fly
And some didn’t come back alive,
So many have lost their lives.
[illegible] The fireman said to the engineer,
“We are something late,
We don’t want to meet up with the local freight,”
The local was on the line
And theye could not get there on time ,
So many have lost their lives.
3 omit these 2 stanzas
When the news got to Durham, some said it was a lie,
But there was some in the hospital almost ready to die,
And their poor old mothers, you know,
They were running from door to door,
So many have lost their lives.
Now colored people I will tell you and tell you to your face,
The train that left Durham, was loaded with our race,
And some did not think of dying
When they rode on down the line,
So many have lost their lives.
4
They put the dead in their coffins and sent them back to town,
And then they were taken to the burying ground,
You could hear the coffin sound
When they let those bodies down,
So many have lost their lives.”
“(by Franklin Williams and William Firkins)”
Note:This is the form of the song as it appears in a broadside published
by the Reform Publishing Company, an African-American printer in Durham.
The song was likely not composed by Williams and Firkins,
who ran operations in the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Co’s factory in
Durham.
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